Jörg Faerber - Dittersdorf, Stamitz: Concertos (2011)

Though much of his life was devoted to opera, Dittersdorf was obviously a string player at heart; and no eighteenth-century string player could get far without writing a fair ration of concertos. Nor did the concertos have to be exclusively for the violin. Vivaldi might not have been much impressed, but the rest of us can take joy in Dittersdorf's more eccentric choices of soloist from time to time.

A bass concerto, for example! Here is something for the library, as Hörtnagel steers his rather broad-beamed ship through previously uncharted channels, disclosing in the process some uncannily in-tune double stopping, as well as some resourceful and effective harmonics (and as well an occasional difference of opinion with the conductor about suitable tempo). For the Sinfonia Concertante Hörtnagel is joined by Granter Lemmen on viola, the pair of them playing duets as cheerfully as if it were daily routine (indeed the resemblance to the sound of a violin and 'cello double concerto played at too slow a turntable speed is sometimes uncanny).

More familiar tasks await Helga Storck in the harp concerto. For all this figuration is only too well known from the piano music of the period; a separate technique of harp writing had hardly yet been thought up (and certainly wasn't, even by Mozart when about this time he had the opportunity put in his lap). Yet if the ear can be closed to the blur resulting from all those undamped scales the sound is an attractive as well as certainly an unusual one.

The varied soloists are all well supported by the orchestra, and well balanced with it in a recording which (except in one or two moments when the harp seems to catch the mike) is good in both mono and an agreeably crisp stereo. The Sinfonia Concertante is divided between the two sides of the disc; but each of the concertos proper is complete and undivided.