This week Classical reviewer Geoff Adams listens to the charming violin concertos of Charles-Auguste de Beriot, and range of works by one of America's greatest composers, Charles Ives.
Charles-Auguste de Beriot was a 19th-century distinguished Belgian violinist, father of the Franco-Belgian school of playing.
He wrote 10 violin concertos in the youthful high spirits of romanticism that should be better known.
Beriot's three concertos here combine French cantabile, charm and elegance with virtuoso pyrotechnics pioneered by Paganini.
Quint, a Russian-born American, copes well with the bravura of No. 2 and 3, which include brilliant displays of ferocious double-stopping, left-hand pizzicato, arpeggios and harmonics.
While No. 5 is a simpler, more playful work, it also has "con furia" markings.
Highlight: interesting, unfamiliar music - but balance makes the soloist sound recede at times.
Ives has been called the greatest American composer by Time magazine (and Leonard Bernstein.) His reputation rests on orchestral, chamber and piano music, but he wrote almost 200 songs.
Ives' father, a Civil War band leader, taught him to respect the power of vernacular and sentimental music.
There are no fewer than 33 songs on this third volume (titles H to L) of recordings of all his completed songs.
Lyric texts come from many different sources, ranging from classic poets to Rudyard Kipling, Goethe and Ives himself.
There are 18 American singers featured with accompaniment, recorded in Yale University.
Highlight: good performances, brief notes on each song - alas no lyrics printed to assist listening.
