Capricorn Concerto / A Hand of Bridge / Canzonetta / Intermezzo

Album review

Barber: Capricorn Concerto concludes Naxos American Classics' six-disc survey of the complete orchestral music of Samuel Barber as performed by Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Far from being a collection of odds and ends, this gathering of lesser-known material directly contrasts the optimistic and extroverted moods of Barber's early and mid-periods with more insular, personal, and retiring music dating from his last years. One wonders why the Capricorn Concerto is so seldom recorded -- its mixture of sunny idealism and worried counterpoint is every bit as appealing as Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. In 1959, Howard Hanson made a recording of this work with the Eastman-Rochester Pops Orchestra, which was so good perhaps the record companies decided we didn't need another one! One thing this Naxos recording has that the Hanson does not is a true sense of sonic depth, and in this work it is good to hear the loud music "loudly" and the quiet music "quietly." Barber's micro-opera A Hand of Bridge is an unusual choice for a collection devoted to orchestral music, but here it works well, helping break up and vary the overall program. The singing is decent, but mezzo-soprano Louise Winter seems to make the most of her part. Oboist Stéphane Rancourt is given top billing among the soloists on the back cover, and rightly so. Rancourt not only plays well in his feature, the Canzonetta for oboe & strings, but is noticeably good in every instance on the disc where the oboe appears. Mutations from Bach is a late-period oddity for brass that nonetheless shares some common ground with Elliott Carter's A Fantasy About Purcell's "Fantasia on One Note"; this reviewer had never before heard it, and perhaps the element of surprise it inspired here will be felt likewise by the listener. The remaining pieces are handled by Alsop with tender loving care. Fadograph of a Yestern Scene is particularly well shaped and atmospherically true, and yet none of Barber's works are looked upon as secondary, an aspect of this project that sets it apart from the competition. Barber: Capricorn Concerto is a fine conclusion to what has proven a useful, edifying, and highly engaging set of recordings of a composer we all thought we knew, but certainly do know better now.
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