A senior orchestral string player once told me that she could always tell whether or not a conductor was previously a string player or pianist: string players always know how to convey a sustained string pianissimo (of the sort that begins Mahler’s First Symphony) to achieve the shimmering effect. I was reminded of this when I heard the weak solo entry to the piano transcription, Op. 61a, of the Violin Concerto, Op. 61, (sometimes called Piano Concerto No 6), by Gianluca Cascioli, accompanied by the Ensemble Resonanz, a hybrid group conducted by Riccardo Minasi. 

The liner notes launch into rather dense “musicological” justification and research detail about the overall “take” in the accompanying Fourth Concerto (more anon). As the Ensemble Resonanz contains both “original” and “modern” instruments, including the piano, at least we’re spared the usual doctrinaire historically informed performance practice palaver. The transcription is rarely performed (with the best will in the world, it can hardly be considered an improvement on the original) and the reading here includes some monster cadenzas from the collection of the work’s dedicatee, Archduke Rudolf. These probably offer the best possible reason to listen...