Martinu Hry

As Bohuslav Martinu gradually becomes better known in the west, his appealing chamber music is increasingly being performed and recorded, as it should be. This SACD of the three cello sonatas joins a respectable number of recordings that are available, though these exceptional performances by Steven Isserlis and Olli Mustonen are sure to give this album a higher profile in the marketplace.

Sol Gabetta’s first recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto, with the Danish National Symphony, was much admired when it appeared six years ago. This one, taken from a concert in the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus in 2014, is a far glossier affair orchestrally. Simon Rattle’s tendency to overmould the phrasing is sometimes too obvious, but Gabetta’s playing is intense and searching, less introspective than some performances in the Adagio, perhaps, but epic in scale in the outer movements, and always keenly responsive. Those who possess her earlier disc might not think they need to invest in this one, but would then miss Gabetta’s vivid, pulsating account of the Martinů concerto, which went through a quarter of a century of revisions before the definitive 1955 version she plays here, with Krysztof Urbański conducting. She finds real depth and intensity in it, both in the slow movement and in the introspective episode that interrupts the finale’s headlong rush.

Despite the poor choice of couplings, this disc contains outstanding performances of both major works. The Clinton-Narboni Duo on Elan recently set the standard in Martinu's wonderful Concerto for Two Pianos, but this performance is every bit as good, and happily quite different. Rather than the chamber orchestra featured on Elan, Genova and Dimitrov enjoy the backing of a full ensemble, and what they sacrifice in the finer points of harmonic detail (evident, for example, at the opening of the finale) they more than make up for in sheer adrenalin. The very natural balances also pay major dividends in the atmospheric textures of the long central slow movement.

Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) only began composing symphonies after fleeing the Nazis into American exile in 1941. He was of a generation that saw the symphony as passe Bartok was born in 1881 and Stravinsky in 1882, and Martinu was born in 1890 while Mahler was born in 1860, and Sibelius and Nielsen in 1865. Modernism entailed new forms and styles, and while Martinu was never a modernist he did inhabit a soundworld with a lighter touch full of dance rhythms, not heavy, four-square symphonies.

The artistry of Holliger (b1939) prompted Evelyn Rothwell (Lady Barbirolli) to call him 'The Paganini of the oboe' Holliger's mastery of the oboe ranges over a vast expanse of repertoire, from the baroque to contemporary – Bach to Berio and Zelenka to Zimmermann. His style is notable for its flexibility, agility, integrity and ability to communicate convincingly across the wide range of repertoire he performs. Holliger has done much to champion the oboe music of composers such as Zelenka and Krommer, and has also had over 100 works composed for him by composers including Berio, Carter, Henze, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Penderecki and Stockhausen.

The style of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů was enriched by numerous influences which are reflected in The Greek Passion; magnificent choirs contrast vividly with intimate chamber music, and folkloristic elements are placed next to complex, classically worked-out orchestral movements. A highly emotional mixture of oratorio and dramatic opera takes the listener into a world in which catastrophes abound. Lorenzo Fioroni, who has directed operas in Nuremberg, Augsburg and Heidelberg, has produced this dramatic contest against fear in Graz.

Martinu's alternately bustlingly neo-classical and genially lyrical Sinfonietta La jolla (named after the Californian town whose Music Society commissioned it) is otherwise absent from the CD catalogue at present, and this lively account is welcome. It is one of his most relaxed works, approaching light music at times, especially in the circus-like exuberance of the finale, but the lyrical element continually returns and before the coda a string chorale is heard that more than hints at the luminous simplicity of the finest late Martinu. Valta's is a very good performance, marred only by the rather forward placing and somewhat atmosphere-less sound of the concertante piano and by a certain lack of warmth (La Jolla is distanced from the Pacific by a degree or two of latitude) in the violins.

The standard nonet – consisting of five wind instruments (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon) and four stringed instruments (violin, viola, cello, double bass) – is the mid-size SUV of chamber ensembles: hefty enough to produce pseudo-orchestral horsepower, but still maneuverable enough to accelerate from zero to sixty at a respectable clip. Nowhere are its virtues more evident than in this 1989 album from Ensemble Wien-Berlin (a super-group of principal players from the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, formed earlier in the decade), whose jocular interplay and burnished blend bring shine to two of the finest works written for the nonet, Louis Spohr’s seminal 1813 Nonet in F and Bohuslav Martinu’s zingy, neo-classical Nonetto No. 2.