Cherubini Discoveries [Chailly/Decca]

The Discoveries are nine first recordings, all of them with Marche or Marcia in the title. The music of Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842, he was born in Florence and moved to Paris and became a French citizen) was highly regarded during his lifetime, not least by Beethoven, and today it’s his Mass settings that keep his name alive; Muti, for example, has championed them. The nine Marches new to the Cherubini discography will delight the composer’s enthusiasts, the most-striking being Marche pour le pompe funèbre du Général Hoche, which confirms Cherubini’s fondness for gong strokes. A previously recorded Marche funèbre (also percussive) closes the disc, intensely lamenting and building to a stentorian coda. At the release’s start is the Overture in G, a dramatic and scintillating affair, followed by the impressive four-movement Symphony in D. Aided by vivid sound, Riccardo Chailly and the La Scala Philharmonic are stylish and sympathetic performers – fully charged in the Symphony’s driving first movement and sensitive in the languorous slow one, for example – of ornate music (lots of trills) that is indeed well-worth discovering. Decca 483 1591.