Andrew Manze reviews

R Martinsson: Open Mind; Orchestral Songs on Poems by Emily Dickinson; A.S. in Memoriam; Concerto for Orchestra

Lisa Larsson; Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Manze, Sakari Oramo  (BIS)

Berlioz: Harold in Italy; La Captive; plus works by Weber and Martini

Lawrence Power (viola); Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Manze (Hyperion)

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 5 and 7

NDR Radio Philharmonic/Andrew Manze (Pentatone)

Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1; Walton: Viola Concerto; Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending

Isabelle van Keulen; NDR Radiophilharmonie/Andrew Manze, Keri-Lynn Wilson, Andrew Litton (Challenge Classics)

Brahms: Double Concerto/ R Schumann: Violin Concerto

Antje Weithaas (violin), Maximilian Hornung (cello); NDR Radiophilharmonie/Andrew Manze (CPO)

James Ehnes and the RLPO pay handsome homage to Vaughan Williams

‘The music sounds as rapturously beautiful as ever’

James Ehnes performs violin concertos by Beethoven & Schubert with 'warmth and sweetness'

‘The whole gigantic scheme is serene’, the early 20th-century music analyst Donald Francis Tovey aptly remarked of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. It’s as though the composer had deliberately set out to write a work almost entirely devoid of tension within the essentially dramatic form of the concerto – much as he did for the symphony a couple of years later, with the Pastoral.

Vivaldi: Le quattro stagioni; Oboe Concerto in A minor, RV 285a; Oboe Concerto in D minor, RV 465

It takes a brave man to attempt a new recording of Vivaldi’s most frequently played concertos, but then Ton Koopman’s direction is nothing if not bold. Of the nearly one hundred recordings currently available, this new one is one of the most successful in conveying the extraordinary range of mood in this early programme music, from steamy languor to frenzied impetuosity. Koopman’s account of ‘Summer’, in particular, is a tour de force, conjuring up all the drama of stormy weather on the Venetian lagoon.