A new citizen of Chopin’s world

Chopin: Sonata in B minor; Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise; three nocturnes; other works

Yundi Li, piano (Deutsche Grammophon)

***

Winner, at 19, of the 2000 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Li made his U.S. debut last month in New York. Extravagantly gifted and highly accomplished, he shows in this impressive performance the complete resources of a natural Chopin player: an effortless and sparkling technique, power and agility, speed, thoughtfulness and poetry. Only the slow movement of the sonata and the three nocturnes betray Li’s youth and musical inexperience; they are at times self-conscious, half-baked or merely literal. Nevertheless, this splendid young Chinese pianist already lives in the world of the composer, though it may be a while before he can join the major leagues now occupied by Louis Lortie, Jon Nakamatsu, Garrick Ohlsson and Murray Perahia.

-- Daniel Cariaga

More Ligeti (micro)tone poems

Ligeti: “The Ligeti Project, Vol. IV”

(Teldec)

****

Gyorgy Ligeti is one of the rare contemporary composers who have dented the mass public consciousness, thanks to the advocacy of Stanley Kubrick and his “2001: A Space Odyssey” score. While ostensibly a “difficult” character, outside the populist New Music world, Ligeti writes music that can be engaging both sensually and cerebrally, as evidenced in the fourth and latest volume of the admirable series “The Ligeti Project.” The Hungarian composer’s penchant for swarming, microtonal clouds of sound is heard in his early ‘60s “Requiem” and the late ‘60s piece “Ramifications,” for 12 quarter-tone strings. In 1972’s Double Concerto, flute and oboe protagonists flit busily over orchestral patchworks and between tonalities. But this collection’s centerpiece is the newest work: “The Hamburg Concerto,” for solo horn and orchestra, was finished just last year and proves to be this disc’s most varied and even visceral adventure. Played with cool persuasiveness by horn soloist Marie Luise Neunecker, the piece swerves in and out of rhythmic sections and harmonic spectra pushed past “normal,” though never to the breaking point.

-- Josef Woodard

Strauss meets Helen of Troy

Strauss: “Die Agyptische Helena”

Deborah Voigt, soprano; Celena Shafer, soprano; Carl Tanner, tenor; American Symphony Orchestra; Leon Botstein, conductor (Telarc)

***

Any opera featuring a character named the All-knowing Seashell is likely to strain the credibility of the most fervent fan of the genre. That loquacious bivalve (delivered by the opulent-voiced mezzo-soprano Jill Grove) is one of the more fanciful conceits of Hugo van Hofmannsthal’s woolliest libretto for Richard Strauss, a semiserious 1928 speculation on what really happened to Helen after the Trojan War. That libretto elicited from the composer one of his more deliriously sensuous scores, one that plays better on disc than in the opera house. Taped during a New York concert, this performance reaffirms Voigt’s hegemony among Strauss sopranos of her generation; the resplendent “Zweite Brautnacht” should disarm criticism. Voigt’s colleagues strive to impart tonal allure to their assignments, and Botstein’s leadership of what is not a major “Strauss orchestra” merits plaudits for sheer conviction.

-- Allan Ulrich

Concerto comparison

Brahms & Joachim: Violin Concertos

Rachel Barton, violin; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Carlos Kalmar, conductor (Cedille)

** 1/2

Johannes Brahms’ friendship with the great violinist Joseph Joachim is well documented, as is Joachim’s influence on the composition of Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D. But Joachim’s own violin concerto is seldom heard -- a situation that American violinist Rachel Barton clearly wants to remedy. This two-disc set contains both the Brahms and Joachim concertos, so listeners can compare and hear how the friends inspired each other. The performances of both are satisfactory and the recording quality good, although the Chicagoans sound thinner and less dynamic than in their other recordings of the Brahms. Barton (who wrote the liner notes) provides the Allegro with an alternative cadenza (also written by her) that, like the whole project, is thoughtful and pleasant but uninspiring. Perhaps of great interest to Brahms scholars and die-hards, the set is for everyone else at best a curiosity.

-- James C. Taylor