Martinu's Double Concerto for two string orchestras, piano and timpani is at long last gaining ground in the catalogues. This present release brings its current representation to no fewer than eight versions. If quality of performance was the sole criterion, this newcomer from the French radio would be competitive. The strings of the Orchestre National de France play with both spirit and commitment, and the same can be said of the pianist Jean-Francois Heisser and his timpanist colleague, Jean Camosi. Anyone trying it will at first be struck by the brightness of the sound and its sense of impact. However, the close and synthetic balance soon becomes evident as do the limitations of the acoustic, which is not spacious enough to do full justice to the score nor the artistry of the performers. In this work Jiri Belohlavek and the Czech Philharmonic on Chandos are much to be preferred.
Unlike the Double Concerto, the Concerto for string quartet and orchestra is not well represented on record but it, too, is similarly blighted with a very forward balance and an unnatural perspective (the quartet looms very large indeed). Again there are no quarrels with the playing of the Brandis Quartet and the orchestra under James Conlon, who sound rather more convinced by the piece than do the Endellion and Richard Hickox on Virgin, similarly coupled with an excellent Double Concerto and the Sinfonia concertante written for the same forces as Haydn's work of the same name. Jean-Francois Heisser and Alain Planes are excellent in the three Ricercari which are again rather oppressively bright and forward (and therefore the well observed dynamic contrasts are not heard to advantage) though the exhilarating and sensitive playing gives pleasure.
In the Three Frescoes of Piero della Francesca on the companion disc, the balance is slightly more successful, but in this most evocative of scores one really needs far more space around the sound, though again Conlon gets some very good playing from the orchestra. The Sinfonietta La Jolla, one of Martinu's sunniest and most lyrical scores does not suffer as much from balance problems as the Concerto for string quartet and orchestra but the lack of any depth of perspective does induce some measure of aural fatigue in the long run. However, it is in the Toccata e due canzoni, which comes from the period of the Fifth Symphony (1946), where the sound is totally unacceptable. The piano looms absurdly large and with close lower strings and percussion, the whole effect is claustrophobic and oppressive. A pity as this is a particularly delightful score and the only current alternative to Vasary on Chandos which is just a trifle heavy-handed and didactic. Be that as it may, the close microphones, the synthetic mix and the dry acoustic of Studio No. 104 in the Maison de la Radio in Paris much diminishes the attractions of these two discs.'