Frankfurt Rallgemeine

This disc confirms Nicholas Angelich's reputation as the greatest Brahms player of his generation. The pianist's previous recordings of music by the great German Romantic, collections of solo piano music, chamber music, and the First Piano Concerto, were all magnificent, and this recording of the Second Piano Concerto with Paavo Järvi leading the Frankfurt Radio Symphony plus the Klavierstücke, Op. 76, is at the same level.

Hilary Hahn's latest album, Eclipse, celebrates the power of authenticity. Recorded with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and its Music Director (2014-2021), Andres Orozco-Estrada, it sees the triple Grammy-winning violinist deliver interpretations of three works charged with universal emotions yet rooted in their composers' musical heritage: Dvor k's Violin Concerto, Ginastera's Violin Concerto, a strikingly original 20th-century gem, and Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy.

This recording marks the beginning of the collaboration between the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and its new music director, the French conductor Alain Altinoglu, who conducts the leading European and American orchestras and has made a reputation for himself in every repertory – not forgetting opera at Salzburg, Bayreuth, and La Monnaie in Brussels, where he is music director. Their first disc pays tribute to a composer whose bicentenary is celebrated in 2022, César Franck, with the famous Symphony in D minor and two less well-known works, presented in new editions: the symphonic poem Le Chasseur maudit (1882) and the large-scale symphonic interlude from the oratorio Rédemption, composed in 1872 after the Paris Commune, performed here in its first version, long considered lost.

No fewer than four major composers — Fauré, Debussy, Schoenberg and Sibelius — were inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Pelléas et Mélisande (1892). Given that we celebrate anniversaries of Fauré and Schoenberg in 2024, Paavo Järvi offers his reading of their settings of Pelléas et Mélisande with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, whose Music Director he was for almost ten years. Debussy was so involved with his own operatic setting of Pelléas et Mélisande that the famous English actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell turned to Gabriel Fauré to write incidental music for the play; this music then became an orchestral suite in four movements that is considered to be Fauré’s symphonic masterpiece. Schoenberg followed advice given by his much-admired role model Richard Strauss in 1902 and composed his own symphonic poem based on Pelléas et Mélisande. Its complex combinations of musical motifs and the rich fabric of the large-scale orchestra not only captivate us but also reveal his own vision of this archaic and yet universal story.

With this disc, German label Neos takes on an enterprising project, Bruno Maderna: Complete Works for Orchestra, Vol. 1. Outside of Italy, Maderna is recognized as a significant figure within Italian avant-garde associated with Nono and Berio, but his music is not is well known as theirs, apart from his fanciful and hip Serenata per un satellite (1969). Within Italy, Maderna is remembered as one of her greatest conductors, although he is worshipped to such extent in that role that his compositions have been overlooked. Such a series, hopefully, would serve to redress the balance; Maderna's experience as conductor helped inform his compositions, and by having access to his orchestral pieces one might be able to determine to what extent his composing impacted his work as a conductor.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve, based on a short story by Gogol, centres on the love of the blacksmith Vakula for the rich farmer’s daughter Oksana, who mockingly requires him to obtain for her the Tsarina’s shoes in order to win her hand in marriage. However, evil spirits are on the rampage imperilling their love – a witch on her broomstick gathers the stars and the devil steals the moon. Rimsky-Korsakov blends Christian and pagan elements, Ukrainian folk songs and carols, and atmospheric orchestral interludes in this vivacious and fantastical village romance. This is the disc version of the audiovisual release on 2.110738 and NBD0154V: ‘Sebastian Weigle leads the excellent Frankfurt orchestra and chorus in a spellbinding account of Rimsky-Korsakov’s score’, wrote MusicWeb International. It also won the German Record Critics Award for Quarterly Critics Choice and was a Musicweb International ‘Recommended’ release.

As a diehard Mahlerite, I have to say I thought I knew the Seventh fairly well, but Inbal manages to make this familiar (to me) work seem utterly new and strange while holding it firmly together (which too often isn't the case in performances of this problem-child of the Mahler family). And he does this without seeming to impose his personality on the music. This is the only Seventh on disc I know of that can match the Bernstein versions (Sony and DG). And it's better-recorded than either of them. Hey Denon–when are you going to reissue all of Inbal's Mahler recordings in a boxed set, as DG did for Bernstein? This is a missed opportunity.