Fleming and Terfel sing show tunes

“Renee & Bryn:

Under the Stars”

Renee Fleming, soprano. Bryn Terfel, bass-baritone. Orchestra of Welsh National Opera. Paul Gemignani, conductor. (Decca)

**

Maybe if opera stars Fleming and Terfel had stuck to the original scorings, this crossover disc of show tunes would sound less exaggerated. But almost every one of the pieces has been arranged by different people into a big, soupy extravaganza. They all begin to sound alike; the only difference is at what point the vaulting fortissimo will occur. Terfel sounds more natural than Fleming, who pushes the material hard. Texts are provided, but there is no information about the shows from which the selections are drawn. A concert, which includes most of this material, was broadcast nationally on PBS; KCET-TV, however, has yet to schedule it.

-- Chris Pasles

Comparing Bach, side by side

Bach: Partitas Nos. 1, 3 and 6

Richard Goode, piano. (Nonesuch)

*** 1/2

Bach: Partitas Nos. 1, 3 and 6

Piotr Anderszewski, piano. (Virgin Classics)

***

With these two additions to the buckling Bach keyboard CD shelf, Goode completes his cycle of the six Partitas while Anderszewski launches his -- coincidentally choosing the same components. With its lack of markings, speed indications and such, Bach’s music gives you a lot of room to roam -- and Anderszewski takes more freewheeling chances. Expanding upon a Glenn Gould idea, Anderszewski does something really weird in the Menuet II of Partita No. 1, playing the repeats an octave higher so that they sound like echoes from a music box. That’s stretching the fabric too far. In Partitas Nos. 3 and 6, where Anderszewski sometimes loses focus, Goode builds momentum until they explode in sequences of jolly dances at the end. In the final analysis, Goode’s better-recorded renditions are more satisfying because he treats each Partita as a whole, evolving organism.

-- Richard S. Ginell

A concerted reexamination

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3; Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3.

Mikhail Pletnev, piano. Russian National Orchestra. Mstislav Rostropovich, conductor. (Deutsche Grammophon)

*** 1/2

Here’s a surprise. Pletnev and Rostropovich’s Rachmaninoff is straight, literal, driven and dry, not at all the sumptuous, lush, sloppy last-Romantic we’ve become accustomed to. What a relief. In this sense, they’re closer to Rachmaninoff’s own recording of the Third Concerto with conductor Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1939, although lacking in the composer’s nuances. Their Prokofiev, in contrast, is more coloristic and impressionistic than merely mechanical and hard-edged, as is the common tack. But it lacks nothing in drive and excitement.

The end result: Two quintessential Russian musicians make us rethink the stereotypes.

-- C.P.

Yo-Yo Ma, in the French style

Paris: La Belle Epoque.

Yo-Yo Ma, cello. Kathryn Stott, piano. (Sony)

*** 1/2

This is no nostalgia trip back to a fey, bygone era in the City of Light -- which happens to be where Ma was born, to American parents in 1955 -- not when the music is played with such taste, restraint and mercurial lightness. Three of the four pieces are transcriptions by Ma and work wonderfully well: the reflective “Meditation” from Massenet’s “Thais,” Faure’s eloquent Violin Sonata No. 1 and Saint-Saens’ sauve “Havanaise.” In all of them, Ma knows exactly when to make a line impassioned and when to hold back. Also on the disc: an earlier, unidentified transcription of Franck’s seductive Violin Sonata in A, which inspired Proust to create the character of the composer Vinteuil in his epic “Remembrance of Things Past.” Stott is a wonderful partner.

-- C.P.