SCRIABIN SYMPHONIES 3 & 4, London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev/LSO Live SACD LSO 0771 Judging by the number of recent and planned releases, record companies seem to have a new found interest in promulgating the orchestral music of Alexander Scriabin on disc. This release from LSO Live is the first in a cycle of Scriabin Symphonies from Valery Gergiev (a long time champion of this composer) and the London Symphony Orchestra. Both performances were recorded live in concerts at the Barbican in March 2014 (Symphony No.4, ‘The Poem of Ecstasy’) and April 2014 (Symphony No.3 ‘The Divine Poem’). Of the composer Gergiev says “Scriabin should be today understood as a man who was able to create a wonderfully magical musical world, and we just have to give in. We have to be imprisoned by these compositions and the magical powers of their creator”. True to his word Gergiev delivers riveting accounts of both works on this SACD, and thanks to the magnificent playing of the 100 – strong LSO, the compelling vision of his interpretations is realised to the full. The majority of the composition of Symphony No.3 ‘The Divine Poem’ took place in1903 at a time when Scriabin was becoming more preoccupied with the grandiose philosophical and mystical ideas that he attempted to express in his music. The Symphony is scored for massive orchestral forces and is the composer’s longest work. Though constructed in three movements, bearing the titles ‘Luttes’ (Struggles), ‘Voluptés’ (Sensual Pleasures) and ‘Jeu Divin’ (Divine Play), they are played without a break. Gergiev’s powerful account of the faster music in the work’s outer movements contrasts with the delicacy and refinement (words not always used in connection with this conductor) he brings to the central ‘Voluptés’ with its suggestions of bird songs and sounds of nature. The remarkable skill with which Gergiev controls the ebb and flow of the music’s luscious harmonies and his flexible but forward pulse ensure that there are no longueurs at any point in its 44′.23” duration. Back in 1999 Gergiev recorded ‘The Poem of Ecstasy’ with his own Mariinsky Orchestra and his interpretation seems to have changed very little over the intervening15 years (this one lasts a mere 9 seconds than the previous one). The performance here is more viscerally exciting than the recent slightly staid version from Mikhail Pletnev on PENTATONE, though the sound quality of the latter is currently unmatched by any other available recording. The wonderful sense of languor conveyed by the hushed opening, that quickly gives way to the exciting journey to the climactic ending, shows Gergiev’s firm yet flexible command of his forces. Philip Cobb’s trumpet contributions are never strident and are well integrated with the rest of the brass section. Gergiev ensures that the closing bars, underpinned by the organ and with the orchestra in full cry, are suitably overwhelming. The engineers have done an excellent job capturing the grandeur of these pieces on this 5.0 DSD multi-channel recording, but it is necessary to turn up the volume well above your normal listening level to appreciate its qualities to the full. Strongly recommended.

BEETHOVEN: SYMPHONIES 5 & 7, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Manfred Honeck/Reference Recordings FR-718 SACD The refreshingly vivid interpretations of works by Richard Strauss, Dvorak, Janacek and Bruckner that have appeared over the last few years on the Reference Recordings ‘Fresh’ label from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have convincingly demonstrated the ability of this partnership to deliver new and often remarkable insights into some of the most popular and frequently recorded orchestral works in the classical repertoire. For any conductor committing two of the most famous and most recorded symphonies to disc is a courageous venture that should not be undertaken lightly, but Honeck’s riveting if occasionally controversial accounts of Beethoven’s 5^th and 7^th Symphonies fully justify this decision. In a wonderfully written twelve page essay entitled ‘Looking behind the Notes’ in the accompanying booklet with this disc Honeck clearly and cogently explains in detail the reasons and justifications for the various interpretive decisions he has made in these performances. It is up to each listener to decide for themselves whether they work, but even sceptical listeners will surely learn something from these illuminating and brilliantly executed interpretations in which any sense of routine is entirely banished. Strikingly, at the opening of the 5^th Symphony, Honeck weightily stresses the two statements of the famous ‘Fate knocking at the door’ four-note motive before the violins and violas adopt the fast and urgent tempo that characterises the rest of his performance of this movement. The following ‘Andante con moto’ flows purposefully, yet Honeck often relaxes the tempo to allow some felicitous woodwind passages to be appreciated to the full, but the final bars, though breathtakingly beautiful, will, for some, seem a little too fussily phrased or romanticised. The Symphony’s last two movements are executed supremely well. The Scherzo has a heroic and flamboyant drive with the Trio section crisply articulated by the superb Pittsburgh strings, while the build-up into the blazing and defiant Finale is all one could wish for. Beethoven’s striking use of the piccolo is just one the many details that emerge in Honeck’s gripping interpretation of this movement. The 7^th Symphony (repeats observed as in the 5^th) is equally impressive with an opening movement of great vivacity and boundless energy – the Pittsburgh horns especially thrilling here. The second movement ‘Allegretto’ begins with some exquisitely soft dynamics from the burnished strings and, following the example of Kleiber, – both père and fils – in their respective recordings of this symphony, the closing bars are played pizzicato not arco. The ‘Scherzo – Presto’ dances with a nimble lightness that contrasts well with the stately central Trio while Honeck’s invigorating account of the Finale, though perhaps a little too fast at the start, maintains its unrelenting energy right to the exhilarating final chord. The playing of every section of the Pittsburgh Symphony is first rate in both works. Honeck uses what to some will be an unfashionably large orchestra but, thanks to the precision and unanimity of his splendidly focused players, the antiphonal seating of the violins, the use of timpani with hard sticks and brisk tempi throughout, he gains not only most of the best elements of period performance style but also the extra magisterial grandeur that Beethoven’s masterpieces deliver when larger forces are employed. The Soundmirror, Boston team of Dirk Sobotka, Mark Donahue and John Newton have engineered an exceptionally clean and detailed 5.1 stereo and multi-channel 64ff DSD recording, made live in the Heinz Hall, Pittsburgh (5-7 December 2014), that puts the seal on Manfred Honeck’s vital and intelligent readings of these two inexhaustible masterpieces.

