Baritone Terfel plays the bad boy

Bryn Terfel, baritone

Deutsche Grammophon

Bryn Terfel, the Welsh bass-baritone, has created a gallery of villainy that is remarkable for many things, but perhaps most of all this: He sounds bad. Evil doesn’t really suit Terfel’s plump tone and basically warm, ingratiating personality. Nevertheless, he makes a go of it with expressive diction, dramatic intelligence, and an endless supply of vocal colors, plus, as needed, snarls, growls, and infernal whistles. One might prefer to hear him in Schubert, or as Wolfram in Wagner’s “Tannhaüser,’’ or as Figaro in Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro,’’ but Terfel has already made memorable recordings of those, and Deutsche Grammophon is looking for marketable vehicles for its stars. Bad sells. Terfel’s rivals René Pape and Dmitri Hvorostovsky have already produced “bad’’ CDs.

The music is good sulfurous fun. In addition to a few predictable takes (Iago’s Credo from Verdi’s “Otello,’’ Mephistopheles’s “Le veau d’or’’ from Gounod’s “Faust,’’ and the “Te Deum’’ from Puccini’s “Tosca’’), we get such rarities as Kaspar’s aria from Weber’s “Der Freischütz’’ and Mefistofele’s “Sono lo spirito che nega’’ from Boïto’s opera. Scenes from “Die Dreigrochenoper,’’ Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd,’’ and the Kretzmer-Boublil “Les Misérables’’ show off Terfel’s dramatic range and ease in popular styles. With some digital engineering, Terfel also sings all three bass roles in the final scene of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.’’ Paul Daniel conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir.

DAVID PERKINS

BACH: SIX SONATAS FOR VIOLIN SOLO, WITH PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT BY ROBERT SCHUMANN

Benjamin Schmid (violin), Lisa Smirnova (piano)

MDG

Toward the end of his composing career, Schumann wrote piano accompaniments for Bach’s six works for solo violin (three partitas, three sonatas). The arrangements were meant to popularize works that were little known and rarely performed. Schumann’s adaptations were thus part of the revival of interest in Bach that was one of the major musical happenings of the 19th century.

Today, of course, Bach’s solo works are everywhere, and for listeners familiar with them, Schumann’s versions are likely to come as at least a minor shock. Harmonies that are implied or suggested in the originals are spelled out explicitly. The piano writing is generally understated, content to let a listener in to the music’s inner workings and otherwise stay out of the violin’s way.

When violinists play this music in its original form, they do so with a great deal of rhythmic and interpretive freedom. In the duo context, much of that freedom is of necessity reined in to coordinate with the piano. The famous Chaconne from the D-minor Sonata undergoes the most remarkable change of all: The structure is more carefully plotted out, the climaxes a bit less intense than when played as a solo.

These pieces may be mostly a historical curiosity, but they’re no less fascinating for that, especially in Schmid and Smirnova’s vivid, stylish performances, recorded in 1995 and recently reissued.

DAVID WEININGER

BEETHOVEN: PIANO CONCERTOS NOS. 4 & 5

Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Kent Nagano, conductor; Till Fellner, piano

ECM

There is no dearth of recordings of these monuments of the concerto literature, but the participants manage the difficult task of bringing something new to the table. Fellner has made his reputation as a Bach pianist of unusual refinement and sensitivity. He brings the same spirit to these two Beethoven concertos; his playing is thoughtful and nuanced without sliding into mannerism. Nagano, a longtime colleague, provides sympathetic support and an emphasis on textual clarity that yields a surprising wealth of detail, and some beautiful playing from the Montrealers. This is especially so in the intimate Fourth Concerto, which these musicians play with as much insight as anyone in recent memory. That work’s remarkable slow movement — a series of unsettling dialogues between the piano and the orchestral strings — is played more quickly than normal but with no loss of intensity.

Of course, these works are also about power and sweep, and Fellner and Nagano show that they can summon the requisite voltage when needed, as in the galloping finales of both. But that energy never comes at the cost of a true sense of rapport among these musicians, which is likely to be the source of these recordings’ lasting value.

D. W.