Final Fantasie

On the cover of this latest Red Seal twofer – I don’t much like using that word but I can’t really call this a double album any more – Martha Argerich takes top billing, rightly, to Ivry Gitlis, whose name is in smaller type underneath hers. Hence I’ve reproduced the two in the header of this review. But violinist manqué though I may be, how I wish I hadn’t had to.

Funèbre stands out in the New Series both for its due attention to German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963) and for welcoming conductor Christoph Poppen and the Munich Chamber Orchestra into the ECM fold. The latter have since gone on to record a number of pivotal records for the label, including the all-Scelsi program Natura Renovatur and the Bach/Webern crossover project Ricercar. Here they are joined by violinist Isabelle Faust, the Petersen String Quartet, and clarinetist Paul Meyer for a shuffling of dark, darker, and darkest.

Jos van Immerseel is one of the leading representatives of historical performance practice today. Alongside his great commitment to Renaissance and Baroque music, he has consistently broadened his view of the classical and romantic repertoire as well.

Vladimir Horowitz – The Complete Original Jacket Collection is a 70 CD boxed set featuring most of the recordings of the pianist Vladimir Horowitz. The collection contains recordings from 1928 to his final recording session just four days before his death in 1989.

Before Perlemuter recorded his powerful Phantasie he’d visited Wyastone to set down his Kreisleriana and Etudes symphoniques. He was 78 when he recorded the former, his technique still strong, the playing direct, powerfully conceived and conceived moreover in a concentrated arch. Never one for easy emoting, this is not necessarily the most pliant cycle one will hear, but that was never his aim.