C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)

This is one of the analogue recordings produced and engineered by David Wilson now being distributed in high-res digital transfers via Naxos (in the States). These two sonatas appeared on LP in 1984 [W-8315] and were recorded at a hall in Oakland, California, using a simple Schoeps mic set-up suspended high over the players. Abel and Steinberg play respectively a Guarneri violin and a Hamburg Steinway D. It’s a pleasure to hear such clean, true piano sound, albeit with some pedal noise – although the violinist proves the more interesting interpreter.

In 2007 Vladimir Ashkenazy decided to relinquish playing the pianoforte in public but has continued to make studio recordings. (That same year, at 24 Visontay became joint leader of the Philharmonia Orchestra. ) Simultaneously released in Aug ’13 as a CD and via high-res outlets, this programme realises his dream of recording all of Rachmaninov’s music involving piano, which Ashkenazy began 50 years ago for Decca with the D-minor Concerto. The evergreen Vocalise is heard here in the original key of C-sharp minor with violin/piano, while ‘Dream’ is a transcription by the cellist from the Six Songs, Op.

The young Britten’s Piano Concerto was thought too clever by half when introduced in 1938, and he replaced the third movement in 1945 – the original is a bonus track here. The first LP version (EMI, 1957) was with Jacques Abram, pianist in Utah and NY premieres. The definitive composer-conducted 1970 Decca was with Sviatoslav Richter, no less. The far superior Violin Concerto fared rather better – although The Times’ review in 1940 found ‘little achieved from so large a display’.

A raucous Gershwin Prelude segues into Copland’s moody Concerto – one of his best pieces – then time-travels via Debussy (‘La fille aux cheveux de lin’) and Amy Beach (her romantic Berceuse) to 19th century concertos by Cimarosa and Spohr. Short transcriptions and concertos alternate in what may add up to a stylistically incoherent whole but one which affords the young Austrian Andreas Ottensamer, now principal clarinettist with the Berlin Philharmonic, a chance to illustrate his captivating skills in both jazzy and classical genres. His liquid sounds, wide colour palette and sense of timing sets this version of the Copland above any competition (even the recent Michael Collins/Chandos pales) and the Rotterdam Orchestra surprises in its exuberant embrace of the two American pieces. Bold, close-mic’d sound from De Doelen concert-hall.