Subtle Distortions

This is a most enjoyable disk of Berio Orchestral Transcriptions performed by the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Guiseppe Verdi conducted by Riccardo Chailly. The transcriptions featured are by Purcell, Bach, Boccherini, Mozart, Schubert and Brahms and display Berio's immense respect and love of tradition despite his somewhat fearsome avant garde reputation. Indeed, only the Mozart piece, Variations on the Papageno Aria "Ein Madchen oder Weibchen", is subjected to a thorough deconstruction into an almost unrecognisable modernist piece and even this is not that daunting a listen. For the other works on the disk, Berio adds subtle orchestral colouring which shades and enhances the sound world to make for a rewarding experience, as if the aural equivalent of viewing an image through a distorting mirror. This makeover is given to a short Purcell hornpipe, to Contrapunctus XIX by Bach, to Boccherini's Ritirata Notturna di Madrid, to Rendering For Orchestra ( the Schuberrt piece which perhaps has the widest exposure of all these works ) and to Brahms's Sonata for Clarinet and Orchestra in F minor, where Fausto Ghiazza is the accomplished soloist.