Scottish Chamber Orchestra

These CDs contain all Bach’s extant concertos that feature a solo keyboard. Most were written in the 1730s and are thought to be arrangements of earlier concertos, many of which are now lost (though two will be recognized as Bach’s E major and A minor violin concertos and the sixth is an arrangement of the fourth Brandenburg). The fifth Brandenburg Concerto, with harpsichord, flute and violin soloists, dates from 1721 and is generally regarded as the first concerto for a solo keyboard instrument ever written. Bach made the keyboard part particularly brilliant and included a huge cadenza; he certainly knew how to establish a genre with a bang!

This is the fourth instalment in Deutsche Grammophon’s new Mozart cycle. In the end this will encompass the seven great operas, from Idomeneo forwards. I haven’t heard the previous three, but from the reviews I have seen the reception has been rather mixed. Concerning this latest issue I am also in two minds. The problem, as I see it, is that Nézet-Séguin hasn’t quite decided what he is up to. He has the excellent Chamber Orchestra of Europe at his disposal.

Described by The Herald as Scotland’s leading modern symphonist, composer Thomas Wilson (1927–2001) was central to the renaissance of 20th-century music in Scotland.

Alexander Brincken, born in Leningrad in 1952 and Swiss-based since 1992, writes in an accessible and unashamedly late-Romantic language. His grandiose Fourth Symphony of 2014–15, written for a huge orchestra, has echoes of a number of earlier composers, among them Berlioz, Bruckner, Martinů, Wagner and, especially, Franz Schmidt and Richard Strauss, all assimilated into a big-hearted style that blends dignity, lyricism and power, with a strong sense of the Swiss landscapes in which he has made his home. The earlier Capriccio for piano and orchestra – a concerto in all but name – has, in turn, something of the sober strength and wiry energy of Frank Martin – curiously, since it was written seven years before Brincken moved to Switzerland.

Award-winning pianist Ingrid Fliter makes her Linn debut with a distinctive performance of Chopin’s notoriously difficult piano concertos, featuring the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jun Märkl. Since winning the silver medal at the 2000 Frederic Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Ingrid has built a reputation as a first-rate Chopin interpreter.

Composers with the technical ability, application, mental concentration and sheer physical strength to compose a symphony do not usually leave it at that unless circumstances prevent them from writing a second. Often these unfavourable circumstances centre round public and professional apathy, poor presentation of their efforts, bad reviews, or a combination of these factors. In both cases under consideration here, it was the tragedy of early death that interrupted highly promising careers that might well have witnessed a whole succession of fine symphonies. Jan Václav Voríšek was only thirty-four (a year younger than Mozart) when death claimed him, and Juan Crisóstomo Jacobo Antonio de Arriaga y Balzola (to give him his full name) died just ten days short of his twentieth birthday.

Having begun their collaboration in 1997, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and its conductor laureate Thomas Dausgaard have developed an unusually tight partnership. Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in their cycles of the symphonies of Schumann, Schubert and, most recently, Brahms – performances which have been characterized by reviewers as variously ‘fresh’, ‘vivid’, ‘transparent’ and ‘invigorating’.