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	Star Ratings Key * Poor Fair * Good ** Excellent *** Extraordinary

	Vivaldi: Motets. Patrizia Ciofi, soprano. Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi, conductor. Nicolas Bartholomé, producer; Koichiro Hattori, engineer. Virgin 45704. Music: ** Sonics: **
	Vivaldi: Concerti e cantate da camera II. Gemma Bertagnolli, soprano; L’Astree. Eric Urbain, producer and engineer. Opus 30404. Music: ** Sonics: **
	Vivaldi: Operas (Arias). Various singers, orchestras, conductors. Various producers, engineers. Naïve 30401. Music: ** Sonics: **
	The days are long gone when Vivaldi was considered a one-work composer (The Four Seasons), or even, as Stravinsky said, author of 400 works that all sound the same. But we are finally catching up with—even swamped by—his prolific output of sacred motets, cantatas, and operas. Judging from these three CDs, they’re full of buried treasures. Patrizia Ciofi sings four of Vivaldi’s 20 surviving motets, amply fulfilling their virtuoso demands. The texts may be religious, but the music’s as secular as it gets, focusing on vocal display and exciting runs capped with thrilling high notes. Ciofi’s light soprano travels with ease among the thickets of coloratura runs. She negotiates those flashy high notes with aplomb, though sometimes, as in In furore, the absence of vibrato results in a hollow tonality. (Still, she could give Cecilia Bartoli a lesson in singing elaborate, note-choked flourishes with a minimum of aspirated hyperactivity.) Ciofi is brilliantly partnered with the spirited and accomplished period instrument band, Europa Galante—a group with outstanding strings and a terrific bass trombonist, whose surprising appearances really make you sit up and take delighted notice. Gemma Bertagnolli is another soprano with no fears of coloratura heights. On the Opus CD, she sings three secular cantatas about the vagaries of love, and another crack period band, L’Astree, expertly dances its way through three instrumental concertos. Two of the latter feature fluently played recorders, and the other is a lovely, light-hearted work for flute, bassoon, and orchestra with a delectable Largo, featuring a duet between the bubbling bassoon’s bass line and the singing flute. Bertagnolli’s built a considerable reputation as a Baroque specialist, but she has also performed opera and concert music by composers as varied as Mozart, Strauss, and Mahler. Like Ciofi’s, her light voice occasionally takes on a mezzo cast; there’s no hint of the colorless, “little-birdee” twitterings we used to get from sopranos specializing in early music. She’s also freer with her use of vibrato, which helps her color high notes. And she’s just as good as Ciofi in ornamenting lines and coping with the explosive energy of the closing arias, for which she supplies her own cadenzas. Bertagnolli shows up again on the Operas disc, a veritable feast of arias from four of Vivaldi’s stage works. Like her cantata disc, it’s a product of the rediscovery of 450 authenticated manuscripts in Turin’s Biblioteca Nazionale. Sister labels Opus 111 and Naïve are mining that treasure trove for a Vivaldi Edition, of which 15 titles have already been released, with another 50 planned. This one’s a perfect introduction to Vivaldi’s operatic output. It includes selections from four Vivaldi Edition opera releases: L’Olympiade, La verità in cimento, Orlando finto pazzo, and Juditha triumphans, all featuring stellar singers and expert period bands and conductors. Magdalena Kozená is stunning in a pair of Juditha arias, the first of them graced by a wonderful clarinet obbligato depicting the heroine’s beating heart as she enters the enemy’s camp. Contralto Sara Mingardo is terrific in a rage aria bristling with fury from L’Olympiade, and Natalie Stutzmann’s sensational range goes from baritonal lows to effortless highs. Soprano Sonia Prina’s breathtaking vocal acrobatics in an aria from Orlando finto pazzo and Bertagnolli’s unhinged witch’s aria from La verità in cimento leave you limp. There’s uniformly good sound on all three discs, although the solo efforts are perhaps fresher, with presence, ideal balances, strong bass, and fine imaging. The opera sampler was made by different production teams, and one is sometimes aware of the shift in acoustics of different venues. All have notes and complete texts and translations. Dan Davis
	FURTHER LISTENING: Vivaldi: Stabat Mater (Alessandrini); Vivaldi: Vespri per l’Assunzione di Maria Vergine (Alessandrini)

