Dohnanyi was a master of musical half-smiles and the quizzical opening to the theme-and- variations finale of his Cello Sonata is as characteristic of his work as anything in this valuable collection. It's a relatively early piece, with a novel Scherzo that scurries in and out of darkness and an opening Allegro ma non troppo that sounds like young Richard Strauss. As for the performance, the excellent Bernard Gregor-Smith now has a worthy rival. Maria Kliegel plays the work beautifully, as indeed she does the other item with piano, the so-called Gipsy Andante. Naxos, unfortunately, omits to mention that this is in fact not the whole of Ruralia hungarica (which is what they call the piece), but just a single movement from it. The original piano work contained seven movements, the orchestral suite had five, and the violin and piano transcription, three. A more pressing problem in this one movement is a recording which, coming immediately after the well-balanced and mellifluous-sounding Sonata, presents the solo cello as oddly hollow, even a mite synthetic. Why, I wonder?
The half-hour Konzertstuck is a lovely work, nostalgic in mood (one theme sounds uncannily like Amy Woodforde-Finden's Pale Hands I Loved) and beautifully written for the instrument. Again, Kliegel does Dohnanyi more than justice, with seamless bowing and a warm, effulgent tone reminiscent of Pierre Fournier. On disc, her most charismatic competition comes from Janos Starker who, aside from calling on an inimitable range of tonal colours, is granted a markedly superior accompaniment by the Philharmonia under Walter Susskind (I quote the number of the EMI Artist Portrait two-CD set).
By contrast, the Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia under Michael Halasz sounds rather feeble, though it does at least provide a fairly agreeable backdrop for Kliegel. A qualified recommendation then, given sub-standard sound in the Gipsy Andante, and a mediocre-sounding orchestra in the Konzertstuck.'