The main interest here is probably Medea, the suite for full orchestra derived from Barber’s original score for 13 instruments composed for a ballet by Martha Graham. The only competing version in the British catalogue is on another Barber collection with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Schenck. My somewhat grudging review of that release suggested that Barber’s music was not nasty enough for such a gruesome subject as Medea, who murdered her own two children by Jason after he ran off with Glauce. She’d previously killed and dismembered her brother. Even in the new recording the score comes across rather blandly, but it is elegant Barber, whose slightly detached approach to the ancient Greek tragedy is in the neo-classical tradition.
The Cello Concerto was the work written immediately before Medea. It’s a demanding piece which has never achieved the popularity of the earlier Violin Concerto. Wendy Warner has it all well under control, confident on the heights and assertive in the allegro movements, and is well supported throughout. She’s suitably soulful in the chamber textures of the Andante, which is virtually a siciliano but with greater rhythmic subtlety. It seems to be conventional for cellists to treat the solo passages in the fast movements rather freely – once they’ve reached the peaks they like to stay there – but I prefer the approach of Yo-Yo Ma, who is more strict.
Barber’s ubiquitous Adagio – his emotional smash-hit – needs no introduction since there are approaching 80 recordings in the British catalogue and it completes an attractive anthology.'