Latest releases reviewed

STANFORD: SYMPHONIES Nos 4 & 7
Bournemouth SO/David Lloyd-Jones
Naxos 8.570285
****

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) was a far finer musical craftsman than John Field, his much better- known fellow Dubliner. Stanford's style, rooted in the Germanic music of the mid-19th century, never quite adapted to the changes in musical taste that took place during his lifetime. He lived long enough for

his music to occasion rejection slips from multiple publishers, as if he were a novice. His symphonies, espoused on disc by the Ulster Orchestra under Vernon Handley in the 1980s and 1990s, are now being persuasively taken up on Naxos by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under David Lloyd-Jones. Try the Dvorak-flavoured Fourth of 1888 to see if you think this "best of the second grade" composer deserves to be neglected in his home town. www.naxos.com

MENDELSSOHN: PIANO TRIOS
Trio Wanderer
Harmonia Mundi HMC 901961
***

Mendelssohn's two piano trios are full of markings that suggest extremes, from "Molto Allegro agitato" at the start of the First, to "Allegro appassionato" for the finale of the Second. Trio Wanderer, a French ensemble, seem to take this as encouragement for a firm, even hard-line approach. These are performances which concentrate on a highly charged, dramatically driven delivery, sometimes taking quite a straight line even through moments of relative relaxation.

If the intention is to shy away from the sentimentality that Mendelssohn's music often encourages, then it's highly successful on its own terms. However, the pressure of the approach also highlights regular patterns of construction which more flexible players have managed to treat with greater variety. www.uk.hmboutique.com

BUSONI: VIOLIN SONATAS 1 & 2; FOUR BAGATELLES
Joseph Lin (violin), Benjamin Loeb (piano)
Naxos 8.557848
***

These two sonatas from 1890 (when the composer was 24) and 1898 constitute one of the most interesting byways of late 19th-century violin and piano repertoire. Busoni was tugged in various directions by his mixture of Italian and German blood, and torn between his love of the past and his longing for a new musical future. The playing of Joseph Lin and Benjamin Loeb places the works very much in the 19th century, turning down any hints that these pieces may actually project a future that is anything but straightforwardly romantic. The fluent playing is constrained by Lim's limitations in spinning out slow-moving lyrical lines.

The disc also includes attractive performances of four short, characterful Bagatelles. www.naxos.com

BRAHMS: SERENADE NO 1; DAWSON: NEGRO FOLK SYMPHONY
Symphony of the Air, American SO/ Leopold Stokowski
Deutsche Grammophon Original Masters 477 6502 (2 CDs)
***

Only the glamorous Leopold Stokowski is mentioned and pictured on the cover, although the set also includes three performances under the great Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos. The recordings are from the US Decca catalogue, Stokowski

in stereo tapings of Brahms's still underrated Serenade in D, and the Negro Folk Symphony by African- American composer William Levi Dawson, both handled with the conductor's customary style and vitality. Mitropoulos's contribution, appearing on CD for the first time, is to conduct New York Philharmonic scholarship winners in 1950 mono recordings of chamber works by Prokofiev (the Quintet, Op 39, and Overture on Hebrew Themes) and the Night Music by another African- American, Howard Swanson. www.deutschegrammophon.com