CLASSICAL

Chamber music by Mahler, Schoenberg, Webern and Berg., KREMERata MUSICA. DG 447122-2, 75 mins

Dial-a-track code: 1201

The violinist Gidon Kremer has long been an adventurous programme planner and his new Viennese collection from DG is true to style. The repertoire ranges over eight decades from some of the earliest surviving Mahler (a movement for piano quartet of 1876) to Schoenberg's gritty Phantasy for violin with piano accompaniment of 1949.

Between these, there's a youthful piece in D minor for violin and piano by Schoenberg, both early romantic and maturely aphoristic Webern, Berg's Four Clarinet Pieces as well as the trio arrangement of the slow movement from the Chamber Concerto, and Schoenberg's String Trio, written in 1946 after the composer had survived a heart attack by an injection directly into the heart - he told Thomas Mann that the music reflected this near death experience, "including even the male nurse, and all the rest".

Kremer's group of friends (clarinettist Sabine Meyer, pianist Oleg, Maisenberg and members of the Hagen String Quartet) play this repertoire with unequalled polish. In particular, I don't think I've ever heard the Schoenberg Trio, the major work of his last years, infused with so much vibrant, colour before, and Sabine Meyer is wonderfully attuned to the richly concise miniatures of the Berg clarinet pieces.

Druschetzky: Harmoniemusik. Budapest Wind Ensemble/Kalman Berkes. Hun aroton HCD 31618, 68 mins

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If you've ever been to a Budapest Wind Ensemble concert and come away with a smile on your face and a lightness in your step, you'll know exactly what to expect from this new CD.

Georg Druschetzky was an 18th century Bohemian composer who is best remembered for his Harmoniemusik, or music for wind ensemble, for which he wrote over 150 works'. He was prolific in other areas too, and his output includes 26 symphonies, a handful of concertos, 12 string quartets and an opera.

In Kalman Berkes's Budapest Wind Ensemble, Druschetzky's music has found well nigh ideal interpreters. The basic ensemble consists of nine players (two each of oboes, clarinet, horns and bassoons, plus double bass) and the Hungarian musicians, tangy and characterful in tone, are alert to every nuance of the composer's finely gauged handling of the medium.

The present collection includes three partitas and a number at shorter pieces prevailingly light in character but utterly captivating, when presented with such sensitivity and skill.

Schubert: Piano Sonatas Vol 6. Paul Berkowitz. Meridian CDE 84265, 77 mins

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Canadian pianist Paul Berkowitz's ongoing Schubert sonata recordings on the Meridian label had somehow passed me by until the annual of the latest instalment. It includes the first two completed sonatas in A minor and E flat (D357 and D568, neither of which is frequently encountered, either on disc or in the concert hall) as well as one of the best known, the earlier and smaller of the two Sonatas in A (D664).

Berkowitz is an agreeable. Schubertian with a lively response to the composer's lyrical vein. His basic tempos are convincing and he's quick to mark each movement with well defined character. The impression he creates is of a painstaking player, who has been unduly careful in weighing and considering everything he does.

And yet... he doesn't quite manage to hold things together on the larger scale as he does moment by moment. There are times when he allows the tempo to drift, and dynamic contrasts are not always sharply delineated.

On the other hand these performances are a lot more enjoyable than the above reservations might suggest, for, through it all, Berkowitz manages to project just how thoroughly he believes in and relishes the music. I liked the slightly distanced recording for its sense of natural ambience, though the ringing tone of the treble of the piano in louder passages won't be to everyone's taste.

In case of difficulty, Meridian CDs can he ordered direct from the UK distributor, Nimbus, on 00 44 1600 890007.