For those on a limited budget, this outstandingly generous Naxos anthology will prove a pretty irresistible purchase, I fancy, and if the disc introduces a wider public to the multi-faceted delights of these wonderfully engaging concertos, then all the better. Fortunately, the actual performances also have a fair amount going for them.
In the glorious Violin Concerto, Jonathan Carney turns out to be a thoroughly musical soloist, his sweet-toned contribution at once unforced and affectionate. Tempos are unfailingly well-judged, and Kees Bakels and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra accompany with admirable spirit. Deftly as Carney plays, however, he doesn’t possess quite the noble poise and silk-spun purity of Cho-Liang Lin, whose irreproachably eloquent, Gramophone Award-winning 1988 version with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Swedish RSO continues to dominate the digital stakes. Neither is there perhaps the idiomatic ease nor gentle wisdom about the finished article that make Arve Tellefsen’s 1975 recording with Herbert Blomstedt and the Danish National RSO such a treasurable listening experience.
The Clarinet Concerto brings another capable, committed display. Bournemouth SO principal Kevin Banks copes manfully with the taxingly virtuosic solo part, but, truth to tell, there isn’t quite the depth of characterisation or abundant temperament one encounters on, say, Ib Eriksson’s classic 1954 recording with Mogens Woldike or Stanley Drucker’s blistering 1967 account with Bernstein and the NYPO (1/91 – sadly unavailable at present). Gareth Davies is a shapely, nimble advocate of the delectable Flute Concerto. Again, memories of dedicatee Holger Gilbert-Jespersen are not banished (and I’d have preferred a more mischievously assertive contribution from the trombone), but this remains a likeable reading all the same.
Reasonable value overall, then, and a pretty decent recording too (though I didn’t care for the unhelpfully dim and cavernous-sounding side-drum in the Clarinet Concerto). Ultimately, however, I can’t avoid pointing out the artistic and technical superiority of the identically coupled anthologies from BIS, Chandos and EMI listed at the head of this review (and Michael Schonwandt’s marvellously perceptive conducting on the Chandos disc is an especial pleasure). Then again, of course, those admittedly classier productions retail at between two and three times the price of this super-bargain newcomer. Decisions, decisions …'