Classical

The latest releases reviewed

HILLBORG: . . . LONTANA IN SONNO . . . ; BOLDEMANN: EPITAPHS; GEFORS: LYDIAS SÅNGER Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo soprano), Gothenburg SO/Kent Nagano Deutsche Grammophon 20/21 477 7439 ****

Two of these Swedish song-cycles were written for Anne Sofie von Otter: Hans Gefors's Lydia's Songs in the mid 1990s (the texts follow- up references from Hjalmar Söderberg's 1912 novel, The Serious Game), and Anders Hillborg's Petrarch setting, . . . lontana in sonno . . . , in 2003. Laci Boldemann's English-language treatment of imaginary epitaphs is just over a half century older. Gefors's wide-ranging, half-hour cycle gives the singer the greatest conventional workout. But it's actually the 15 minutes of the superficially simpler Hillborg, with its frequent evocations of the world of early music and its willingness to send von Otter into areas both painful and ravishing, that makes the deepest impression. www.deutschegrammophon.com - MICHAEL DERVAN

DEBUSSY: LA MER; DUTILLEUX: L'ARBRE DES SONGES; RAVEL: LA VALSE  Dmitry Sitkovetsky (violin), Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Mariss Jansons  RCO Live RCO 08001 ****

The standout performance here is of L'Arbre des songes, Henri Dutilleux's Violin Concerto written for Isaac Stern in 1985. It's one of those late 20th-century works that is both polyglot and highly individual. Soloist Dmitry Sitkovetsky and conductor Mariss Jansons respond sensitively to a stream of enriched and enriching sensuality, which even embraces a midstream reference to the mechanics of tuning up within its organic growth. Jansons's account of Debussy's La mer is meticulous but somehow contained, as if the conductor is too reluctant to let the music surge. The intentionally over-the-top luxuriance of Ravel's La valse is conveyed with rather greater success. www.harmoniamundi.com/uk/news.php  

- MICHAEL DERVAN

PROKOFIEV: TEN PIECES FROM ROMEO AND JULIET; SONATA NO 7; VISIONS FUGITIVES Ayako Uehara (piano) EMI Classics 517 8522 ***

Japan's Ayako Uehara, the first woman to win Moscow's Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 2002, takes a highly individual approach to everything on her new Prokofiev disc. It's as if she's determined to sunder the connection with the orchestral original in the Romeo and Juliet pieces, toying with balances and rubato in a way that can threaten common sense. She seems to have an agenda of pushing the Seventh Sonata to new heights of clashing dissonance. Predictably it's the moto perpetuo finale which best survives the buffeting. Her high- contrast, always technically well-resourced approach works better in the fantastical, ever- shifting world of the Visions fugitives. www.emiclassics.com   - MICHAEL DERVAN

PROKOFIEV: PIANO CONCERTO NO 2; RAVEL: PIANO CONCERTO IN G Yundi Li, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Seiji Ozawa  Deutsche Grammophon 477 6593 ****

Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto is said to have left listeners "frozen with fright" at its 1913 premiere. The score was lost and we now know the piece only through Prokofiev's 1923 reconstruction, which is hair- raisingly difficult and strikes terror into most pianists. But not Chinese pianist Yundi Li, first prizewinner of the 2000 Chopin Competition in Warsaw. He takes a young man's confrontational approach, delighting in every crunch and crash, relishing in the athletic demands, and delving into the detail of the daunting cadenzas with spine-tingling confidence. He's less successful in the altogether more sophisticated world of Ravel, where his choppy energy and forceful projection disrupt the flow of the music. www.deutschegrammophon.com   - MICHAEL DERVAN

© 2008 The Irish Times