	Wind Concertos by Cimarosa, Molique, and Moscheles. Mathieu Dufour, flute; Alex Klein, oboe. Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Paul Freeman, conductor. James Ginsburg, producer; Bill Maylone, engineer. Cedille 080. Music: * Sonics: * Buy CD
	Twentieth Century Oboe Concertos. Alex Klein, oboe. Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Paul Freeman, conductor. Alex Klein and James Ginsburg, producers; Bill Maylone, engineer. Cedille 079 (2 CDs). Music: ** Sonics: * Buy CD
	With James Ginsburg’s Cedille Records, there’s always a Chicago connection. In this case, it’s two soloists (Mathieu Dufour, principal flute of the Chicago Symphony for six years, and Alex Klein, principal oboe from 1995 to 2004) and the conductor (Paul Freeman, music director of the Chicago Sinfonietta and chief conductor for the Czech NSO). The wind concerto CD opens with Domenico Cimarosa’s (1749-1801) Concerto for Two Flutes in G major, rendered quite effectively by flute and oboe. It’s charming, substantial music, manifesting the syntax of Mozart, if not his genius. The remaining three Cimarosa selections are Romantic-era material. Next are two works— D minor Flute Concerto and the Concertino in G minor for Oboe and Orchestra—by Wilhelm Bernhard Molique (1802-1869), an obscure, but accomplished, German composer. With both compositions, there’s a strong vocal quality to the melodic lines. The oboe work has a bit more angst and grit, and a memorably melancholy mid-section. Finally, we are treated to a work by Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870), a teacher to both Mendelssohn and Grieg, though his music rises far above pedagogical competency. His Concertante for Flute and Oboe in F major exploits the lyrical potential of the two soloists in a long Adagio introduction before the sparks fly in a lighthearted Rondo that’s the main body of the piece. Klein’s program of modern works for oboe and orchestra opens with Bohuslav Martinu’s soulful, yet sinewy, Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra, written in 1955. The disc’s other two selections were written specifically for Klein. Virtuti Militari, by Pawel Sydor (b. 1970), is an overtly political work, concerned with the struggle for freedom in modern Poland, the composer’s native country. The music is practically cinematic (Sydor has written film scores), with a continual sense of strife: an “unnoticed hero” (the oboe) up against the entrenched powers in “The Maggots,” and the fickle indifference of “The Crowd.” Most extraordinary is the Oboe Concerto by Marco Aurélio Yano, a Brazilian who died in 1991 of brain cancer at just 27 years old. The music is remarkably eclectic in style—from the abstracted modernism of the first movement to a ravishing, entirely tonal central slow movement (“Seresta”) to the concluding “Frevo,” based on an Afro-Brazilian dance form. The piece lasts almost 38 minutes and Klein—who had to resign from the CSO because of focal dystonia—is fully up to the work’s considerable musical and technical demands. The two discs were recorded over a nine-day period in June 2003 at a Prague studio. The orchestra sounds a little dry, but the solo instruments are beautifully characterized. Andrew Quint
	FURTHER LISTENING: Krommer/Hummel: Oboe Concertos (Klein); Ibert/Khachaturian: Flute Concertos (Pahud)

	Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto. Korngold: Violin Concerto. Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin. Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Andre Previn, conductor. Reinhild Schmidt, Ulrich Vette, producers; Jurgen Bulgrin, Wolf-Dieter Karwatky, Vette, Gunter Herrmanns, engineers. Deutsche Grammophon 3526. Music: * Sonics: 1/2
	The warmly attractive cover of this CD, with its comely picture of Anne-Sophie Mutter against a soft, orange background, leads one to anticipate an orgy of beautiful sounds (especially given the artistry of Tchaikovsky and Korngold). Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The Tchaikovsky concerto approaches being over-the-top. This is not necessarily a problem in itself: I like a dynamic artist who is willing to take a firm interpretive stance, and Previn’s accompaniment is surprisingly animated. But Mutter’s frequent scoops become an affectation that significantly detracts from the overall impression of the performance. On the other hand, she is clearly sympathetic to the Korngold concerto. After an intense reading of the first movement, with its intoxicating main theme (used for the film Another Dawn), she plays the second affectionately, culminating in a breathtaking pianissimo ending. Mutter is certainly up to the technical challenges of the flamboyant finale, which includes the main theme from The Prince and the Pauper, but she seems held back by Previn’s less-than-sparkling conducting. As with his DG recording of Korngold film-score suites, Previn seems to feel that this composer’s music must be played slowly. He consistently undercharacterizes the hairpin dynamic contrasts and cross rhythms. More importantly, the Korngold concerto requires a rich and gorgeous tone, and this is something that Mutter either no longer has or chooses to avoid. The dry and opaque sound does not help. Mutter is miked fairly closely, though not to an annoying extent, especially in comparison to Jascha Heifetz’s legendary mono recording of the Korngold concerto. The final staccato chords of the first and third movements are curiously suppressed and poorly focused in a hyper-reverberant sound field. The recording has a nice sense of depth, but the orchestra sounds too dull and distant for this extroverted and floridly romantic music. Call this a potential blockbuster that largely misses the point. Arthur B. Lintgen
	FURTHER LISTENING: Previn: Violin Concerto (Mutter); Barber: Violin Concerto (Hahn)

	Mozart: Piano Sonatas. Evgeni Koroliov, piano. Thomas Angelkorte, producer; Martin Vögele, engineer. Hänssler Classic 98.468. Music: ** 1/2 Sonics: **
	Moscow-born Evgeni Koroliov is a well-pedigreed virtuoso best known for his Bach. Here he successfully turns to a Classical-period repertoire. His precise articulation; even trills; discreet, rhythmic, and coloristic devices; and marvelous blending of classical elegance with controlled strength make this one of the catalog’s select Mozart piano discs. Koroliov’s mastery of Mozart’s idiom is evident from the start, with the early B flat sonata, K. 281 (written by the young composer to strut his stuff at the keyboard, especially in the fleet-fingered Rondo). Koroliov plays with a classical chasteness that doesn’t exclude a variety of keyboard color. In the C major sonata, K. 545, the pianist belies Mozart’s description of the piece as a “small sonata for beginners.” At first, Koroliov’s performance of the great A minor sonata, K. 310, made me wish for a more Romantic interpretation. Koroliov doesn’t moon over the andante cantabile, played with grace and hushed intensity at a flowing tempo (though I still wanted wider dynamics in its harmonically turbulent middle section). But he gets the most important interpretive elements supremely right, revealing the inner turmoil that pervades every movement. Mozart’s F major sonata is a hybrid. The first two movements, K. 533, were quickly written, and, to get his publisher off his back, Mozart tacked on a finale: a free-standing Rondo, K. 494, written earlier. The result is a wondrous work whose Andante is another one of those Mozartian arias that touch the heart, broken by a central section that Koroliov plays with chilling, dramatic thrust—anticipating the slow movements of Schubert’s later sonatas. Recorded in a Stuttgart radio studio, the close-up sound is a good approximation of what’d you’d hear in a small hall. Although somewhat lacking in warmth, details are clear and Koroliov’s radiant trills ring true. DD
	FURTHER LISTENING: Mozart: Piano Sonatas (Brendel and Arrau)

	Antheil: Symphony No. 3. Tom Sawyer. Hot-Time Dance. McKonkey’s Ferry. Capital of the World. Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Hugh Wolff, conductor. Udo Wustendorfer, producer; Rudiger Orth, engineer. CPO 777040. Music: * 1/2 Sonics: ** Buy CD
	Harrison: Suite No. 2 for Strings. Suite for Symphonic Strings. Pipa Concerto. Wu Man, pipa. New Professionals Orchestra of London, Rebecca Miller, conductor. Leta Miller, producer; Gregory Squires, engineer. Mode 140. Music: * 1/2 Sonics: *
