Philippe Katerineangelos Intermezzo

This 1994 recording of most of Mendelssohn's incidental music from Ein Sommernachtstraum coupled with his Fingal's Cave Overture was one of Philippe Herreweghe's first with the Orchestre des Champs Elysées, one of the first French romantic period instrument orchestras, and it was almost but not quite a success. While the Orchestre's sound is fresh and appealing with characterful winds, warm brass, and sweet strings, it is also an odd and sometimes ungainly sound with perhaps overly pungent clarinets and bassoons, possibly overly raw horns and surely occasionally scrappy strings.

The star of this consistently first-rate disc of music by Korngold is violinist Philippe Quint, whose focused tone, incisive intonation, athletic technique, and expressive phrasing ideally suit the composer's supremely Romantic Violin Concerto. This strong-willed account is deeply emotional and immensely appealing; Quint's opening Moderato is noble, his central Andante amorous, and his concluding Allegro assai vivace exuberant. Carlos Miguel Prieto leads the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in a dynamic reading that sounds less like an accompaniment and more like a partnership of equals. In the purely orchestral Overture to a Drama and Concert Suite from Much Ado About Nothing, Prieto and the Mexican orchestra turn in a pair of tremendous performances.

Spanish countertenor Carlos Mena is not one of those who evoke the powerful castrati who might have sung these sacred arias in Vivaldi's day; his voice is smooth and precise, with a tendency toward emotional restraint. This isn't blood-and-guts Vivaldi, but it's quite lovely. Even the final Nisi dominus, RV 608, with its virtuoso arias and sharp contrasts, is kept under control at all times rather than being treated as a set of operatic numbers. Mena is technically flawless in this work (listen to the rather chilling long notes in the "Cum dederit dilectis," track 22), which stands somewhat apart from the rest of the program – the intent is to close the proceedings with a burst of energy after two sad pieces that offer refined tragedy in Mena's readings.

The Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, is a concerto for piano and orchestra composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff between the autumn of 1900 and April 1901. The second and third movements were first performed with the composer as soloist on 2 December 1900. The complete work was premiered, again with the composer as soloist, on 9 November 1901, with his cousin Alexander Siloti conducting. This piece is one of Rachmaninoff's most enduringly popular pieces, and established his fame as a concerto composer.

This recording brings together four of Chausson's chamber works from different periods of his short life. His youthful Piano Trio and the Andante and Allegro date from April 1881; the Pièce for cello and piano—one of his last compositions—from 1897. Throughout his life the composer favoured vocal and chamber music. He wrote the Andante and Allegro (which is much more adventurous than its simple title implies) while preparing for the Prix de Rome. It was followed by the admirable and passionate Piano Trio in G minor, a work of an altogether different calibre and hue.

Philippe Herreweghe directs these Schumann concertos with severity and urgency, with an impact that’s particularly strong in the opening movement of the A minor piano concerto. The soloist is Andreas Staier, who plays a mid-19th century J.B. Streicher instrument. But it’s not just the use of period instruments (this is certainly the kind of piano Schumann would have known) that proves so fascinating here; rather, it’s the minutely detailed way in which soloist and conductor interact during this performance. Note, for instance, how astutely Herreweghe’s wind players articulate the sorrowful first subject group after the soloist’s opening salvo, a passage that sets the tone for all that follows.

Martha Argerich has made such a rousing specialty of the Schumann Cto. that it's hard to remember a time when another pianist attacked the work with as much passion and spontaneity but here is Rudolf Serkin from 1964 to remind us. Ormandy was at his best as an accompanist, yet he excels himself here with an orchestral part that is vivid and urgent, not what one expects from him. Serkin always favored very close miking of the piano essentially under the lid and we're lucky that this cheap digital remastering isn't hard or glassy; in fact, it has considerable visceral impact while still sounding fairly natural a bit of shallowness is all that I can complain about.