Category Archives: On record

Vaughan Williams and Sir James MacMillan – Oboe Concertos

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Nicholas Daniel teams up with the Britten Sinfonia and Harmonia Mundi to present the recorded premiere of the Oboe Concerto by the recently knighted Sir James MacMillan. He couples this with a much shorter piece by the composer, One, and another British oboe concerto, the well-loved Vaughan Williams. Completing a varied cross-section of styles is Britten’s Suite on English Folk Tunes (A Time There Was), his final completed orchestral work.

What’s the music like?

MacMillan has written a bold Oboe Concerto, a substantial work lasting nearly 25 minutes that makes great technical demands on its soloist. It is a rewrite of an earlier piece for oboe and orchestra, In Angustiis, which responded to the horrors of 9/11. While the piece is essentially optimistic in tone, these thoughts can be felt in the second movement, essentially a lament, where the strings sigh painfully, and in a moment of deep thought that occurs towards the end of the first movement – in complete contrast to the jaunty, angular main material.

Vaughan Williams’ concerto is a lovely piece, its dreamy first theme coloured with strings to evoke a picture of hazy sunshine. Completed in 1944, it is a largely positive work in the face of the Second World War, especially in the third movement, where a dance plays out between oboe and strings.

Britten’s suite, as with so many of his orchestral works, is a model of economy, saying in fifteen minutes what many lesser composers would do in 25. It is extremely resourceful in its use of ten folk tunes, but it is also tinged with pain, the composer aware that he is in his last days – and this is felt in Daniel’s cor anglais solo in the tune Lord Melbourne.

One, the second MacMillan piece here also shows his love for his home country, based on a single, arching tune based on the traditional song of Scotland and Ireland.

Does it all work?

Nicholas Daniel is one of our finest oboists, and although even he admits to difficulties in learning the part for the MacMillan his playing is absolutely superb. The energy of that work contrasts with the soulful Vaughan Williams, an affectionate performance where the slightly reduced forces of the Britten Sinfonia (in comparison to a full scale orchestra) mean more detail can be heard and enjoyed. Turning his hand to a conducting role, Daniel teases out Britten’s subtle affection for folk tunes through the relative darkness of illness.

Is it recommended?

Yes – and how satisfying to listen to such a substantial contemporary piece for oboe, which could hardly have a better advocate than it does here.

With contrasting styles of music this disc is an unrestricted pleasure, and is recommended for all fans of classical music from these shores.

Listen on Spotify

This disc can be heard here:

Anne Quéffelec plays Scarlatti

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Featured recording: Scarlatti – Sonatas played by Anne Quéffelec (Mirare)

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A disc of keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, played by the highly respected French pianist Anne Quéffelec. With 550 of these works to choose from, she has made a thoroughly entertaining recital of 18!

What’s the music like?

You could play ten Scarlatti keyboard sonatas a week and still have 35 left over at the end of the year! The pieces are typically around four minutes in length, and often in two sections, each repeated. In that time Scarlatti explores the development of melodic ideas, the best known sonatas having many. In that sense Scarlatti is one of the first composers to have explored the idea of using the sonata as a principal means of expression.

Scarlatti recital discs are relatively common, but the best ones show off the extraordinary variety and inventiveness within these works, programming them so that they don’t become ‘samey’. It helps to have the key choices worked out well, too – twenty works in C major, for instance, will not a good disc make!

Although Scarlatti works well on the harpsichord, I would maintain the sonatas are more suitable for the piano. As Anne Quéffelec writes in the booklet, “to move from the harpsichord to the piano is already to open the doors to the wide-open spaces of liberty”. Quéffelec clearly loves Scarlatti and here, 45 years on from her recording debut, she returns to his music.

Does it all work?

It does so here – emphatically. Anne Quéffelec is a skilful and stylish player, and Scarlatti comes alive in her hands. A lot of this music is played with a smile on the face, and is beautifully clarified and expressed.

There are many examples of this, but the most enjoyable are the playful tumbling figures in the right hand of the G major Sonata (published as K103), the soft and lightly sorrowful D minor work (K54) and the magical, slow K144, also in G major, and seemingly the forerunner of a Mozart slow movement. This is followed by another G major sonata, K260 – a very odd piece, this, going to weird and unexpected harmonic lengths, delaying its sense of a resolution. The perky figures of the B flat major sonata, K551, anticipate Beethoven with their upward ascents.

