Maderna, Berio - Now, and Then

The Guardian 60

Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana/Davies
(ECM)

A heady mix of new and old: the first recording of Berio’s Chemins V for solo guitar and small orchestra weaves a sensuous aura around the guitar’s nostalgic flamenco chords; atmospheric but elusive. The transcriptions of early Italian music by Bruno Maderna are in a style much favoured earlier in the 20th century, done with real taste. Dennis Russell Davies’s fine orchestra plays them with a clarity and poise that is rather untypical of their era. In the final Palestrina-Konzert, Maderna re-orchestrates a piece once thought to be by Pergolesi, whose first movement sets a canon not by Palestrina but actually by Byrd. How postmodern can you get?