BERNSTEIN: SYMPHONIES 1 ‘JEREMIAH’ & 2 ‘THE AGE OF ANXIETY’, Anna Larsson, Roland Pöntinen, Arctic Philharmonic, Christian Lindberg/BIS22981 HYBRID SACD   In many ways, Leonard Bernstein’s Second Symphony is a calling card piece. Keen that he should not be known simply as the purveyor of accessible jazz-oriented music such as West Side Story, his symphony has the seriousness and ambition of Mahler at times. But the jazzy elements are still present in the wonderfully syncopated section for piano and orchestra, and if Christian Lindberg’s performance inevitably lacks the definitive snap of the composer’s own readings, it is still a superlative reading, recorded in typically wide-ranging BIS sound. At the age of 21, Leonard Bernstein wrote what he described as a ‘Hebrew song’ using a text from the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Three years later the song became the final movement of his Symphony No.1 and in January 1944 Bernstein himself conducted the première of the work. The first movement aims to parallel in feeling the intensity of the prophet’s pleas while the scherzo gives a general sense of the destruction and chaos. Towards the end of the 1940s he returned to the symphonic genre, however – once more with an extra-musical inspiration. W.H. Auden’s poem The Age of Anxiety is set during the recently concluded war, and falls – like the symphony –into six sections during which four characters express their anxieties, hopes and the quest for meaning and identity. Bernstein chose to portray all four characters via a single instrument, the piano. The instrument comes to the fore at various points and in one of the final sections. For this Christian Lindberg and the Arctic Philharmonic have enlisted the aid of Roland Pöntinen.

PROKOFIEV: SUITES FROM THE GAMBLER & THE TALE OF THE STONE FLOWER, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Dima Slobodenio/BIS SACD   While we are given the complete orchestral suite from Prokofiev’s The Gambler here, it is something of a shame that we are only presented with the suite from The Tale of the Stone Flower – it would have been a delectable treat to hear the entire ballet in splendid BIS surround sound. Nevertheless, beggars can’t be choosers, and the disc is an essential purchase for lovers of Prokofiev who want this music in the best possible sound. The present disc combines suites created from Prokofiev’s very first opera (The Gambler, 1915–17) and his very last ballet (The Stone Flower, 1948–53). Based on a short novel by Dostoyevsky, The Gambler doesn’t have separate numbers that can easily be detached. Instead Prokofiev created ‘portraits’ of the four main characters, by re-assembling the music associated with them throughout the opera.

TCHAIKOVSKY: SYMPHONY NO. 4, LESHNOFF: DOUBLE CONCERTO, Soloist, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Manfred Honeck/Reference SACD   Tchaikovsky’s fourth Symphony has long been the perfect rejoinder to those who consider his music to be characterised only by beauty and delicacy – this dramatic symphony is as muscular and dynamic as may be found in the orchestral repertoire. The Fourth has been a singularly lucky piece in terms of recorded performances, even in the SACD era, but this is something special. It’s hardly a surprise that the performance has such fire and energy as this lies securely in the provenance of Honeck and the Pittsburgh, who are enjoying something of a golden age at present and burnish their laurels further with this performance. The other work on the disc is something of a surprise, proves to be a piquant and intriguingly orchestrated concerto. A very cherishable disc. (See also the separate review by Graham Williams.)

MOZART: SINFONIA CONCERTANTE KV 364 (VERSION WITH THE SCORDATURA VIOLA),SYMPHONY IN G MINOR KV 550 (VERSION WITH CLARINETS), Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Gordan Nikolić, violin, Richard Wolfe, viola/TACET SACD   Once again, in performances that place the listener centrally in the orchestra, Tacet delivers impeccably appointed warm and sympathetic performance of some glorious music by Mozart. Highly recommended.

SCHOENBERG: ERWARTUNG, PELLEAS UND MELISANDE, Sarah Jakubiak; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra; Edward Gardner/Chandos HYBRID SACD  While the more uncompromising serial works of Schoenberg’s later years have somewhat fallen out of favour (a corollary of reappraisal of the tonal music which fell into shadow when Schoenberg ruled the roost), his earlier late Romantic pieces have always been popular, not least with those who admire the richly orchestrated music of such composers as Richard Strauss. Pelleas und Melisande is perhaps the signature piece of this era in the composer’s life, along with the exquisite Transfigured Night. It here receives an exemplary performance from the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner in a coupling with one of the composer’s more challenging pieces. Written only six years apart, these two works share a common narrative of frustrated love, and the concept of the forest as a metaphor for the subconscious mind. Musically they are wildly different, however; Pelleas, which Schoenberg wrote in his late twenties, is the epitome of his late romantic style, indebted to Richard Strauss. Erwartung (his first work for the stage) was written after his conversion to atonality. The sound quality is impressively Technicolor, as is the norm for Chandos.

