This week's classical music releases

HINDEMITH: SONATAS FOR SOLO VIOLA
Lawrence Power
Hyperion CDA 67769
*****

Paul Hindemith, himself a major viola player, left one of the most important of 20th-century legacies for his own instrument, including the four solo sonatas recorded here. They make a protean collection, the earliest (Op 11 No. 5) soaking up outside influences like a sponge, the others (Op 25 No 1, Op 31 No 4 and the unnumbered sonata of 1937) registering the changes the composer’s style underwent.

Op 25 No 1, written in 1922 when Hindemith was at his most radical, includes a movement marked

“Wild. Tonal beauty is of minor importance.” Lawrence Power easily encompasses the many moods. He has a giant sound at his command – he can make the instrument sound as if it’s being played by a man striding with seven league boots – and he makes every moment gripping. www.url.ie/4qdb

CHOPIN: CELLO SONATA; PIANO TRIO; GRAND DUO
Vilde Frang (violin), Andreas Brantelid (cello), Marianna Shirinyan (piano)
EMI Classics 687 7422
***

Young Danish cellist Andreas Brantelid’s second EMI CD takes him where angels fear to tread. Cellists can shine in Chopin’s Cello Sonata, and Brantelid certainly does here. But the music itself is tilted a lot more towards the composer’s own instrument (the piano) than this performance manages to acknowledge. Brantelid’s young partners, Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang and Armenian pianist Marianna Shirinyan, prove themselves fluent players in the Trio in G minor, but the piano playing simply isn’t commanding enough. Shirinyan often yields when she needs to be asserting control. Even the Rostropovichs of the world play Chopin’s chamber music best when teamed up with the Argerichs. www.emiclassics.com

STRAVINSKY: MUSIC FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO
Anthony Marwood (violin), Thomas Adès (piano)
Hyperion CDA 67723 (2 CDs for the price of one)
***

The ICO’s artistic director, violinist Anthony Marwood, here indulges his penchant for arrangements to the full. Apart from the Duo Concertant of 1932, the other pieces here are all arrangements, some of them actually arrangements of arrangements: the Divertimento is arranged from the ballet The Fairy’s Kiss (itself arranged from Tchaikovsky), and the 1925 Suite arranges excerpts from the ballet Pulcinella (which arranged pieces by Pergolesi and others). Violinist Samuel Dushkin, who premiered Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto and gave duo recitals with the composer, had a hand in most of them. Marwood and Adès play with the right kind of fastidiousness, though they don’t always succeed in revealing the music’s often coolly beating heart. www.url.ie/4qdb

BACH: BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra/ Riccardo Chailly
Decca 478 2191 (2 CDs)
***

What’s this? A symphony orchestra taking on Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos? It’s more than 20 years since the RTÉ NSO last had a conductor willing to programme Bach. But Riccardo Chailly is deeply responsive to the depth of Bach tradition of his Leipzig orchestra. He’s already taken the St Matthew Passion to London, to critical acclaim, and recordings of it and the Christmas Oratorio are due later this year. His Brandenburgs are quite lithe, and, yes, he uses recorders rather than flutes, and a harpsichord rather than a piano. What’s missing is the kind of micro- responsive expressive playing – and the clarity – that experienced period-instruments ensembles now provide. These performances are better than you might imagine, but more staid than you would wish. www.url.ie/4w4k