Having greatly enjoyed Anne Akiko Meyers’s and Andre-Michel Schub’s recent RCA account of Copland’s eloquent Violin Sonata (1942-3), I’m not sure that this newcomer isn’t even finer. To my mind, experienced NYPO concert-master Glenn Dicterow invests Copland’s memorably serene and sinewy melodic lines with just that little extra imaginative intensity and flair, and his partnership with pianist Israela Margalit must be deemed a great artistic success. Margalit then teams up with the NYPO’s principal flautist, Jeanne Baxtresser, for a stylish rendering of the Duo (1971), an ingratiating, witty offering based on thematic ideas from Copland’s sketch-books from the 1940s.
Margalit also makes a decent showing in the 1962 Rodeo excerpts for solo piano – I particularly warmed to her affectionate treatment of “Saturday Night Waltz”. However, I’d have preferred a greater sense of mystery and poignancy in “Corral Nocturne”; nor will everyone respond favourably to her rather unidiomatic, effortfully mannered rubato in “Buckaroo Holiday”. That just leaves the meaty and challenging Piano Quartet of 1950, a work of serious purpose and impressive substance, here given a performance which does full justice to its striking integrity and admirable ambition.
Overall, then, a thoroughly enjoyable (and nicely engineered) addition to EMI’s Anglo-American Chamber Music series. Generous measure, too.'