TALBOT: WINTER’S TALE/ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, Soloists, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Briskin & Kessels, conductors/Opus Arte Blu-ray   With choreography by Christopher Wheeldon and music by Jody Talbot, these ballets are sheer delight, both music and dance full of invention, colour and high spirts. Sound and vison , as usual from Opus Arte, are of the first rank, and in the absence of live performances, this is mamma from heaven.

STRAUSS: DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN, Camilla Nylund, Nina Stemme, Stephen Gould, Sebastian Holecek, Evelyn Herlitzius, Christian Thielemann/Orfeo It’s strange to think that Strauss and his librettist von Hofmannsthal were disappointed by the reception of this favourite opera received in their lifetimes; they would bemused to see how popular it has become today and how many performances it now customarily receives these (although, needless to say, nothing like the attention that is accorded to Rosenkavalier or Elektra). This is a particularly dramatic reading of the piece, superbly sung. Not many masterpieces have premiered at the Vienna State Opera, but Die Frau ohne Schatten, the fourth collaboration between Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, is one of the few exceptions. On the 25 May 2019, a star-studded performance of the work took place at the historic venue to mark the 150th anniversary of the opera house’s opening, and 100 years since the premiere of the work, it is now released on the Orfeo label. Die Frau ohne Schatten has enjoyed a rich performance history and is regarded as a special highlight of Viennese and international music theatre. Christian Thielemann leads a stellar cast including Camilla Nylund, Nina Stemme, Stephen Gould, Sebastian Holecek and Evelyn Herlitzius.

BRUCKNER:SYMPHONY NO. 6, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Daugaard/BIS SACD  In recent years, the Sixth Symphony of Bruckner has enjoyed many impressive performances on disc, but this is something special. As is consonant with the current approach to the piece, there are none of the sepulchral tempi that used to be the norm; everything here is pointed and dynamic in a way that brings the music up as fresh as paint. Anton Bruckner wrote his Symphony No. 6 over a period of two years, completing it in September 1881. And for once with this composer, the word ‘completing’ can be used without qualification: known for his habit of reworking and revising his works, Bruckner for once seems to have been satisfied with the result of his efforts.. The present disc is the first in a Bruckner ‘mini-series’ from Thomas Dausgaard and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, appearing together on disc for the first time.

BENNETT: ORCHESTRAL WORKS VOL. 4, Michael McHale; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; John Wilson/ Chandos HYBRID SACD  Given that the composer Richard Rodney Bennett has suffered something of the neglected that often follows the death of a musician before rediscovery (it’s an issue the composer even discussed with this writer), it’s a welcome move on the part of the enterprising John Wilson and Chandos to undertake this series of recordings which bring the composer’s works alive in performances far better recorded (particularly in the surround sound medium) than anything he enjoyed in his lifetime. The pieces here are among the most approachable that Bennett set down, and it goes without saying that the performances are on the nail. In this fourth volume in their series, Wilson and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra turn to his Piano Concerto, commissioned by the John Feeney Trust for the CBSO and written in 1968. A chance meeting with Stephen Kovacevich provided Bennett with a willing soloist, and the work was premiered in Birmingham in September that year. The fellow composer Anthony Payne’s judgement was unequivocal: ‘It’s a bloody good work.’ The soloist here, Michael McHale, gives a virtuosic performance which certainly lives up to that judgement

PRADO: PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1, AURORA CONCERTO, FRIBOURGEOIS, Minas Gerais, Philharmonic Orchestra, Sonia Rubinsky, piano Fabio Mechetti/Naxos   More world premiere recordings from Naxos in the company’s enterprising initiative to put onto disc some unjustly neglected music. Almeida Prado died in 2010, and his colourful music is firmly rooted in that of his native country, Brazil. His first piano concerto is a particularly winning piece.

ASPECTS OF AMERICA: PULITZER EDITION: PISTON, GOULD, & HANSON, Oregon Symphony, Carlos Kalmar/Pentatone  Three pieces of glorious American music are here given performance of great authority – the Hanson 4^th symphony, in particular, is given one of the finest readings it has received. One misses Pentatone’s customarily splendid surround sound, but the stereo sound here is still highly impressive

WAGNER, STRAUSS, VERDI, RACHMANINOV, WDR Sinfoniorchester WDR Sinfoniorchester, Seymon Bychkov/Profil SACD  Those of us who already have all of these performances in their initial individual issues will know just how impressive they are, with Bychkov on rare form throughout these pieces (particularly Rachmaninov’s The Bells, which it is impossible to imagine done with more panache). This box set with 9 SACDs is a document of the collaboration between Semyon Bychkov and the WDR Sinfonieorchester maintains the highest level of sound quality and musical standards. Works by Rachmaninov (The Bells, Symphonic Dances), Strauss (Elektra, Alpensinfonie, Till Eulenspiegel), Wagner (Lohengrin) and Verdi (Messa da Requiem) are a demonstration of the capability of the orchestra with and without choir and soloists.