Sonatas, Opera and Concertos

**** MEDTNER, The Complete Piano Sonatas, Hyperion. Rachmaninoff considered his colleague, Nicolai Medtner, the greater composer of the two. And he wasn’t--still isn’t--alone in such thinking. Medtner never quite fit in in Russia because he avoided nationalist tendencies in his music, but he was, nonetheless, Russian through and through. His piano sonatas are bold yet reactionary at the same time, full of intellectual sinew, stormy and deeply spiritual. Brilliantly played by Marc-Andre Hamlin on four discs, they comprise the year’s most astonishing piano recording.

**** WILLIAM KAPELL EDITION, RCA Red Seal. William Kapell was the first American pianist to make a real international splash, despite a career that lasted only a decade. (He died in a plane crash at age 31 in 1953). He had it all: brains, brawn (the booklet includes pictures of him in a bathing suit), masterful technique, penetrating tone, a sense of theatricality and a musical depth far beyond his years. This nine-CD compendium of his decade before the mikes reveals playing--be it a Bach partita, Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto, Mozart and Chopin sonatas, Prokofiev or Copland--that is invariably powerful, clean, intense.

*** 1/2 VARESE, The Complete Works, London. This is, believe it or not, the first complete set of Varese, the century’s first important musical futurist. He wrote surprisingly little (it all fits on two CDs), but most of the music is groundbreaking--the enraptured orchestral essays for the machine age, “Ameriques” and “Arcana,” or the early experiments with percussion and electronics. The set, gloriously recorded, features the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the ASKO Ensemble, all under the direction of Riccardo Chailly, who has a fine ear for the rich sounds of this music.

*** 1/2 ROSSINI, Il Turco in Italia, London. Demonstrating another side of the versatile Riccardo Chailly, this splashy comic opera by Rossini that Callas put back in the repertory couldn’t be more suavely conducted. But the real attraction is Cecilia Bartoli, as irresistibly effervescent and dramatically incisive as ever in her latest full opera recording. For a special gift, add Manuela Hoelterhoff’s equally irresistible new book, “Cinderella & Company,” which, in following Bartoli around for a couple of years, offers a hilarious and penetrating look at the world of opera.

**** KRONOS QUARTET 25 YEARS, Nonesuch. Ten CDs’ worth of reissues and some new material is hardly enough to even suggest the breadth of Kronos. But it’s a good start, this lavishly assembled collection of Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Tan Dun, Alfred Schnittke and many, many others. Kronos is an amazing quartet that takes joy in living in amazing musical times.

**** HANDEL, Concerto Grossi, Op. 6, Harmonia Mundi. Violinist Andrew Manze is an early music specialist with Paganini’s technique and flair. Here he leads the Academy of Ancient Music in Handel’s 12 great concertos for string orchestra, in addictive performances, both bracing and meticulous. A great alternative to Bach’s “Brandenburg” Concertos.

**** THE GLENN GOULD SILVER JUBILEE ALBUM, Sony. With this two-disc set, Sony has finally completed its reissuing of its Glenn Gould catalog on CD. And it has done so with Gould at his most quirky and appealing. One disc contains strange bits and pieces, everything from accompanying Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in Richard Strauss songs to Gould’s own terribly clever “So You Want to Write a Fugue.” On the second disc, “A Glenn Gould Fantasy,” Gould takes on the personae of fatuous music critics, like the hippie Theodore Slutz or the pompous Sir Nigel Twitt-Thornwait, to discuss his work. It’s a riot.

**** FELDMAN, For Philip Guston, Bridge. Morton Feldman’s 1984 composition for flute, piano and percussion is the longest piece of chamber music ever recorded. Very little happens in these four hours, other than small motives slowly shifting this way and that as if they were the aural equivalent of patterns on Turkish rugs. Yet in this stunning performance by the California EAR Unit time seems to stop as the hours fly by. It’s crazy, but what a magnificent respite from the frantic pace of life during the holidays.

*** 1/2 MONTEVERDI, Vespro della Beata Vergine, Erato. Monteverdi’s compilation of the most sensual and interesting musical ideas that commanded attention at the beginning of the 17th century, as the Renaissance turned into the Baroque, inspires awe like nothing else from its time. And this outstanding new performance by William Christie and his Les Arts Florissants ensemble captures the rapture in the air at the time and that has remained in the music ever since.

**** PART, Kanon Pakajanen, ECM New Series. The mystical Estonian Arvo Part has come up with another winner in his series of slow-moving evocations of mysterious ancient Eastern Orthodox rites. You can smell the incense in these new chants that are modern yet based on principles of antiquity. .

*** THE TALLIS CHRISTMAS MASS, Gimell. The popular Tallis Scholars have restored part of a major work by the ensemble’s 16th century namesake. Although certain sections of the Mass were restorable, the transcendental Agnus Dei is a real discovery, a Christmas present for all admirers of this great British polyphonist.

**** TCHAIKOVSKY, “The Nutcracker,” Philips. You would hardly think we need another recording of Christmas’ ever-present ballet. But that only makes this mesmerizing new performance by Valery Gergiev and his Kirov Orchestra seem all the more remarkable. With his taste for rich, burnished orchestral sound (splendidly recorded) and flair for telling detail, Gergiev not only brings the ballet to vivid life, but infuses it with a rare sense of grandeur. Simply the best “Nutcracker,” and also a bargain, since Philips has squeezed the complete 80-minute score onto a single CD.

*** 1/2 KLEZMER NUTCRACKER SHIRIM, Newport Classics. For the best of the year’s holiday novelty acts, the Boston-based klezmer band Shirim has made Tchaikovsky’s Christmas ballet suitable for a Jewish wedding. And why not? Anything but sacrilege, it proves great ecumenical fun. Tchaikovsky rocks, and so do klezmer versions of Mahler, Satie and other classical composers that fill out the disc.