	Here are two programs of symphonic music, much of it in first recordings, by two 20th-century American composers who began as convention-flouting avant-gardists, but mellowed with age, pouring out reams of enjoyable symphonies, concertos, suites, ballets, overtures, film scores, and more. George Antheil (1900-1953) began his career with scandal and sensation (in Paris, naturally) as the self-styled “bad boy of music,” producing barbaric noises and outrageous racket in his early ballets. But, by the time he’d finished the pieces on this new CPO disc in the ’40s and ’50s, the furor had long since blown over, and Antheil was sounding like a cross between Shostakovich and Gershwin, with touches of hokey, Virgil Thomson-ish Americana—hymn tunes, juke box ballads, ragtimey shuffles, cowboy songs, and so on—tossed into the mix. There are other elements, too; the Third Symphony’s slow-march andante has a touch of Mahler, while The Capital of the World (a ballet suite) adds some south-of-the-border seasonings to evoke its Iberian setting. Tom Sawyer and McKonkey’s Ferry are short, festive, folksy overtures, and, like the self-descriptive Hot-Time Dance, even less subtle and more frankly meant as entertainment than the longer works. But all of the music is brash, often bounding and bouncing along with reckless, cartoonish energy—even if the sirens, rattling airplane motors, huge percussion arsenals, and manic pianolas of Antheil’s early music, that had so delighted rebellious futurists and raised the hackles of conservatives, are gone. Instead, there are dandy tunes—the music overflows with them—and an uninhibited profusion of styles and instrumental combinations. The “bad boy” has grown up into a lively, but middle-of-the-road, populist composer, with a penchant for catchy vernacular rhythms and brilliant orchestral color. Hugh Wolff and his Frankfurters’ rendering of Antheil’s symphonic works, part of an ongoing cycle, is ideal—as high-spirited, showy, jazzed-up, cinematic, and sheer fun as the music. CPO’s sonics are punchy, immediate, and detailed, yet as airy and refined as conventional CD gets. My only complaint: Where’s the multichannel SACD? Versatile, eclectic, prolific, anti-Establishment, sweetly elfin and militantly gay, Lou Harrison (1917-2003) had none of the ego-driven grandiosity of Antheil. Harrison was something else entirely: an original American hippie. He had all the prerequisites: poverty, libertarian hedonism, uncritical multiculturalism, devotion to primitive lore and “living off the land,” inclusive and optimistic mysticism, impatience with the bourgeois restraints of European tradition, and Puritan morality. Harrison’s music ranges from winsome, folksongy tunelets to chromatic wanderings vaguely descended from Schoenberg to dancey quasi-ceremonial rites and proto-New Age gamelan-style heterophony. It’s always (like the man himself) fluent, unpretentious, relaxed, earthy, and friendly. Typically, as in the 1960 Suite for Symphonic Strings and the 1997 Pipa Concerto, the pieces are assemblages of a half-dozen or more short movements. Andantes are lush, misty, and nostalgic—once in a while, deepening into sorrow all the more authentic for being restrained. Faster movements are dance-like (sometimes spurred on by dry tappings on the wooden body of the instruments), or, on occasion, canonic or fugal. But of the archetypal Beethovenian struggle of theme-against-theme or self-dramatizing, post-Mahlerian romantic angst, there’s not a trace. Western, white neuroses simply weren’t part of Harrison’s psychology. He’d rather import a twangy Asian banjo (as I’d describe the pipa) into a gentle sequence of dances and arias, then call the result a “concerto”—an audible embodiment of our harmonious global village and its acceptance of differences both timbral and cultural. The enterprise may sound naive, but just listen to the daily news to be convinced that it beats the alternative. The New Professionals of London is a smallish string ensemble that plays nicely, if without attaining world-class polish. Pipa soloist Wu Man seems, to my inexpert ears, a more accomplished musician on her instrument. She gets a nice sound—delicate, yet springy, like a gazelle—finding wistful nuances in the bent pitches and ornate roulades that Harrison appropriated from traditional pipa playing-style. Mode’s engineering is clear and well-balanced, with enough (though not exceptional) presence and dynamic range. The string orchestra sounds a bit thin in higher tessituras, but the pipa comes through, with its charming halo of overtone resonance, untarnished. Mark Lehman
	FURTHER LISTENING: Glanville-Hicks: Etruscan Concerto; Virgil Thomson: Filling Station

	SACD
	Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos 1 – 4. Paganini Rhapsody. Stephen Hough, piano. Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton, conductor. Andrew Keener, producer; Jeff Mee, engineer. Hybrid multichannel. Hyperion 67501/2 (2 discs). Music: ** Sonics: *
