Late 20th Century Concertos

The very promising young English violinist Chloe Hanslip is joined on this disk by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin in a programme centred around John Adams's Violin Concerto and the Chaccone from The Red Violin which John Corigliano assembled from the music he wrote for that movie. There are also two other works contributed by Franz Waxman; an arrangement of Enescu's short Romanian Rhapsody No 1 and his own Tristan and Isolde Fantasia. The pieces featured offer a broad survey of American violin music. The Red Violin music is a set of variations that Corigliano has since expanded into a full blown concerto but this was the firsr attempt to turn the music into a concert piece. The Hollywood film composer Waxman was one of those who fles the Nazis prior to WW2 and the Enescu is an arrangement of an arrangement, the Romanian composer having taken a traditional melody for his rhapsody. The Tristan work contains a demanding obbligato piano part played on this recording by Charles Owen and was originally part of the climax to the film Humoresque. It is in the tradition of romantic emigre Hollywood film music and recognisable as such. The disk closes with Adams's popular concerto, a virtuosic tour de force in which the soloist almost never stops playing. Although closely associated with Leila Josefowicz, Chloe Hanslip does an admirable job on this recommendable budget disk.