Classical CDs Weekly: Haydn, Gershwin, Ciccolini, Sheherazade

Today we’ve Easter-themed music from Haydn and a rare chance to hear some delectable Grieg played by an old master. A kitsch Russian classic is given a new slant, and two Italians have serious fun with Gershwin.

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F, Catfish Row, Gewandhausorchester/Riccardo Chailly, with Stefan Bollani, piano (Decca)

No performance of the jazz-band version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is likely to surpass that issued last year by Lincoln Mayorga, but there’s plenty to enjoy here. Several moments have had other critics fuming, notably when pianist Stefan Bollani naughtily goes off piste nine minutes in. It’s as if we suddenly flash forward from the 1920s to the 1950s, and you have to resist the urge to raise an eyebrow and drawl “Nice” as did John Thompson’s Jazz Club host in The Fast Show. This is fun music, and it can take a bit of stretching about. You can always leave the room and make a cup of tea. Bollani’s performance of the lovely Concerto in F is straighter; Riccardo Chailly’s direction helping make the work sound less episodic than it can do, with gear changes effortlessly managed. The Leipzig players are fabulous, showing that swinging Gershwin isn’t just the property of American ensembles; Julian Sommerhalder’s trumpet solo in the slow movement is superb.

Chailly also gives us Gershwin’s own, rarely played suite from Porgy and Bess. Strings and xylophone really tear into the opening toccata writing, and you have a sense of how sophisticated a composer he was becoming. It’s the same with the terrifying central "Fugue" and "Hurricane". And as the Leipzig brass belt out "O Lord, I’m on My Way" it’s hard not to feel that the world has become a better place.

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Watch a clip from The Fast Show

Haydn: The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, with soloists/Vladimir Jurowski (LPO)

Haydn’s Seven Last Words exist in several versions, the best known of which is for string quartet alone. In 1785 Haydn wrote seven orchestral interludes for a Good Friday service. Two years later followed the quartet version. In 1794 Haydn heard a lesser composer’s choral arrangement and sensed that he himself could do better. He quickly set about creating a definitive vocal version. Vladimir Jurowski’s live performance neatly juxtaposes the orchestral and choral versions so that we hear what Jurowski describes as "the music first in its original state, and then what it has become". He also prefaces each section with Haydn’s spare, elegant, a cappella chorales, each a setting of Christ’s last words.

The orchestral interludes are cleanly played and work well as introductions; the lightness and pointing in the fifth section a highlight. And Jurowski makes the most of the extraordinary orchestral interlude scored for winds and brass. You can’t help speculating that a Mozart scoring of this music would result in something more blended and euphonious; Haydn’s orchestration is starker, letting us enjoy individual instrumental sonorities. Perfect intonation from the LPO Choir and good solo singing, notably from soprano Lisa Milne, soaring effortlessly in the third movement.

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Aldo Ciccolini: The Cascavelle Golden Years, music by Schumann, Chopin and Grieg (Cascavelle - 6 CDs)

Born in Naples but long resident in France, Aldo Ciccolini is now in his eighties. Best known in the UK for recordings of music by Satie and Ravel made in the 1960s and Seventies, the French Cascavelle label’s budget box collects Ciccolini’s late tapings of Romantic-era piano music, made between 2002 and 2005. The Schumann disc is good, with a nicely impetuous version of the Op 14 Sonata. Ciccolini’s versions of the Chopin Nocturnes are good but face stiffer competition from the likes of Rubenstein and Arrau.

But you need this slim box as it contains all 66 of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces, written in 10 volumes between 1867 and 1901. There’s barely a dud moment here. Listening to the whole lot in one go is a little like gorging on expensive chocolates but it’s brilliant being able to dip in and out, and you can sense Grieg becoming more adventurous and personal in the later pieces. Try Melancholy from the eighth volume, or Ciccolini’s infectious version of the well-known Wedding Day at Troldhaugen. The prevailing mood is so often wistful, pensive, and Grieg is as likely to suggest a mood, a thought as he is to describe a bird or butterfly. A bargain, despite the minimalist documentation.

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Rimsky-Korsakov: Sheherazade, or The Princess, the Pirate and the Baboon, Brian Blessed, Rory Bremner (voices); orchestra conducted by Greg Arrowsmith (Melodramatic Productions)

I’ve been struggling recently to interest my own daughter in classical music but she’s still wanting to hear "things with words", arguing that instrumental music in her words doesn’t constitute "a proper song". So I was keen to play her this new adaptation of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade featuring Rory Bremner as Sinbad and Brian Blessed as the Sultan. With a scenario drawn from the Arabian Nights it’s hard not to admire writer Matt Parry’s ingenuity in matching every musical phrase with a spoken equivalent, and his script is sometimes very funny, even if some of the humour will soar over the heads of his target audience. Blessed’s booming, brassy eruptions are sweetly foiled by Jess Murphy’s eloquent, pleading Sheherazade. But in a work as unashamedly illustrative as this you sometimes wonder whether the music wouldn’t be best left to speak for itself.

Greg Arrowsmith’s musical direction is the best thing here – lively, witty and with an excellent violin solo played by Sarah Sexton. The second disc contains Arrowsmith’s account played with no spoken overdubs. If you’re listening with a child, I’d suggest listening to the straight version first.

• Find this recording of Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade on Amazon