William Dart: Philadelphia in fantastic form

The Philadelphia Orchestra's new album of Bartok, Martinu and Klein borders on being a life-changing experience.

The Philadelphians are once again in the studio - or in this case their own Verizon Hall, with its infinitely malleable acoustics. For decades, many thrilled to the orchestra's recordings as it made history under Stokowski and Ormandy. Now they could be heading for new heights with a new conductor, Christoph Eschenbach, and a new label, Ondine.

This programme was first heard in a concert held last year to celebrate the anniversary of the end of World War II, each piece reflecting the grim effects that fascism had on the souls of Europe.

Martinu's Memorial to Lidice pays tribute to a Czech village, brutalised by the Nazis in a similar fashion to what we have seen in Srebeniza and the Kurdish town of Halabja.

Ominous chords rumble around hymn-like fragments, until 12 minutes of intensity erupt into Beethoven's Fifth, blazoning forth from the surrounding thunder. It is a shattering experience.

Gideon Klein, a Jewish composer who died in Auschwitz in 1945 at the age of 26, is represented by a partita, orchestrated by the Czech Vojtech Saudek. Though its outer movements are all Bartokian scurry and sinew, the central Lento is a brooding set of variations on a Moravian folk-tune, especially moving with the weight and deliberation of the full Philadelphia strings.

The Bartok is a showpiece, and Eschenbach treats it as such. There are moments of the utmost joy here, as there should be - Bartok's move to the United States in 1940 ensured that he was physically safe from the negative forces on the other side of the Atlantic.

But he was already struggling with the leukemia that would kill him and he was faced with the devastating apathy of the American musical community.

It is no holds barred when Eschenbach sweeps into the Allegro and, when forces pull back, the games of the Giuoco delle coppie are indeed games. While the Intermezzo catches every streak of woodwind with an unerring sense of line, those muted violas finally have their theme bloom like a Western soundtrack that Copland never wrote.

* The Philadelphia Orchestra plays Bartok, Martinu & Klein (Ondine 1072-5, through Elite Imports)