CLASSICAL

Christian Thielemann conducts Pfitzner and Strauss. (Deutsche Grammophon), Dial-a-track code: 1641

The German conductor Christian Thielemann seem to have been given a free hand in making his first recordings for Deutsche Grammophon. The choice of repertoire and orchestra (some of the best of Pfitzner and some lesser-known Strauss with the orchestra of Berlin's Deutsche Oper) were the conductor's own, and certainly show the 37-year-old's work in a most sympathetic light. Sensual and luminous, the outer preludes from the arch-conservative Hans Pfitzner's masterpiece, Palestrina, can rarely have sounded as alluring as here, or opening of the love scene from Strauss's Feuersnot as haunting in its allure. The sound from the heavily-engineered DG production is sumptuous. The other CD of Thielemann's DG career launch, Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh symphonies with the Philharmonia, is less successful, strong in attitude but with a lot of detailing that merely sounds overblown.

Mendelssohn: Symphonies 3 & 4. NSO/Reinhard Seifried. (Naxos) Dial-a-track code: 1861

Mendelssohn's two best-known symphonies, the Scottish and the Italian, are also his finest, and have always made an attractive proposition as a coupling on disc. The performances in the NSO's ongoing Naxos cycle under Reinhard Seifried fall into the category of serviceable. The music-making is stronger in momentary impulse than in subtlety or breadth of vision. Recessed wind balances prevail in the Scottish Symphony, yet in spite of this the conductor somehow manages to make the scoring of louder passages sound unduly thick. Things are better in this respect in the Italian, but the narrow expressiveness of the Andante sets out clearly the limited success of Seifried's monotone style.

Schubert: Songs. Renege Fleming (soprano), Christoph Eschenbach (piano) (Decca) Dial-a-track code: 1751

This is the first song recital on disc from the rising American soprano, Renee Fleming, one of those singers who prompts accolades for the peaches and cream quality of her tone. The 14 songs include some of the best-known. Gretchen am Spinnrade, Heidenroslein, Die Forelle are all there, but also the rarely-heard 15-minute Viola. The highlight for me of a collection which favours broadness of tempo and long-spanned delivery, sometimes persuasively, sometimes dangerously, is a heart-piercing Nacht und Traume.