James Ehnes is both violin and viola soloist in this all-Berlioz disc combining Harold en Italie, a viola concerto in all but name, with two rarities. Not that the Intrata di Rob-Roy MacGregor sounds all that unfamiliar; amid this sprightly dose of thigh-slapping Scottish pastoral there’s a cor anglais melody with harp accompaniment that turns up again, sounding a bit more urbane, to signify the Byronic hero Harold in the later work. Ehnes’s viola-playing is warm and expansive, but it is in the relatively compact Rêverie et Caprice that he is at his graceful best, gliding through mercurial moodswings and maintaining a notably lyrical line; it’s no surprise to find that the work started life as a soprano aria, later replaced, for the opera Benvenuto Cellini. The Melbourne SO strings make slightly heavy weather of some passages, but Andrew Davis keeps the music on its toes.
