Ardour Teebs

EMI Classics releases an exciting new recording of Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances and The Bells. These two Rachmaninov masterpieces, performed by one of the world’s most renowned orchestras under their celebrated principal conductor Sir Simon Rattle. This is a rare chance to hear Sir Simon’s interpretations of these great works. Towards the end of his life, the composer himself said of The Bells “I worked on this composition with feverish ardour; and it remains of all my works the one I love the most”. Of the Symphonic Dances, written shortly before his death, he said “I don’t know how it happened, it must have been my last spark”.

Ian Bostridge brings his characterful lyricism, and singing of beautiful intelligence, to a welcome sixth volume in Graham Johnson’s comprehensive series. "The lovesick texts are somewhat overwrought and highly coloured to modern ears, but Bostridge is totally convincing, particularly in his wonderfully sensitive handling of the Op 96 collection. Johnson, that poet of the piano, underpins everything with just the right level of ardour—and he writes tremendous sleeve notes."

In 1823 Johann Georg Stauffer invented the arpeggione, a freak instrument, a hybrid of 'cello and guitar, with strings tuned in fourths. Schubert invested such attractive melodies in this queer contraption, he must have believed in its future. The melodies that float throughout the "Sonata for Arpeggione", are indeed attractive to say the least. The first point that strikes one in this performance is the clarity that cellist Mischa Maisky maintains.

A slightly curious compilation (two Russian performances dating from 1962, one English from 1976) but an attractive one, and very good value. I had not heard the Gabrieli's Tchaikovsky before, and liked it a great deal: properly chamber-scale, in colour as well as tone of voice, and nice underlining of the lyricism in even Tchaikovsky's most exuberant pages.

It may be a little surprising, or disconcerting, but it is not the demonstrative, furioso Vivaldi, the Vivaldi full of striking contrasts, that you will find here. The ardour, the spirit, of his music is there of course, but our aim is rather to bring out the more intimate, more complex side of his work, its many timbres, colours, textures and emotions all the variety that is to be found in the music of this extraordinary composer, loved by some exponents of early music and shunned by others. Les Basses Runies have chosen to use many different instruments and timbres for these pieces, and to transcribe and transpose some of them, the aims being to present little-known works, show well-known ones in a new light, and to highlight the rich palette of sound and the many possible timbral combinations afforded by the instruments of Les Basses Runies, thus expressively and movingly revealing the composer s very soul.

The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Mikko Franck continue their collaboration with Alpha and here invite one of the label’s flagship pianists, Nelson Goerner. The programme is devoted to Richard Strauss, coupling several of the German composer’s early works. The Burleske for piano and orchestra, written at the age of twenty, is brimming with lyricism and Romantic ardour; its tone colours herald Strauss’s operas, while the orchestration anticipates his symphonic poems. The piano part is exceptionally virtuosic: Hans von Bülow, for whom Strauss wrote it, called it unplayable! The Serenade for thirteen wind instruments harks back to Mozart’s Gran Partita K361 for similar forces.