Rostropovich (EMI, 6/95) and Maisky (DG, 3/00) have each given us very personal accounts of the Bach Cello Suites, the former using the widest range of dynamics, the latter very individual in espressivo, both undoubtedly with their own insights to offer. But if you favour a simple dedication to Bach’s linear progress combined with clean attack and unforced accents and a sense of freshness underpinned with depth of feeling (particularly in the Sarabandes), you will, like me, find Lynn Harrell’s Decca set very rewarding to live with. The cello image is forward but absolutely real, with no inflation from resonance.
The Chopin recordings from Ashkenazy span a period of about five years, for he recorded his major survey in approximate chronological order. The sets of Etudes from 1975 offer playing of total command, and can safely be recommended. Although the piano timbre in the first set (Op 10) is a bit dry and over-bright on top, one does not want to make too much of this, for it is softer-grained in Op 25 and excellent in the remaining works. The three sonatas, too, show Ashkenazy on top form. He makes more of the immature first sonata than one might expect, and the ‘Funeral March’ Sonata is eloquent and dazzling by turns. The B minor Sonata, recorded the following year, is only marginally less intense in feeling, and the F minor Fantasie is a good deal more than a makeweight, and excellently recorded.
The backing-slip of my next Decca Double rightly describes the contents as ‘two-and-a-half hours of Dvorak’s most tuneful orchestral music’. Its author might have added, equally truthfully, that Dorati’s Detroit performances of the lesser-known works are consistently winningly played and full of charm. There have been other recordings of the American and Czech Suites, and the Nocturne, though none with a more felicitous touch, but the Polka written for Prague students, the Polonaise with its attractive rhythmic lift, and the set of Waltzes in which Dvorak assumes a Johann Strauss mantle with sparkling success, are all delightful. All also have the advantage of near-demonstration quality digital sound, within the attractive ambience of the Detroit concert hall. The Slavonic Dances were recorded in Kingsway Hall and here, curiously, the upper range and focus of the string sound is not so refined. Even so, the recording is very good, and the performances are both brilliant and affectionate, and benefit from very neat contributions from the RPO wind. Most enjoyable.
Argo set out to record Handel’s 11 Chandos Anthems in the mid 1960s, but a decade later only six had been done, and the project was never completed. Here the six are gathered together for the first time on CD, freshly sung, with an excellent team of soloists. They are well recorded, too; but I have to say that, enjoyable as they are, these performances have now been upstaged by a splendid and more authentic complete set from Harry Christophers and his Sixteen, issued most appropriately on the Chandos label!
The next Double Decca is undoubtedly my pick of the month, and not to be missed. It combines superb examples of the virtuosity and fine Romantic sensibility of two of Decca’s most charismatic keyboard lions, Julius Katchen, from the 1950s and early 1960s, and Jorge Bolet from the 1980s. Having made the best-ever mono recording of Dohnanyi’s Nursery Variations, Katchen and Sir Adrian Boult returned to the Kingsway Hall with the LPO to record it again in 1959 with comparable flair and the bonus of Decca’s finest analogue stereo, which still sounds marvellous more than four decades later.
The Wagnerian opening is thrilling, and the first appearance of the famous nursery-rhyme theme brings a delectable frisson, while the performance throughout sparkles with wit. Katchen was partnered by Argenta for the two Liszt concertos and the result is hardly less involving, though perhaps No 1 is rather finer than No 2. But when we turn to the other Liszt concertante pieces the result is even more dazzling. Bolet’s bravura is remarkable: his fingerwork glitters, and he gets splendid support from the LSO under Ivan Fischer; he also makes a remarkably good case, here with Solti, for Liszt’s over- the-top orchestral version of Schubert’s Wanderer fantasie.
The Monteverdi miscellanea come from many sources but are suprisingly successful, thanks partly to some fine solo and duet singing in three versions of Laudate Dominum, with Nigel Rogers in the solo setting, and a pair of fluting trebles, Michael Turner and Benjamin Odom, who lead the solo group in the first setting. They also make a memorable contribution to the hymn to St John the Baptist, Ut queant laxis. Another angelic pair of trebles, Simon Cooper and Stuarte Leasky, are featured in the third version (with sonorous contrast from the Choir of Magdalen College and accompanying brass). Even more beautiful is the combination of Emma Kirkby and Judith Nelson in the Salve regina and Sancte Maria.
The Magnificat included here is the less elaborate six-voice version (from the Vespers). It is beautifully sung by the London Carmelite Priory Choir under George Malcolm, a classic performance from 1962. The Masses (the 1640 work much more innovative than its successor, written a decade later), sung by the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge under George Guest, are impressively done, too, and closing the collection, Gardiner’s performances of the motets Adoramus te, Christe, Cantate Domino and Domine, ne in furore are again marked by excellent singing and an essentially more dynamic style. In the closing Exultent caeli (‘Let the heavens rejoice’), the gentle central verses, which picture the Virgin Mary with child, are effectively framed by a jubilant opening and conclusion where the singers are joined by the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. The recording is excellent throughout, full translations are included, and there are adequate notes.
Decca’s comprehensive collection of Mozart’s solo wind concertos was recorded over three decades, and juxtaposes virtually unsurpassed accounts of the works for clarinet, flute (No 1) and horn (all four), by star British soloists, while equally personable and stylish versions of the Bassoon and Oboe Concertos were digitally recorded in Cleveland. This was the first of Barry Tuckwell’s sets of the Horn Concertos, and both he and Gervase de Peyer (still unsurpassed in the work for clarinet) have the advantage of crisply buoyant accompaniments from the LSO under Peter Maag. The 1959/60 recording of the orchestral violin timbre is just a little dated, but the glowing Kingsway Hall ambience means that this is in no way a drawback given that we are now used to the much thinner sound of period string instruments. The two Cleveland soloists have equally strong personalities. David McGill’s account of the Bassoon Concerto is no less endearing and the Cleveland recording balance is nigh-perfect. All in all, very enjoyable music-making by musicians from both sides of the Atlantic who are equally at one with Mozart.
By making a break after the first and second movements of the Second, Decca have managed to get Ashkenazy’s Berlin recordings of the three Scriabin symphonies plus Le poeme de l’extase onto a pair of CDs. The recordings, made in the Jesus-Christus Kirche (or in the case of No 1 the Schauspielhaus, which offers rather clearer internal detail), are alluringly rich and sumptuous, and Ashkenazy certainly has a genuine feeling for Scriabin’s sound world: textures are sensuously luminous. The performances (notably those of the Second and Third) are for the most part highly charged, as is the famous tone-poem, and it is easy to wallow in the sheer beauty of the orchestral sound. But for all Ashkenazy’s exciting bursts of volatile passion, there is no doubt that Muti’s Philadelphia performances exert a more compelling grip on these comparatively elusive structures. This classic EMI set (7/91) costs far more, but is worth it.'