NEEME JÄRVI CONDUCTS OFFENBACH, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande / Neeme Järvi/CHANDOS CHSA 5160 Those who have acquired Neeme Järvi’s first two SACDs of familiar and lesser known gems of French Orchestral music, in predominantly lighter vein, by Chabrier and Massenet will need no urging to add this latest one to their library. The nine overtures recorded here, plus the substantial Snowflakes ballet music from ‘Le Voyage dans la lune’, and additional pieces from’ Les Contes d’Hoffmann’, including the famous Barcarolle, make a generously filled disc (almost 78 minutes) of delicious melodious bon-bons. The music of some of the pieces on this collection will be recognizable from their use in the 1938 ballet ‘Gaîté Parisienne’, a work choreographed by Leonide Massine and orchestrated by the composer/conductor Manuel Rosenthal. This SACD, however, does include a number of rarities that one would be very lucky to encounter in the concert hall today such as the delightful overture to ‘Vert-Vert’ or, in a slightly more satirical vein, the impressive overture to ‘La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein’. As Andrew Lamb points out in his splendidly informative liner notes, some of the Overtures were made by hands other than those of the composer in order to extend the brief introductions of the original stage works. One such example is the Overture to ‘La Vie parisienne’ that is given here in the 1948 arrangement by the conductor Antal Dorati. On this beautifully recorded disc they are performed, in typically ebullient style by Neeme Järvi and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande whose pacing here belies the often repeated canard that he always drives the pieces he conducts too hard. Here the performances are both stylishly polished and sensitively shaped – the Overture to ‘Orphée aux enfers’ that begins the programme illustrates the point perfectly. The Chandos 5.0 surround sound recording (24-bit/96 kHz) from the usual capable hands of Ralph Couzens takes full advantage of the rounded ambience and clarity of the Victoria Hall Geneva to provide a suitably full yet detailed sound picture. In every way this is a self-recommending issue.

