Classical home listening: Param Vir, Prokofiev, Copland and Poulenc

An album devoted to the music of Param Vir was worth the wait. And three wartime sonatas inspire Benjamin Baker and Daniel Lebhardt

Param Vir’s Wheeling Past the Stars (NMC), the title taken from his settings of texts by Rabindranath Tagore, could be an exemplar for life: many styles and traditions living freely, fruitfully, distinctly, in the mind of one person. Born in Delhi in 1952, UK-based, Vir combines the Indian classical music of his formative years and the western tradition he later embraced, studying with Peter Maxwell Davies and Oliver Knussen.

Raga Fields (2014), conductor Enno Poppe, forges the improvisatory framework of a raga, for sarod soloist (the virtuosic Soumik Datta), with notated passages for 17 ensemble players, here Klangforum Wien. The result is meditative and sonically inventive, neither crossover nor pastiche. The Tagore cycle, for cello (Ulrich Heinen) and soprano (Patricia Auchterlonie), sets four sharply contrasting poems. Auchterlonie’s assured coloratura and Heinen’s springy pizzicato, delicate harmonics and rushes of glissando act in sensuous dialogue. Before Krishna (1987, London Chamber Orchestra) and Hayagriva (2005, Schönberg Ensemble) complete this album, the first – long overdue – dedicated to Vir’s aurally rich music.

• In 1942: Prokofiev, Copland, Poulenc (Delphian), the violinist Benjamin Baker and pianist Daniel Lebhardt have grouped three sonatas dating from the same year in the second world war (the context sketched in a deft programme note by Andrew Mellor). Copland’s only work in the form, spare in texture, elegiac in mood, demands minimal vibrato and, often, fast, light bowing by the violinist. Baker’s playing is agile and unforced, giving rein to the music’s lean lyricism.

Poulenc’s sonata, written at the behest of the violinist Ginette Neveu, who gave the premiere, is expansive and dramatic in comparison. The central Intermezzo is characterised by extended double-stopping, perfectly placed by Baker. In the presto finale, Lebhardt gracefully lets rip, while the violinist skitters fearlessly in rapid trills, runs and pizzicato.

Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No 2 in D (adapted from his Flute Sonata, Op 94 at the request of the violinist David Oistrakh) has an airy transparency and wit: the composer at his most insouciant, with no hint of darkness and only the odd sharp corner. This young duo’s first recording on Delphian deserves every success.

• As part of Radio 3’s Scotland Week, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra performs Andrzej Panufnik’s rarely heard Symphony No 3, and Nicola Benedetti is soloist in Szymanowski’s First Violin Concerto, recorded earlier this spring. Friday, BBC Radio 3, 7.30pm.

Contributor

Fiona Maddocks

The GuardianTramp

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