Meanwhile the Sonata in D major, K145, is notable for its jarring dissonances and is probably the most enjoyable of all with its faux-politeness and then complete disregard for convention. Only just behind this are the bird-like calls of the first on the album, the C major sonata (K420). Even then the examples listed above are just a hint of what the album contains!

Is it recommended?

Without hesitation. It is not an insult to Scarlatti to say his music is great for working to in the right performances, for it inspires clarity of thought but also a few flights of fancy in its sudden tangents and deviations. Quéffelec channels all these and more in performances of obvious affection and flair.

Listen on Quboz

You can get a preview of Anne Quéffelec’s Scarlatti album here

Musorgsky – Pictures at an Exhibition, Songs and Dances of Death / Gergiev

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Featured recording: Musorgsky – Pictures at an Exhibition, Night on Bare Mountain, Songs and Dances of Death (Ferruccio Furlanetto (baritone), Mariinsky Orchestra / Valery Gergiev (Mariinsky)

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A new all-Musorgsky disc by Valery Gergiev and his Russian charges, returning to the composer whose operas Gergiev has recorded with great success.

What’s the music like?

On paper this release is a brilliant way to start a Musorgsky collection, because it contains his two best loved works. Pictures at an Exhibition, appearing in its celebrated orchestration by Ravel, is a wonderful set of character pieces that fully captures an artistic exhibition and the viewer’s response to it. Night on Bare Mountain is equally vivid in its portrayal of a witches’ sabbath, and the right performance can strike genuine fear into the heart. Finally the Songs and Dances of Death for baritone and orchestra (not as depressing as they sound through opportunities taken for gallows humour!) appear in the orchestral version made by Shostakovich.

Does it all work?

It should do – because this is surely a home banker for Valery Gergiev, conducting both the music of his homeland and a composer in whose music he specialises. Yet something is awry, for two of the three live performances feel routine at best.

Pictures lacks spark and feels very polite, taking its time to reveal plenty of things in the score but rarely getting out of second gear, as though the exhibition has only a few days left to run. There is no edge to Gnomus, which should ideally be unhinged, and no sense of culmination in The Great Gate of Kiev, the work’s crowning glory. The Old Castle, while suitably mournful and featuring a lovely saxophone solo, drags its feet, while Bydlo, the old cart whose machinery lumbers down the track, has a disarmingly smooth passage here.

There are a few exceptions. The characterisation of Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle is brilliant, thanks to a sharp trumpet portraying the latter character, while the clucking of The Ballet of Unhatched Chicks in their Shells is winsome. But overall this version lacks real excitement.

Sadly Night on Bare Mountain is little better, and sounds like a version going through the motions, with an incredibly limp final chord. There are moments where the electric charge is more pronounced, especially when the dance music comes in around 1’45”, but otherwise this is disappointing fayre with little sense of terror.

All this is redeemed by Ferruccio Furlanetto, the commanding singer chosen for Songs and Dances of Death. There is an incredibly strong resonance to his voice, effortlessly taking charge of the Lullaby, while hurling his all into the end of the Serenade and the fatal triumphalism of The Field Marshal. Gopak, the third song, starts with threadbare bass sounding appropriately ghoulish, the sentiments of the poem laid as bare as the orchestration. Gergiev is inspired here, completing a version that stands tall alongside any competition.

Is it recommended?

Overall, no – unless you are desperate for a recording of the Songs and Dances of Death. For Pictures, alternative versions include those conducted by Claudio Abbado and Carlo Maria Giulini, with Abbado again the choice for Night on Bare Mountain.

Listen on Spotify

You can judge for yourself by hearing the album on Spotify here

Vaughan Williams – Symphonies nos. 4 & 8

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Featured recording: Vaughan Williams – Symphonies nos. 4 & 8 (London Philharmonic Orchestra)
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Two very different Vaughan Williams symphonies presented in live recordings by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with the angry, resentful Fourth conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth and the seraphic Eighth under the direction of the orchestra’s chief conductor Vladimir Jurowski

What’s the music like?

