The Full Works Concert - Tuesday 29 October 2013
Jane Jones highlights some of this autumn’s best new classical releases.
Tonight's concert of new releases starts with a fresh and energising performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto in C minor for Violin and Oboe. It's performed by the violinist Janine Jansen with award-winning oboist Ramón Ortega Quero. Janine’s ensemble accompaniment on the recording includes her brother, cellist Maarten Jansen, and her father, harpsichordist Jan Jansen.
The Piano Concerto in F by George Gershwin, composed in 1925, represents one of his finest syntheses of the classical and jazz traditions and demonstrates his extraordinary skill as a tunesmith. Xiayin Wang has previously shown her natural affinity with Gershwin’s music and applies all the same verve, brilliance and delight to this new version of the concerto.
Howard Blake's Flute Concerto was commissioned in 1996. It's a melodious and polished work which has the ease of Mozart, attractive, easily approachable and full of memorable tunes.
A piano interlude follows with Valentine Lisitsa playing Schubert's Ave Maria, transcribed by Franz Liszt.
Earlier this year, the great violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Berlin Philharmonic reunited to make their first studio album together in almost 30 years. The album pairs Dvorák's Violin Concerto with his fiery Mazurek, and the Romance in F minor for violin and orchestra. The chemistry between soloist and orchestra is very much present, which is to be expected after such an enduring relationship. And the performances vividly capture the colour, melancholy and folklore-tinged tunefulness that are Dvorák's trademark.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Concerto in C minor for Violin and Oboe
Violin: Janine Jansen
Oboe: Ramón Ortega Quero
Janine Jansen Ensemble
George Gershwin: Concerto in F
Piano: Xiayin Wang
Peter Oundjian conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Howard Blake: Flute Concerto
Flute: Jamie Martin
Neville Marriner conducts the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Franz Schubert, trans. Liszt: Ave Maria
Piano: Valentina Lisitsa
Antonin Dvorak: Violin Concerto in A minor
Violin: Anne-Sophie Mutter
Manfred Honeck conducts the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
