Classical

Bruckner: Symphony No 5. Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Georg Tintner (Naxos). Bruckner: Symphony No 7. City of Birmingham SO/ Simon Rattle (EMI)

In many ways the new Bruckner performances of these two regional British orchestras couldn't be further apart. Naxos's Scottish recording is uncommonly dry. Sound doesn't linger in the air of Glasgow's Henry Wood Hall, and the playing of the RSNO is patchy, sometimes very rough. But octogenarian Georg Tintner, who impressed in Bruckner in Dublin last year, triumphs over glitches and adversities with a visionary clear-sightedness that's heart-warming. Simon Rattle's Birmingham orchestra, sumptuously cushioned in tone, is caught in closer perspective in a more resonant acoustic. Rattle's approach is slower, every gesture and nuance carefully measured and weighted. The sound is more impressive, the music-making ultimately less gripping. Michael Dervan

Haba: Violin Works. Antonin Novak. (Supraphon) Czech composer Alois Haba (1893-1973) was one of the daddies of microtonal music. He began his work with quarter-tones in his Suite for Strings of 1917 and was later involved in the invention of quarter-tone pianos (with two and even three manuals) and other microtonal instruments. Antonin Novak, leader of the Prague National Theatre Orchestra, has recorded eight of the composer's violin works, including two quarter-tone pieces for violin solo, and one for quarter-tone violin and quarter-tone piano. The earlier violin and piano works strain uncomfortably at the limitations of an almost salon style. The quarter-tone pieces do the opposite, clothing the microtonal novelty in conventional melodic formulae. The violin playing, at its best in the late solo Suite, Op 93, elsewhere sounds exploratory, even tentative, rather than confident. Michael Dervan

"Kammerspiel play Ian Wilson" (Timbre Records) Kammerspiel's new disc features two of Ian Wilson's three piano trios, The Seven Last Words (1995) and Cata- lan Tales (1996) along with Six Days At Jericho (1995) for cello and piano. The titles reflect some of the major inspirations of the Belfast composer's work, his faith (in the first and third works) and visual art (the paintings of Miro, in the second). The music is all sure of purpose, plain-speaking, untricksy, mostly moodily slow, with a lot of atmospheric, often pedal-haloed piano writing. The steady processional tread of Jericho is dryly Shostakovian. There are hymnic evocations elsewhere, and, particularly in Catalan Tales, some echoes of Messiaen. The members Kammerspiel, who were involved in the premieres of all three works, give perceptive performances. Michael Dervan