CLASSICAL

Latest CD releases reviewed

MOZART: PIANO TRIOS IN C K548, IN E K542, IN B FLAT K502 Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin), Daniel Müller-Schott (cello), André Previn (piano) Deutsche Grammophon 477 6114 ***

Anne-Sophie Mutter has already recorded the Mozart violin concertos especially for this year's 250th anniversary celebrations, and the sonatas will come later this year. And here, in performances taped live at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden last May, is a selection of piano trios. Mutter and her pianist, André Previn, are husband and wife, and cellist Daniel Müller-Schott is a talent Mutter has long been promoting. Their approach is mixed. Previn is at times almost casual, Müller-Schott altogether more earnest, and Mutter her usual sophisticated and sometimes wilful self. Yet there's a sense of occasion about the music-making which helps the playing gel much more successfully than the disparities of character might lead you to expect. www.dgclassics.com

Michael Dervan

Does lightning strike twice? Korean cellist Han-Na Chang and British conductor Antonio Pappano have already appeared successfully on disc together in Russian repertoire, pairing Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante and Cello Sonata. This new Shostakovich disc finds Chang on similarly focused form, forcing a raspy edge onto the sound when she presses too hard for tone, but also showing the will to explore the music's inwardness and moments of ambivalence. Pappano captures even more varied shades of atmosphere, is highly alert to Shostakovich's fondness for grotesquerie, and reveals great depths of colouristic insight, both as conductor and pianist. www.emiclassics.com

Michael Dervan

SCHUBERT: SONATAS IN A MINOR D784, IN C D840, IN G D894, IN A D959, IN B FLAT D960 Alfred Brendel (piano) Philips 457 9191 (2 CDs) ****

Alfred Brendel has turned 75 and Philips are marking the occasion with a series of two-disc sets carrying the great pianist's stamp of approval under the banner Artist's Choice. The first batch mostly recirculates familiar studio recordings, but the Schubert set includes concert tapings of sonatas made between 1984 and 1999. Three of these, D894, D959, and D960, were recorded in Aldeburgh and London by the BBC, and were first issued five years ago. The others, D784 and D840, both new to me, were recorded by Austrian Radio at the 1984 Salzburg Festival. Brendel's risk-taking is different in front of an audience, and his playing usually sounds significantly less premeditated than in the studio. The emotional charge is more volatile, the impish humour flashes more freely, the tone is less self-consciously moulded. Audience intrusions notwithstanding, these recordings are well worth investigating, especially at their current low price. www.deccaclassics.com

Michael Dervan

WILLIAM BOLCOM: VIOLIN SONATAS Solomia Soroka (violin), Arthur Greene (piano) Naxos American Classics 8.559150 ***

US composer William Bolcom is doing well by Naxos and Naxos by him - the company's recording of his Songs of Innocence and Experience won a number of Grammy Awards this year. The four violin sonatas were written between 1956 (when Bolcom was just 18) and 1994, and reflect the eclecticism for which the composer is renowned. The Second Sonata was inspired by the playing of jazz violinist Joe Venuti. The Third was written for the 75th birthday of violin teacher Dorothy DeLay. Other influences which turn up include Piazzolla tangos and Arabic music. Bolcom gives his sanction to the performances by Solomia Soroka and Arthur Greene, for "emphasising the traditional qualities which I have always insisted were at the core of all four". And he's right: In this duo's sure hands, even the music's strangest moments sound persuasively like expressions of the musical mainstream, reaching out through unusual channels. www.naxos.com

Michael Dervan