CLASSICAL

The latest releases reviewed.

SCHUBERT: ARPEGGIONE SONATA; WEBERN: 3 LITTLE PIECES OP 11; BERG: 4 PIECES OP 5; SCHUBERT/QUEYRAS/THARAUD: 5 SONGS Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello), Alexandre Tharaud (piano) Harmonia Mundi HMC 901930 *****

The arpeggione, a cross between guitar (in body shape, tuning and in having frets) and a cello (in size and bowing technique) is nowdays only remembered because Schubert wrote a sonata for it. Other stringed instruments have long since appropriated the work, and the French cello and piano duo of Jean-Guihen Queyras and Alexandre Tharaud play it with just the right kind of rangy, loose-limbed lyricism. They've also found a fascinating programmatic setting for it: more arrangements of Schubert (five songs and a violin sonata) and the utterly different musical world of early 20th-century Vienna, Webern's epigrammatic Little Pieces, Op 11, and another arrangement, of the laden expressionism of Berg's Clarinet Pieces, Op 5. This endlessly fascinating, highly imaginative disc amounts to much more than the sum of its parts. www.uk.hmboutique.com Michael Dervan

BRITTEN CONDUCTS BRITTEN Various Orchestras/Benjamin Britten Decca 475 6051 (7 CDs) *****

Some recordings are immediately self-recommending. This attractively priced fourth Decca set of Britten conducting his own music falls into that category. Britten was a fabulously gifted performer, and the soloists here are of the calibre of Mstislav Rostropovich, Sviatoslav Richter and Julius Katchen among the instrumentalists, and Peter Pears (the composer's partner and muse) and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau among the vocalists. The set generously includes song cycles with piano (the composer himself) as well as orchestral song cycles, concertos, the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, the ballet The Prince of the Pagodas and the Bridge Variations, which launched the composer's international career. Earlier volumes in this valuable series were extremely shy on texts, but happily this on has no shortcomings in that regard. Its release in the high season of presents and gift vouchers is most timely. www.deccaclassics.com Michael Dervan