Lionel Bringuier & Nelson FreireBelAir
Bringuier, 26, is the youngest conductor since Gustavo Dudamel to take command of a world-class orchestra. He has been announced, almost unknown, as David Zinman’s successor at the Zurich Tonhalle and there’s much curiosity as to what he can do. This DVD of a 2010 BBC Proms concert is the first evidence of his abilities on record.Looking even younger than he really is, Bringuier opens with a Toscanini favourite – Berlioz’s Le Corsaire overture – and makes it entirely his own. Barely a minute in, he freezes the tempo to release the most delicate of clarinet lines. It’s a daring gesture, a declaration of intent: this conductor knows exactly what’s needed to bring the music to life.In the concerto, Chopin’s second, the august Brazilian soloist Nelson Freire turns deeply inward, with little for the conductor to do except keep the orchestra in harness. The symphony is Albert Roussel’s Third, a relative rarity outside of France. Bringuier teases out the emotion that lies beneath its brocaded bourgeois formality, no small feat for an interpreter. DVD may not be everyone’s favourite format for listening to music but, if this young man goes half as far as the Zurich musicians predict, this debut release will be a collector’s item many years from now.Three cello concerto CDsMoeranNaxosErnest Moeran’s post-war oncerto of 1945 is reminiscent all too frequently of Elgar’s, replacing its emotional wrench with gentle nostalgia. Guy Johnston gives a lovely, lyrical account. The Ulster Orchestra append Moeran’s Merrie England Serenade in G.Strauss: Don QuixoteHyperionThere hasn’t been a fresher performance in years of the ‘fantastic variations’ that this. Alban Gerhardt is the dominant Don, Lawrence Power’s viola his Sancho Panza. Markus Stenz conducts the excellent Gurzenich Orchestra of Cologne. Till Eulenspiegel is the filler. Lovely.Bloch, Bridge, HoughBisSteven Isserlis’s attack on Bloch’s Schelomo is fiercer by half than Natalie Clein’s recent stunner, and maybe more authentic; the Kings of Israel were not softies. His account of Frank Bridge’s Oration is vigorous and eloquent. The slight let-down is the rambling third piece, Stephen Hough’s The Loneliest Wilderness. Hugh Wolf conducts the DSO Berlin.___Norman Lebrecht is a regular presenter on BBC Radio 3 and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and other publications. He has written 12 books about music, the most recent being Why Mahler? He hosts the blog Slipped Disc.
