After my CM shopping binge a few weeks ago, here are a few informal
reflections:

bACH: Sonatas and Partitas w/Rachel Podger, Vol. 1 on Channel Classics--yes,
yes, yes!  Much like the Kirchbaum Cello Sonatas, Podger and recording team
create a sound that is beautiful and seductive in itself.  Every line is
given it's own personality; rhythmic sections lilt, and songful sections
sing.  It doesn't take long to discover where Podger scores over  my old
recording w/Mintz.  Listen to track 2, @1'54": with Mintz, it's a melody
w/ arpeggiation; with Podger, it's a melody w/ gossamer accompaniment.  So
beautiful I went right out and bought Volume II.  And no, I don't know how
Bach played them.  For an eyewitness account, I will defer to Mr. Jim
Hunsley.:)

Elgar: Symphony #2 w/ Downes and the BBC Philharmonic on Naxos--what a
steal!  I have become familiar with the Elgar 2nd through Davis and the
BBC.  My favorite moments in the whole symphony are contained in mysterious
central section of the 1st mov't.  Although the Davis recording and
performance is excellent, the central section is presented, (or captured),
with a little too much of a laser-like quality, detracting from the
mystery, IMHO.  The Naxos recording is a more distant and homogenized,
(though not lacking in visceral impact), which serves the mood of these
moments much more effectively for my tastes.  Downes luxuriates in all
the wistful horn and clarinet suspensions that hover quietly over Elgar's
moments of formal "pomp." A gratifying performance, though the victorious
horn theme in the final mov't is ever so slightly subdued.

Durufle: Requiem with James Plasson on EMI.  I like the full orchestra
version of this piece, and was anxious to hear this performance.  (A friend
of mine calls it the "Duraflame" Requiem--as it glows, but it's not the
real thing.) My old recording is w/Corboz on Erato--it's good, but the
recording's a little congested in the dramatic moments.  The new EMI
recording is a dream: Plasson's measured pace reveals all of Durufle's
felicities of orchestration, but at the same time unfortunately, the music
collapses under it's own weight.  The Agnus Dei sounds more like an Agnus
Week.  Not only that, but the organ is so out of tune with the orchestra in
the "In Paradisum," that sublimity, (as can so often happen in Classical
Music), disintegrates into comedy.  It's hard to believe that, in a room
with the likes of Marie-Claire Alain, Otter, Hampson, and Plasson; that no
one yelled "cut!" (Where's John Culshaw when you need him?)

Glazunov: "King of the Jews" and "Introduction and Dance from "Solome"
w/ Polyansky and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra.  Chandos offers
not only one performance of this work, but two!  (the other is w/
Rozhdestvensky.) IMHO, Glazunov is hit and miss.  I love his Symphony #5,
the "Suite from the Middle Ages," and his 2nd Piano Concerto; but "King"
and "Solome" are just a little too workman-like for me.  Handsome
collection filler though, and a loving performance.

John Smyth