SOUNDS AND CLOUDS: WORKS BY HOSOKAWA & VIVALDI, Holland Baroque, Jeremias Schwarzer, recorder/CHANNELCLASSICS CC SSA 37615 SACD This is the latest Channel Classics release from the adventurous Holland Baroque Society continuing a series of recordings in which they collaborate with distinguished instrumental soloists. The unusual title is ‘Sounds and Clouds’ and the programme on offer is equally intriguing. The concept is the idea of virtuoso recorder player Jeremias Schwarzer, one in which four of Vivaldi’s well-known Op.10 Flute Concertos are interleaved between the five movements of ‘Singing Garden in Venice’ a composition by one of the leading contemporary Japanese composers Toshio Hosokawa that was commissioned by Schwarzer in 2011. As a young man Hosokawa studied in Berlin and Freiburg and after returning to Japan became influenced by the traditional music of his own heritage such as gagaku. Hosokawa’s belief that the compositional process is instinctively associated with the concepts of Zen Buddhism and its symbolic interpretation of nature is manifested in ‘Singing Garden in Venice’. The titles of the work’s five movements, each of which last around seven minutes, are ‘Vorspiel Nacht’, ‘Dämmerung’, ‘Das Meer vor dem Sturm’, ‘Abenddämmerung’ and ‘Nachtspiel. Nacht-Schlaf,’ and thus the whole composition creates the atmosphere of an imaginary garden from darkness to dawn and then back into night. The instrumentation includes oboe, bassoon, harp, harpsichord, lutes and strings while Schwarzer himself plays Alto, Sopranino and Bassett recorders as well as a Voice flute. In addition, the sound of gently trickling or lapping water is used in four of the movements. The music is generally of a brooding and slow moving character, but with moments of tension, and the fascinating sounds and textures created by the talented players of the Holland Baroque Society are both magical and hypnotic. The three of the four Vivaldi Concertos performed here by Jeremias Schwarzer have descriptive titles that connect them with nature and natural events – ‘La notte’ (night), ‘Il gardellino’ (the goldfinch)’ and ‘La tempesta di mare’ (storm at sea) – hence their link to Hosokawa’s work.

Schwarzer and his Holland Baroque players give delightfully fresh, vital and accomplished accounts of these concertos. Among the group’s splendid instrumentalists the fruity bassoon playing of Moni Fischalek deserves special mention. The 5.0 DSD recording is up to Channel’s usual standard, which means state-of-the-art quality, and the vivid sound picture is further enhanced by the lovely ambience of Amsterdam’s Walse Kerk. Perhaps one important question is; does the juxtaposition of Vivaldi and Hosokawa compositions presented in this way enhance, or detract from, each other? That is for each listener to decide for themselves, but whatever your view the superlative standard of the performances and recording is in no doubt.

MENDELSSOHN: PIANO TRIOS, Hamlet Trio/Challenge Classics CC SSA 36415 SACD Robert Schumann’s view that Mendelssohn was the Mozart of the 19^th century is one with which many would concur, and the Piano Trios on this immaculately recorded SACD are two of the finest pieces of chamber music ever written; the composer’s melodic gift, mastery of contrapuntal techniques and sonata form, clearly evident in every bar. Both these works have been well served over the years by the considerable number of outstanding recordings of them, beginning in the 1920’s with the celebrated version of the Piano Trio No.1 by Cortot, Thibaud and Casals. Most recently accounts of both trios by Julia Fischer, Jonathan Gilad, and Daniel Müller Schott on PENTATONE and the Sitkovetsky Trio on BIS, have received well-deserved plaudits, but there is always room for new interpretations of what are two of Mendelssohn’s finest creations. The Hamlet Trio comprises Italian born pianist Paolo Giacometti, Scottish violinist Candida Thompson, perhaps most familiar as the artistic leader of the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and the Serbian-Russian cellist Xenia Jankovic. It was formed in 2011 and this is their début recording. All three are well-known for their excellence both as soloists and as chamber musicians, so the high quality of their musicianship is not in doubt and is certainly displayed to the full on this disc. What makes these performances rather special is the Hamlet Trio’s decision to perform them on an 1837 Erhard piano from the Edwin Beunk collection as well as using gut strings and bows which brings them closer to the sound with which Mendelssohn would have been familiar. The ability of the gut strings to provide a warm sonority, full of rich overtones that allow the two string players to discover new tonal nuances in the music, is immediately apparent. What the mellow sounding Erhard piano brings to the table is clarity, especially to Mendelssohn’s writing at the lower end of the spectrum which here never sounds heavy or too full. Both the Opus 49 (1839) and the Opus 66 (1845) Piano Trios share the same basic form – two energetic and restless outer movements that enclose a songful slow movement and a short scherzo in the composer’s gossamer-like style. The latter in both works are splendidly delivered thanks to Paulo Giacometti’s virtuosic and nimble pianism and the fine rhythmic buoyancy displayed by his partners. Tempi adopted by the Hamlet Trio throughout seem ideal. The passion and tempestuous character of these compositions is realised to the full, yet these artists are meltingly expressive in the two glorious slow movements, never short changing the music’s abundant lyricism. As expected from Channel Classics, the sound quality of the 5.0 DSD recording is beautifully balanced and marvellously lifelike – the MCO Studio 1 in Hilversum providing an acoustic that ensures no blurring of the individual instrumental lines, yet still allows them to blend effortlessly. Whilst those seeking these works in audiophile sound quality have an ample supply of versions from which to choose, this most enjoyable release should definitely be added to their shopping lists.