There’s a tendency to consider all of Victor Herbert’s concert works in the same category as his operettas: “light” music, amiable and diverting, but not terribly substantial. Certainly these two concertos are tuneful, and I’m not trying to go revisionist on you and insist that they represent the acme of profundity, but they contain fine music. Also, both works are surprisingly well-structured for their dates (1884 and 1894 respectively). To cite just one example, the outer quick movements in both concertos really move well, with none of that “allegro moderato” noodling at the start, or those flabby finales that kill so many romantic concertos for any instrument. They are, in short, impressive.
The best recent competition in this music comes from Lynn Harrell on Decca, accompanied by the rather bland Neville Marriner and his Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. This newcomer offers cello playing that is just as assured from Mark Kosower–sweetly lyrical but never tacky, always in tune (especially in the high register), and virtuosic by turns–and a more positively shaped orchestral contribution from the Ulster Orchestra under JoAnn Falletta. Kosower and Falletta are especially compelling in the first movement of Concerto No. 1, possibly the only place where the music has the potential to bog down in its own melodic effusions. It sure doesn’t do that here.
The coupling too, Herbert’s very pretty and enjoyable Irish Rhapsody, gives the program greater substance than Harrell’s arrangement of short pieces for cello and strings. It’s often mentioned that it was a performance of Herbert’s Second Cello Concerto that inspired Dvorák to write his own masterpiece in the form, but Herbert can certainly hold his own when the concertos get the respect and care that they deserve, and receive, on this winning new disc.