This week Geoff Adams reviews From the Top at the Pops and Dvorak and Herbert: Cello Concertos.
Get this last recording by conductor Erich Kunzel, who died last month. Since 1977 the US maestro recorded more than 85 Telarc albums, more than 55 appearing in the top 10 of the Billboard classical charts. From the Top concerts highlight the top pre-college classical musicians of America.
The disc is a sampler of talents of composer Stephen Feigenbaum, aged 19 (Serenade for Strings), a 12-year-old pianist and another five prodigious teenagers all accompanied by orchestra.
We hear excellent performances of movements out of Bruch and Mendelssohn violin concertos, Grieg and Bach piano concertos, and a tenor saxophonist in part of Peck's The Upward Stream. A cellist plays Hopper's Hungarian Rhapsodie, Op.68.
Highlight: Caroline Goulding (16) in finale of the rarely heard Mendelssohn Concerto for Violin, Piano and Strings.
Capucon, recent soloist with the NZSO, plays the famous Dvorak concerto with neat phrasing and soulful interpretation, producing a very sweet tone. The Frenchman lacks the intensity or commanding power of some virtuosi but gives an appealing reading.
Paavo Jarvi, conducting the accompanying radio orchestra, hampered with an initial slack tempo, and orchestral playing does not reach top class.
The lesser Cello Concerto No 2 by Victor Herbert (1859-1924), himself an excellent cellist, demanded more energy. Capucon obliged. Opening movement Allegro Impetuoso is a stormily romantic dialogue between orchestra and cellist. After a dreamy central movement, the finale shocks by sounding like an overture to a musical comedy. (Herbert was soloist at the work's premiere in New York, in 1894.)
Highlight: Sweet soulful cello.
