Scelsi: Complete works for string ensemble (Forlane)

The Italian aristocrat, Giacinto Scelsi (1905-88), an amateur in the best sense, was a singular figure. He developed away from Schoenberg's 12-tone method and, under the influence of the philosophy of the East, began to narrow the focus of his interest. This culminated in 1959 in four pieces for orchestra, each based on a single note; variety and tension being achieved by microtonal inflection as well as a wide range of coloration, articulation and decoration. The four works recorded here by the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie under Jean-Paul Dessy, all written for groups of between 10 and 16 strings, date from 1965 onwards. They're mostly slow and in a pitch-bending style that might be compared to keening with a strangely elaborate shimmer. In this unique sound world the occasional conventional gestures in Elohim come as quite a shock.

- Michael Dervan

Strauss: Choral Works. (Arte Nova)

The five works collected here are among the least-known in the output of Richard Strauss. The 1884 Goethe-setting, Wanderers Sturmlied, is imbued with the spirit of Brahms, whose Gesang der Parzen may have inspired it. The setting of Uhland's Taillefer got Strauss a doctorate on the occasion of the centenary of Heidelberg University in 1903. The Olympische Hymne was commissioned for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

The remaining works are for organ and orchestra, a 1909 Fanfare for the Solemn Procession of the Knights of the Order of St John (originally for brass ensemble) and a Festive Prelude for the opening of the Vienna Konzerthaus in 1913. In serviceable accounts from the Munich SO under Hayko Siemens there's nothing approaching vintage Strauss here. The great man rewarded his commissioners appropriately but not memorably.

- Michael Dervan

Reicha: Wind Quintets

The prolific Czech-born, Paris-resident composer Antoine Reicha (1770-1836) is now remembered for his music for wind quintet. In his time, he was an important theoretician, respected by the likes of Beethoven and Berlioz, and he speculated about such things as writing an octet for wind that would also be performable as separate quartets in different keys, and quarter-tone notation for declamation. On top of his remarkable sensitivity in writing for wind, Reicha was an accomplished contrapuntist, and his quintets are among the finest of their kind. The Michael Thompson Wind Quintet's latest offering on Naxos is of two works published in 1817 and 1818, the Quintets in F, Op 88 No 6, and in C minor, Op 91 No 6. The recording opts for clarity of separation rather than the characteristically-blended sound of a quintet in the concert hall.

- Michael Dervan

Pfitzner conducts Beethoven (Naxos Historical)

Pfitzner: Violin Sonata; Piano Trio (MDG Gold)

Since his death, the work of the militant German conservative Hans Pfitzner (1869-1949) has, with the exception of his masterpiece, the "musical legend" Palestrina, fallen into obscurity. As a conductor of note, Pfitzner was involved (with Richard Strauss among others) in the first complete recording of the Beethoven symphonies. His Berlin Philharmonic performances of the Eroica and Eighth Symphonies (1929, 1933) are fully of their time: lots of point-making and fluctuations of tempo that seem more Pfitzner than Beethoven. The chamber music (Benjamin Schmid, violin, Clemens Hagen, cello, and Claudius Tanski, on a 1925 Bluthner piano) favours a linear elaboration that allows a lot of dissonance filter into a limited harmonic world and yet remains oddly static and untensioned.

- Michael Dervan