The happy news here is the very first recording of The Veil of Pierrette, four scenes from a mimed entertainment dating from 1908-9. If you want to jump straight in with the best movement, sample track 21 for an exuberant ‘Wedding Waltz’, rumbustious music, carefree and beautifully scored. The rest consists of a fairly serious prelude, a waltz parody (less memorable than the finale) and a mischievous ‘Merry Funeral March’. Dohnanyi’s penchant for quality musical entertainment bore popular fruit with his perennially fresh Variations on a Nursery Theme. Howard Shelley’s performance is a model of wit and style, blending in with the orchestra whenever the moment seems right and employing an ideal brand of rubato. Bamert’s conducting is properly portentous in the Introduction and charming elsewhere, whether in the music-box delights of the fifth variation, the animated bustle of the sixth or the seventh’s novel scoring (plenty for the bassoons and bass drum). I still rate Kocsis and Fischer as the best version overall (if only marginally), but Shelley and Bamert are no less musical.
It was lovely, too, to hear the F sharp minor Suite again, especially the opening Andante con variazioni which seems to straddle the worlds of Dvorak and Elgar (try the serene string choirs from 9'35''). The stamping Scherzo brings to mind the Scherzo from Bruckner’s Ninth – whether intentionally or not, I cannot tell – and the tuneful Rondo finale anticipates a key passage in the Rondo-burleske in Mahler’s Ninth (I kid you not – the resemblance strikes you right from the opening phrases). As with the rest of this admirable series, the music is a constant delight and Chandos has come up with a dazzlingly realistic recording. A peach of a disc – though if you’re arachnophobic, try to avert your eyes from the CD and booklet cover!'