It is not often that we find five concertos on one disc and since the composers represented are among the greatest, this bargain-price issue, on the face of it, looks like good value. The conductor is, of course, a celebrated artist, although it is as the pianist Stephen (Bishop-)Kovacevich that he is more familiar to collectors. Claire Briggs is a newcomer to the catalogue, as is Ian Balmain, and the photos (but no other information) in the single-sheet 'booklet' show them as being young: on enquiry, I gather that she leads the horns in the CBSO and he the trumpets in the RLPO. She proves herself to be a fluent and accomplished player, but is too reticent in Mozart's two-movement First Horn Concerto for any real personality to emerge from the playing. However, it is only fair to say that this is highlighted by a recording (made in Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall) which places her somewhat backwardly relative to the orchestra, while the conductor, too, must take some of the blame for a certain tameness: the Allegro second movement lacks a sense of joy and spontaneity. Likewise, the Allegro maestoso first movement of Concerto No. 2 is up to speed but hardly majestic (the similarly marked first movement of No. 4 fares better in this respect), and although the Andante that follows is pleasant enough it fails to sing and glow tonally as the horn can. The finale is much better as it's more genuinely lively, and thereafter the playing of these concertos does have rather more vigour and momentum (try the famous finale of No. 4 to hear it at its decent best), but still falls short of being compelling overall. Briggs's cadenzas to Nos. 3 and 4 are tasteful.
With the clear-toned and crisply articulating Balmain, Haydn's Trumpet Concerto goes so much better that it is almost as if the conductor and orchestra were producing extra adrenalin—indeed, they do not sound like the same artists—and even the recording comes to life much more. This is a performance with ample energy and joie de vivre, yet also sensitively shaped, not least in the melodious central Andante. But with my reservations above as to the horn concertos, I cannot alas, recommend the disc as a whole.'