	Some multichannel recordings put you in the front row, while others provide a mid-hall perspective. With this Rachmaninoff set, it’s almost as though you’ve arrived late for the concert and a sympathetic usher has let you slip in to stand near the rear of the auditorium. The 4.0 surround sound makes for one of the more self-effacing concerto recordings you’ll hear. It’s certainly honest: no larger-than-life soloist here, as the piano, while always completely audible, is integrated into the orchestral fabric of these wonderful pieces. The solo instrument doesn’t possess much 3-D body; playing the disc loudly enough, though, assures satisfactory impact. Tonally, the sound is smooth and non-fatiguing, if a little dull on top. In stereo, there’s still a back-of-the-hall sonic viewpoint, but it doesn’t call as much attention to itself. For those with the choice, two-channel may be the better way to experience these estimable performances. And estimable they are. One of TAS’ Ten Best Classical releases of 2004, the emphasis is on musical values rather than pianistic ones, even though Stephen Hough surely has technique to burn—all the more impressive as the four concertos were recorded at live performances. In a liner-note essay, Hough speaks of attention to “concert performance practice” applying not only to Baroque and Classical-era compositions, but to later fare, as well. He makes these well-worn works sound remarkably fresh. Hough and conductor Litton never come close to sloppy sentimentality, but there’s nothing cool or calculating about these engaging readings. They do a great job of rendering the individual character of each concerto—No. 3’s lean intensity, the enveloping sensuousness of No. 2, No. 1’s imposing monumentality, and No. 4’s tightly-argued emotional liability. Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was recorded a year earlier, without an audience. It’s dazzling, and, as in the concertos, the orchestra plays as impressively as the pianist. There are lots of choices for SACD Rachmaninoff: Volodos, Nakamatsu, Pletnev, Scherbakov, Lang Lang, and, of course, Byron Janis on Mercury. But Hough is well worth acquiring, even if you have any or all of these, for the ubiquitous Second and Third, as well as the less frequently encountered First and Fourth. AQ
	FURTHER LISTENING: Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos 2 & 3 (Janis). (SACD); Hummel: Piano Concertos (Hough)

	SACD/DVD-A
	Steiner: The Adventures of Mark Twain. Moscow Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, William Stromberg, conductor. Betta International, producer; Genadiy Papin, engineer. Naxos 6.110087 (SACD), 5.110087 (DVD-A). Music: *** Sonics: 1/2 (SACD), ** (DVD-A)
	Marco Polo’s recordings of Golden Age of Film music classics (conducted by William Stromberg, with score restorations by John Morgan) have achieved a consistent level of excellence, comparable to Charles Gerhardt’s RCA Classic Film Score Series. With The Adventures of Mark Twain, these recordings switch to Naxos. Sound and performances remain unchanged, but program notes and production values are less extravagant. This may be the best release yet from Stromberg and Morgan. Stromberg has shown a closer affinity to Max Steiner than to other Golden Age composers. His performances of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre; All This, and Heaven Too; and A Stolen Life are uncanny in the way they capture the sound of Steiner and the 1940s Warner Brothers orchestra. The Adventures of Mark Twain is a virtual compendium of the composer’s style at its best—rich, diatonic chords, gorgeous melodies, and comic woodwind effects, culminating in an outrageous contrabassoon solo. Alas, Mark Twain also demonstrates Steiner’s annoying tendency to quote every song or melody he can think of, regardless of its musical relevance. Nevertheless, all of this is wrapped into a remarkably cohesive dramatic orchestral score that showcases the composer’s highly personal view of Americana, complete with hints of Gershwin and some Straussian Viennese overtones. Stromberg unashamedly draws every ounce of decadent lushness out of the music, and the performance is helped immeasurably by magnificent sound. In stereo, SACD presents an aggressive, front-row perspective that seriously lacks depth. The DVD-A is transferred at a substantially lower level, but when the volume is adjusted to match the SACD in stereo, there