This further all-Corigliano CD from the Buffalo Philharmonic under JoAnn Falletta offers the suite from his opera The Ghosts of Versailles, a rare commission from the Met in 1991, and a second recording of the Violin Concerto. In the Suite there’s music for the ghosts, including the playwright Beaumarchais and Marie Antoinette; then there are the stage characters of Figaro, Susanna, and the Count and Countess from Beaumarchais and Mozart; and finally the reality of the French Revolution. These distinctions can hardly bother the listener who hears a sequence of pastiche styles and some varied orchestral textures, especially luxuriant in the final slow music.

The Violin Concerto is based on Corigliano’s music for François Girard’s film The Red Violin, which gained Corigliano an Oscar. The violinist in the film was Joshua Bell and he gave the premiere of the resulting concerto with the Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop in 2003: their recording followed (Sony, 2/08; Corigliano also drew The Red Violin: Chaconne and The Red Violin Caprices from the film music – Naxos, 10/06, 9/08). Michael Ludwig takes slightly longer than Bell in the extended first movement and lacks his finesse but he has no shortage of the pyrotechnics demanded in the Pianissimo Scherzo and Accelerando Finale.

Corigliano has said that writing for the film allowed him to “strip away his inhibitions and write a passionate and romantic” piece. The concerto is also in memory of his father, leader of the New York Philharmonic for many years, as “the piece he would love to play”. If the result sounds retrospective it’s nevertheless not surprising that violinists are lining up to play this reinvigoration of the grand manner.