It was Sir Malcolm Sargent who, on April 11th 1953, premiered Bloch's Concerto grosso No. 2—a work which, although less ebullient than its healthily affirmative predecessor, displays great elegance and a notable level of harmonic ingenuity. Whereas the Concerto grosso No. 1 utilizes a busy piano obbligato, No. 2 more reflects its baroque models, what with its neo-baroque themes and telling contrasts between full strings and a concertino string quartet. Both works compare favourably with the finest of their kind, ranking alongside other twentieth-century string master-pieces by Martinu, Bartok and Elgar (the Introduction and Allegro).
By contrast, the American composer, Quincy Porter (1907-66)—an accomplished violinist and violist who studied composition with d'Indy—reveals a more conservative musical personality, at least in this early Ukrainian Suite for string orchestra (Porter's earliest published work). The individual movements are very concise (two of them last for just under a minute apiece), but the material itself recalls the kind of folk-tunes that Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky habitually worked into their compositions. Still, at just over nine minutes, the Ukrainian Suite makes for pleasant listening.
The San Diego Chamber Orchestra acquits itself with some distinction, although the First Concerto's keyboard obbligato seems rather over-prominent (at times the work sounds more like a piano concerto) and the acoustic is perhaps a little too enclosed. In other respects, though, this is a recommendable CD and makes for a safe first choice in this repertory, the Bloch most specifically.'