Dominic Desjardin Concerto à Quatre Pattes

In 2006, Nicholas Angelich released his first disc of Brahms' solo piano music: a coupling of the ballades, the rhapsodies, and the Paganini Variations. He followed that up in 2007 with a two-disc set containing Brahms' four sets of late piano music. Both releases were simply fabulous. Blazingly virtuosic, deeply expressive, and immensely powerful, these were Brahms' performances to treasure.

Albinoni might be described as a specialist in the medium of the Concerto a cinque, of which he composed 54, published at intervals during almost half his productive life. The first six appeared in his Op 2 (1700), together with six sonatas from which they inherited some structural features, and were followed in 1707 by the 12 of Op 5. They were 'halfway houses' on the road to the violin concerto per se as we know it – and as Vivaldi established it four years later.Virtuoso passages for a solo violin appear only en passant in flanking movements and 'symmetrically' in the Adagios of Nos 3, 6, 9 and 12. Each Concerto is in three-movement form and all the finales are fugal, as they are in the Op 2, though in their simplicity they sound rather like rondos.

En février 1935 Alban Berg reçoit la commande d'un concerto (pour violon). Deux mois plus tard, Manon, fille d'Alma Mahler et de Walter Gropius, meurt à l'âge de dix-huit ans.(…) (Une) septicémie … l'emportera à la fin de décembre. Prenant la valeur d'un double requiem, le Concerto « A la mémoire d'un ange » suscite une intense émotion lors de sa création, à Barcelone le 19 avril 1936 … Cette partition reste l'oeuvre de la seconde école de Vienne la plus jouée et aimée du grand public. A un portrait gracieux et joyeux de Manon (Andante - Allegretto), succède une musique plus dure incarnant la douleur puis la « transfiguration » (Allegro - Adagio), qu'engendre une citation du choral "Es ist genug". Soutenu par un Georges Prêtre aux petits soins, Christian Ferras en livre en janvier 1963 une vision sensuelle et passionnée, à fleur de peau, vraiment poignante. Le violoniste français domine avec une remarquable aisance la complexité du langage de Berg, dodécaphonique mais émaillé de réminiscences tonales.

This disc, very well recorded in 1984, presents the Fireworks music on period instruments but in the version that includes the strings. Pinnock later recorded the version that used a large wind band. The rest of this disc features two concertos for two horns which prove to be thoroughly entertaining.

Sony Classical's Great Performances Series has scored yet another winner with its coupling of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 and the First Cello Concerto. Previously released individually, the close proximity in the recording dates of these two works (1959 and 1960) makes them a natural choice for a pairing. Continuing in the Philadelphia Orchestra tradition, the performance of the Symphony No. 1 follows the 1928 United States premiere of the work, given by the same orchestra and conducted by Ormandy's predecessor, Leopold Stokowski. Inherited from him is the notably lush sound of Philadelphia's lower strings, which capture the essence of Shostakovich's weighty harmonies.

Italian label Stradivarius is actively recording all 86 known works of Veronese composer Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco and a previous entry consisting of trio sonatas from Dall'Abaco's Opp. 1 & 3 was quite good. This follow-up recording of concertos, Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco: Concerto à più Istrumenti Opera Quinta, taken from Dall'Abaco's Op. 5, though, is really quite outstanding thanks to the performers involved, the Veronese Baroque orchestra Il Tempio Armonico, whose first commercial recording this is. The group has a terrific sense of ensemble dynamics, and the swells of volume in the Allegro of Dall'Abaco's Concerto Op. 5/3 are placed exactly where they should be, flowing right along with the music.