Part Jarvi

The Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 3 is rarely heard, though it is a finely crafted work worth greater attention. It has suffered alongside the magnificent and superior Second and the ever-popular First. Moreover, it is not a bona fide concerto at all, the composer having completed only the first movement before his sudden death in 1893. Contrary to the suggestion of a few, it is highly unlikely he intended to produce a one-movement concerto. Tchaikovsky wrote two other piano pieces the same year bearing the titles "Andante" and "Finale," respectively. Following his death, Taneyev orchestrated these and attached them to the Concerto, though Tchaikovsky had left no indication they were to be a part of it. But the pair did share something in common with the completed first movement: a theme source – the incomplete Symphony No. 7. In any event, the opening movement of this Concerto is the most compelling, featuring an exuberant main theme whose first two notes are the central melodic element. An attractive slow melody is soon presented, followed by a theme of great vivacity and rhythmic drive.

HARPO JARVI is an experimental band hailing from St. Louis. Dan Ilges (drums), Nick Johnson (bass, keys, guitar) and Jim Miles (keys, flute) are delivering a rather eclectic blend of styles, featuring jazz, funk and especially psychedelic as the main components…

Jarvi directs a characteristically warm and urgent performance of this exuberant inspiration of the 24-year-old composer. It is by far the longest symphony that Dvorak ever wrote, and was longer still in its original form, before the composer revised it. As Ray Minshull put it, when commenting on the Kertesz/LSO issue, which he had produced for Decca, Dvorak ''later learnt to be jubilant more concisely''. The jubilation is what matters, and there is plenty of that on this record yet the issue brings my first significant disappointment in Jarvi's Dvorak series.

This album by violinist Christian Tetzlaff and cellist Tanja Tetzlaff together with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Paavo Järvi, is dedicated in the memory of their longtime artistic partner, pianist Lars Vogt (1970–2022). At the heart of this album is Brahms, one of Lars Vogt’s favourite composers, and his late orchestral masterpiece, the Double Concerto. Brahms himself had admired one of Viotti’s violin concertos so much that he included material from the Violin Concerto no.22 into his work. With Christian Tetzlaff’s recording of the Violin Concerto, this album finally brings these two works together. Also included is Dvořák’s beautiful Silent Woods for cello and orchestra, a work by another composer that was very close to Lars Vogt’s heart.

Rarely have Busoni’s orchestral works been animated with such grasp, interpretive authority, and sheer executive brilliance. Passionate advocates haven’t lacked, but they’ve been hampered by second-string ensembles, incomprehension, expedience, and timorous interpretive gambits. Even Marc-André Hamelin’s otherwise splendid go at the Piano Concerto was marred by too often faceless, routine orchestral backup.

The sound on this 1986 BIS recording is simply (and unobtrusively) outstanding, and Neeme Jarvi makes the most of it in these relatively less-important Sibelius pieces. I say "relatively" because even in the earliest pieces here, "En Saga" and the Op. 25 Historical Scenes suite, Sibelius reveals himself as a master orchestrator: just as sound alone, with all the variety in texture and dynamics, this recording is a constant pleasure.