Adele Bitter (cello) et al; Deutches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Johannes Zurl
EDA Records eda 48 66:21 mins
All five of the composers on this album did, for a time, call Paris home. But beyond that, not only does the spirit of Stravinsky animate three of the works here, the selection ends with his Octet. While I’m always delighted to hear this joyous masterpiece, I do wonder how kind it is to the Romanian Marcel Mihalovici, the Pole Szymon Laks and the American George Antheil to record it together with works of theirs all similarly based on wind instruments.
Antheil is probably best remembered for his Ballet mécanique of 1925, for his entertaining autobiography Bad Boy of Music and, in more rarefied circles, for his work during World War II on electrically driven torpedos. His Concerto for chamber orchestra of 1932 throws around Stravinskian scales and repeated notes, but at over 16 minutes outstays its welcome. Mihalovici’s Two Etudes of 1952 are better constructed, through syncopations, surprises, melismas, humour and drive, and both have splendid endings.
But the star of the album, Stravinsky apart, is undoubtedly the Pole Szymon Laks, who ended the war conducting the prisoners’ orchestra in Auschwitz. His Concerto da camera of 1964, written for piano, nine wind instruments and percussion, and tapping into Polish and Jewish folk music as well as French chansons, is deeply impressive, ending with a splendid fugue. The reviewer of its premiere wrote, ‘Tumultuously applauded, he could fortunately convince himself that music today is still able to smile and enchant’ – the reference being to what has been called the ‘serial terror’ or, by Poulenc, ‘dodécaca’. The playing in all these pieces, and in Ibert’s First Cello Concerto, is superb.