is a more realistic sense of depth from a mid-hall vantage point. In multichannel, the volume differences persist but are less obvious. Multichannel SACD metamorphoses the flattened stereo soundstage into a glorious, fifth-row, concert-hall perspective. Instrumental textures are rich and sweet, and the rear channels are utilized conservatively in a manner that further augments ambient information. The DVD-A adds a soft digital glaze that makes the strings dryer and less involving. The prominent woodwind solos are more immediate and better focused on SACD. Contrabassoon is not egregiously spotlighted in multichannel, but the body of the instrument sounds artificially separated from the buzz of its double reed on DVD-A (which sounds great until the SACD grabs you by the throat). An insulin infusion may be necessary for some listeners to facilitate digestion of The Adventures of Mark Twain, but this is an essential feast for Steiner fans. Aside from his concert Suite from Gone With the Wind, I can’t imagine a better performance or introduction to Steiner’s music. ABL
	FURTHER LISTENING: Steiner: King Kong (Stromberg); Waxman: Mr. Skeffington (Stromberg)

	DVD-A
	Mahler: Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”). Totenfeier. Melanie Diener, soprano; Petra Lang, mezzo-soprano. Prague Philharmonic Choir. Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly, conductor. Andrew Cornall, producer; Wolf-Dieter Karwatky, Jürgen Bulgrin and Graham Meek, engineers. Decca 3345. Music: * 1/2 Sonics: 1/2
	Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique. Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Colin Davis, conductor. Mike Bremner, producer; Erdo Groot, engineer. Philips 3347. Music: * Sonics: **
	Although an occasional letter to the editor maintains otherwise, TAS has consistently covered DVD-A as diligently as SACD. This despite the fact that there’s significantly more available software on the Super Audio format. (For example, ArkivMusic.com, probably the best online source of classical recordings, had listed, as of this writing, 571 SACDs to 162 DVD-As.) But Universal Classics continues to keep things interesting with a recent batch of worthy DVD-As, including these. Riccardo Chailly is one of the best Mahler conductors currently active. He constantly gives close attention to detail and moment-to-moment emotional affect, without seeming fussy or losing sight of the big picture. In this way, he’s not dissimilar to another contemporary Mahler interpreter, Michael Tilson Thomas, yet Chailly’s vision is perhaps more focused and direct, less “neurotic,” in a Bernsteinian sense. The opening movement of his Second is dramatically taut, with a tone that’s not so much grim as determined—a portrayal of an epic struggle. The finale is knowingly stage-managed for maximum cathartic impact. The 5.1 multichannel (48kHz/24-bit) is nicely layered and dynamic, though pretty conservative. (What I remember most about the one concert I heard at the Concertgebouw is the sensation of being immersed in the orchestra’s sound.) Chailly clearly places supplemental brasses out in the hall at the end, as he did when he performed the “Resurrection” with the RCO in Philadelphia a few years ago. As a bonus, Chailly plays the Totenfeier, Mahler’s first version of the Second Symphony’s first movement. That performance is provided only in two-channel; the stereo program on this DVD-A runs an impressive 111 minutes. Colin Davis, an acknowledged Berlioz specialist, has four commercial recordings of Symphonie fantastique available. Best is his 1974 reading with the Concertgebouw, but this 1990 VPO performance is far from negligible, as Davis fully realizes the score’s lyrical expansiveness, narrative specificity, and revolutionary orchestral color. Vienna’s Musikverein has long proved a challenge for engineers and the 5.0 surround program is very appealing, providing an excellent sense of the large room and warm, clear sound. The dialog between English horn and oboe that begins “Scene in the Country” has the latter instrument not too distant—just over the next hill. In “Sabbath Night’s Dream,” bells ring out with exceptional clarity from behind the listening position. The multichannel is 44.1kHz/24-bit; for some reason the stereo program is 44.1kHz/16-bit—CD quality, but a very good CD, indeed. AQ
	FURTHER LISTENING: Mahler: Symphony No. 2 (Tilson Thomas). (SACD); Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique (Järvi). (SACD)