ALISSA FIRSOVA Fantasy

Alissa Firsova may be the mature side of 30 but this album radiates youth in all its wonder, complexity and heartening naivety. Any caveats implied by that observation are largely blown away by the ferocity of Firsova’s expression and there are countless moments on this disc where you feel her writing in the white heat of total inspiration.

Many of them come in Bride of the Wind for two pianists, a reflection on the love between Oskar Kokoschka and Alma Mahler that obviously yet transcendentally captures the idea of two souls so wrapped up in one another that their relationship is as fraught, precarious and charged as is its ecstatic. There are many levels on which Firsova harnesses that feeling: one pianist knowingly completing another’s thoughts; one instrument rubbing against the other like a huge, grinding hulk in an act that could almost prove fatal.

Much of the music here is explicitly linked to beautiful experiences in Firsova’s life. In Loss for clarinet quintet, we hear the gargantuan frustration of bliss: the idea that paradise knowingly excludes realities both mundane and horrific. Clarinettist Marc van der Wiel’s playing is hypnotic. In Tennyson Fantasy for string quartet, Firsova uses contradictory elements to temper the music’s gush, though there are moments here when romantic idealism gets the better of her.

Not, however, in the extraordinary passacaglia, which twists itself on to a single F natural and again speaks of the fragility of beautiful things and feelings. Masterly constructed, too, is Eternity for clarinet and piano, an expression of the eternal that Firsova was determined should last no more than two minutes. Ellie Laugharne’s striking delivery in ‘Here in Canisy’ is a little grand for the sense Firsova conveys – surely awestruck rather than striking awe – and it’s hard to discern the words. The Brittenesque augmented fifths and miniature blossoming episodes of this song and ‘Unity’ (for baritone) are highly evocative yet it’s remarkable that, despite using established forms and often rooting her music tonally or modally, no figure looms over Firsova’s shoulder to tell you any of this is received, learnt or overly influenced. A striking composer from whom I look forward to hearing more – especially, I hope it’s not too cynical to say, when life has given her more than the residual tragedy of paradise to reflect upon. (Andrew Mellor / Gramophone)

Philharmonia Orchestra / Paavo Järvi NIELSEN Flute Concerto - Clarinet Concert - Aladdin Suite

Carl Nielsen's two late woodwind concertos are performed here by the Philharmonia Orchestra with its own principals, in live recordings (no applause) at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Both works were conceived as portraits of their first soloists. Samuel Coles neatly personifies the fastidious Gilbert Jespersen, maintaining elegance and integrity in response to the intrusions of the orchestra, including a particularly obnoxious bass trombone. The controlled orchestral playing and the natural sound balance create a nice sense of chamber-music interplay between the soloist and his colleagues—including, sensibly, a solo violin rather than a whole section for the flickering runs at 2:35 in the first movement. Mark van de Wiel is equally convincing as the choleric Aage Oxenvad, responding angrily to the orchestra, and in the virtuoso cadenzas equally capable of picking a fight with himself. Unfortunately, the side drum, which frequently eggs him on, all but disappears from the balance at lower dynamic levels.

A rival account of the concertos by the New York Philharmonic with its principals under Alan Gilbert, on Dacapo, boasts equally fine solo and orchestral playing, but the recording shines more of a spotlight on the soloists (and on a larger-than-life trombone). That disc completes the set of Nielsen's concertos with an outstanding account of the Violin Concerto by Nikolaj Znaider. This one adds a colourful studio recording of the Suite from the music for the play Aladdin, with its Ivesian depiction of 'The Marketplace in Ispahan' in four superimposed, unrelated strands of music. (BBC Music Magazine)