Of all his nine symphonies, the Fourth, completed in 1935, is the one that sounds least like Vaughan Williams’ work. If you didn’t know the composer, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a wartime Russian work. Such is the explosion of anger at the start, the ongoing the desolation in the slow movement, the very notion of VW being a ‘green and pleasant land’ composer is thrown right out of the water.

The Eighth Symphony of 1955 is much more amiable in mood. It is not well known among the composer’s output but there are some lovely sonorities here, such as the beautiful textures at the start, where Vaughan Williams harnesses a number of percussion instruments. Celesta and vibraphone blend beautifully to make music that sounds as if it originated a lot further east than the North Sea! The large percussion section also includes three tuned gongs. The middle two movements dispense with these instruments – the third becoming a gorgeous romance for strings – while the closing minutes are full of joyous music.

Does it all work?

This is a disc of two halves. The Symphony no.4 is given a strong performance but feels rushed at times, especially in the fourth movement, where Ryan Wigglesworth zips through a lot of the arguments so fast that they sound just a bit perfunctory.

That said, the fall-out at the end of the first movement makes quite an impact, the coda sounding truly desolate, while the second movement Scherzo is spot on, thanks to a superb bassoon contribution.

In contrast the Eighth Symphony receives an affectionate performance under the direction of Vladimir Jurowski, enjoying the use of the percussion at the start, mysterious yet rather exotic too. The Cavatina is the emotional centre of this piece, ending with a lovely cello solo that rises through the layers at the end. From this point the last movement Toccata is a joyous celebration, sounding English in its folksy tunes but again enjoying the shimmering sounds the tuned percussion have to offer.

Is it recommended?

Jurowski’s performance of the Eighth is recommended without reservation, a beautifully constructed performance that enjoys the unusual orchestral colours but which is keenly emotive too. The recording from London’s Royal Festival Hall is excellent.

Wigglesworth’s Fourth – though well played – is good but not so fine that it displaces the formidable competition among its rivals. Recordings conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, Vernon Handley and Bernard Haitink are all preferable in this respect.

Listen on Spotify

You can judge for yourself by hearing the album on Spotify here:

Stravinsky – Works for piano and orchestra

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Featured recording: Stravinsky – Works for piano and orchestra (Chandos)
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Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, a specialist in 20th century piano music, teams up with conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier and the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra to present Stravinsky’s complete music for piano and orchestra. Happily this includes the wonderful Petrouchka!

What’s the music like?

Stravinsky was not a piano virtuoso in the way fellow Russians Rachmaninov and Prokofiev were, but he developed his own distinctive style of writing for the instrument.

This new collection from Chandos brings together some of the grittier works for the combination with functional titles – Movements, Capriccio, Concerto for piano and wind) with the dazzling colours of his second ballet Petrouchka. For this Bavouzet had to adapt his own routine as a soloist to go and sit in the orchestra.

Stravinsky writes with little sentiment when using the piano, and Movements, the Capriccio and the Concerto all tend to explore the instrument as a form of percussion rather than outright lyrical content. So we get punchy syncopations, spicy chords and incisive rhythms, as a matter of course – but in some of the slower moments of the Concerto there is an unexpected depth of feeling when the piano is pitted with slow brass. The Capriccio, too, can sparkle in places, with some florid writing for the right hand that seems to derive from the Baroque period.

Petrouchka, on the other hand, is a riot of melody, a circus full of orchestral tricks, with brilliant, showy figures and thrilling mixes of colour.

Does it all work?

Absolutely. The ballet receives an ideal performance in vivid sound, its orchestral inventions caught by Tortelier with crisp ensemble, sudden moments of fragility and out-and-out duels between the instruments. This bright, invigorating music is ideally contrasted by the gritty Movements, with its terse musical language.

The performances of the Capriccio and Concerto are terrific, the former with some wonderfully exuberant outbursts and the former taking time for contemplation in its slow movement. That said, the moment when then piano barges into the conversation of the winds (1’33” into the disc) is the dramatic equal of anything in the ballet.

Is it recommended?

Yes. Stravinsky may be a grumpy old so and so at times in his music, but some of his finest invention is here!

Listen on Spotify

Bavouzet’s recordings are not on the streaming service yet, but samples from each track can be heard here