Mischa Elman plays Brahms, Mendelssohn et al (Biddulph). Efrem Zimbalist plays Beethoven, Brahms, Ysaye et al (Pearl). Adolf Busch plays Brahms and Schumann (Pearl)

Efrem Zimbalist and Mischa Elman were, along with Heifetz, the major pupils of Leopold Auer in St Petersburg. The rise of the technically dashing Heifetz impacted seriously on Elman, whose warmth and deep-rooted emotionalism, here captured in Brahms's D minor Sonata and the Mendelssohn Concerto, came to be viewed as old-fashioned. In the same sonata, Zimbalist is beautifully pure-toned, managing to retain a sense of tight musical focus in the face of rhythmic idiosyncrasy. Adolf Busch, heard in the other two Brahms Sonatas and Schumann's A minor, was of a sterner temperament, striking out classically against romantic libertarianism. All three discs include short pieces in character with the players. Michael Dervan

Ginastera: Variaciones concertantes; Piano Concerto No 1; Piano Sonata No 1. Martha Noguera (piano), Europa Symphony/Wolfgang Grohs (Arte Nova, £4.99)

Alberto Ginastera (19161983), Argentina's best-known composer before the rise to international popularity of Piazzolla, declared that "A work which speaks only to the intelligence of man will never reach his heart . . . Without sensibility the work of art is only a cold mathematical study, and without intelligence or technique it is only chaos". His music moved from an early "subjective nationalism" to a whole-hearted but not rigorous serialism, the one heard in the sonata for piano, the other in the concerto. The finely-contrasted Variaciones concertantes have been played in both Dublin and Belfast. The performances are sturdy. Michael Dervan

Nikolai Tcherepnin: Narcisse Et Echo. Hague Chamber Choir, Residentie Orchestra The Hague/Gennady Rozhdestvensky (Chandos)

Nikolai Tcherepnin's Narcisse Et Echo was one of the works in the 1911 season of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. As fate would have it, 1911 was also the year that company revealed Stravinsky's Petrushka to the world, and the neglect that engulfed the lesser work kept it waiting until now for a first recording. Tcherepnin is orchestrally skilful (he was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov), adept at imaginative atmospheric gestures, and clearly tuned in to the new style of ballet that Diaghilev was fostering. But his music crucially lacks either Stravinsky's original pungency or the filigree detailing to be found within Ravel's fabulous sensuality. More decorative than dynamic, it lingers in static admiration too long in its chosen spots. Michael Dervan