Radical, irresistible ‘Pictures’

Mussorgsky/Stokowski: “Pictures at an Exhibition”

“Boris Godunov,” Symphonic Synthesis; and other works

Cleveland Orchestra. Oliver Knussen, conductor. (Deutsche Grammophon)

****

Everything eventually comes around, even Leopold Stokowski’s orchestrations. For many years, historical performance partisans made mockery of Stokowski’s way with Bach and Mussorgsky. But not Oliver Knussen. He may have the credentials of a modernist composer, but he also idolized Stokowski as a boy (Knussen’s father was a member of the London Symphony, and Stokowski was a frequent Knussen houseguest). For Knussen, the vast orchestral palette that Stokowski brought to Mussorgsky created a fascinating phantom composer who was not exactly Mussorgsky or Stokowski.

This “Pictures at an Exhibition,” for instance, is very ‘30s Hollywood, radically different from Ravel’s, the most famous orchestration of Mussorgsky’s original piano piece. When the trombones start whooping and growling, and the strings zing like something out of the shower scene in “Psycho,” you know you’re in wild new territory. The Stokowski versions of music from “Boris Godunov” and “Night on Bare Mountain” are also like looking at stupendous landscapes through unexpectedly colored glasses.

With stunning playing from the Clevelanders and conducting by Knussen as vivid as Stokowski’s own, this recording is not just irresistible but brilliantly illuminating. Indeed, it is so radical that although these performances were recorded in 1995 and 1996, Deutsche Grammophon appears to have been afraid to release them until now. Grab this CD before DG changes its mind.

-- Mark Swed

Stick With the Spectrum

Janine Jansen

Janine Jansen, violin. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Barry Wordsworth, conductor (Decca)

*

Robert Helps:

“Shall We Dance”

Piano Quartet, Postlude, Nocturne. Robert Helps, piano. Spectrum Concerts (Naxos)

*** 1/2

Barefoot, wearing a white pantsuit and flashing the come-hither look of a Vogue model on the CD jacket, Janine Jansen might be the next pretty, young and mindless violinist to come down the pike. Her Decca debut disc certainly makes her seem that way. The program of short violin favorites is light and superficial: “Danse Russe” from Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” opens it; the main theme from John Williams’ score for “Schindler’s List” comes midway. Despite a silky sheen to her tone, a seemingly effortless technique and intonation pure as driven snow, Jansen merely glides through everything, showing flair in only Ravel’s “Tzigane” at the end.

But don’t write off the Dutch violinist too quickly. She happens to be a member of Spectrum Concerts, a Berlin-based new-music ensemble, which means she also can be heard in the Naxos recording of Robert Helps’ Piano Quartet, Postlude and Nocturne. An unusual American composer and pianist who died in 2001, Helps was best known as an exceptional pianist of complex atonal music. Few of his fans knew that on the side he wrote elegant, engaging, moody tonal music. Here Jansen and her colleagues prove immensely satisfying. Best of all, though, is Helps’ performance of his piano piece “Shall We Dance,” recorded the year before he died.

-- M.S.

Pale restraint, or vigor and bite?

Vivaldi’s Cello

Yo-Yo Ma, cello. Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. Ton Koopman, conductor (Sony Classical)

* * 1/2

Antonio Vivaldi: La Viola da Gamba in Concerto;

Le Concert des Nations

Jordi Savall, director and gamba player (AliaVox)

***

Departing from his recent forays into world music, Ma steps back into the baroque for his third disc with Koopman and his Amsterdam ensemble. Performing on a period instrument, Ma blends into the group, playing with self-effacing modesty in the opening G-minor Concerto for Two Cellos and the solo B-flat concerto. The star-turn aspects arise in six transcripts of music written for female voice and in a reworking of a Concerto for Viola d’Amore, but even here Yo restrains himself almost to the vanishing point. The results are pale and disappointing. Gamba specialist Savall and his ensemble, on the other hand, bring typical vigor, bite and grace to these bright, closely recorded works. The question of whether Vivaldi wrote for a gamba -- by his time, nearly an extinct instrument in Italy -- is answered affirmatively in the scholarly program notes. None of Koopman’s plush, gentle textures for Savall: His textures are abrasive but bracing, and the rhythmic energy is infectious. There is also a welcome variety in the featured solo instruments. The “Concerto con molti Istromenti” (Concerto for Many Instruments) especially delights with its many unexpected shifts in timbre.

--Chris Pasles

Performances to change your mind

Dvorak: Piano Concerto, “The Golden Spinning Wheel.”

Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano. Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Nikolaus Harnoncourt, conductor (Teldec)

*** 1/2

Here’s something unexpected: A fine French new-music specialist, perhaps the best Messiaen and Ligeti pianist around, taking on Dvorak’s neglected early Piano Concerto. The engaging, addictively tuneful if overlong concerto has not been without impressive champions -- notably Sviatoslav Richter -- but it has been little recorded, and live performances are especially rare. This is an absolutely winning rendition. Aimard is a sparkling soloist, and Harnoncourt’s insistence upon punchy rhythms and acidic textures removes any danger of the tune cloying. After falling in love with the simple pleasures of the concerto, you may not think you’re in the mood for the urgent drama of Dvorak’s great, late tone poem, “The Golden Spinning Wheel.” But Harnoncourt’s incisive performance is likely to change your mind.

-- M.S.