• The Russian conductor Vladimir Jurowski, beloved of British audiences for his long stints with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Glyndebourne, became music director of the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, in 2021. Suppressing any envy, we can enjoy the fruits of their collaboration in a new own-label live recording: Beethoven’s Symphony No 2 in D is paired with Brett Dean’s Testament: Music for Orchestra (2008).
The symphony, often thought small because of what came later, has a grandeur and explosive rigour, superbly brought out here. Woodwinds burst with character, especially in the third-movement Scherzo, in which Jurowski allows them full rein. Strings are agile, pinpointing every accent or dynamic, skittering madly but securely in the wild finale. Dean’s Testament, with its ghostly echoes of Beethoven, makes a striking and ideal match. Enough Beethoven symphonies out there already? Not when they are this good.
• Ignorance hits us from all directions: I had barely noticed the existence of John Frederick Lampe (1703-51) until his comic opera The Dragon of Wantley (Resonus) landed in CD form from conductor John Andrews, the Brook Street Band and a top quartet of soloists (Mary Bevan, Catherine Carby, Mark Wilde and John Savournin). Lampe, a younger contemporary of Handel, was a bassoonist in London’s opera houses and played at the coronation of George II.
In this farce, which lampoons absurd operatic traditions of the time, a dragon has been terrorising a South Yorkshire village. It’s full of lively dances and arias and a few noisy, lip-smacking kisses. The work has been staged in recent years, but this is a world premiere recording. With full text and detailed background notes (by Annette Rubery), it fills a gap for students of the 18th-century English stage, but the commitment of these performers creates its own, wider pleasure.
• Catch this week’s lunchtime concerts from East Neuk festival, Fife: the Pavel Haas Quartet and Boris Giltburg, the Elias Quartet and friends, and pianists Samson Tsoy and Pavel Kolesnikov. Radio 3, Tuesday to Friday, 1pm/ BBC Sounds.
