Latest CD releases reviewed

PLATTI: CONCERTI GROSSI AFTER CORELLI

Xenia Löffler (oboe), Sebastian Hess (cello), Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/Georg Kallweit (violin) Harmonia Mundi HMC 901996 *****

Giovanni Benedetto Platti (1697-1763) spent the last four decades of his life in Würzburg, drawn there by German enthusiasts with a taste for Italian music. Platti turned violin sonatas from Corelli's Op Five into concerti grossi, as a way of expanding the usefulness of music that was already justly famous. And one of the three sonata into concerto transformations included here has been given a cornucopian contemporary upscaling through the addition of wind instruments, with lots of burbling and huffing and puffing for horns and bassoons. Along with the arrangements, this disc includes a Cello Concerto in D that's laden with busy scrubbing and excitement, and a bracing G minor Concerto for Platti's own instrument, the oboe. www.tinyurl.com/6mchwb MICHAEL DERVAN

DEBUSSY: ORCHESTRAL WORKS VOL 2

MDR Radio Choir, Leipzig, Orchestre National de Lyon/Jun Märkl Naxos 570993 ****

German conductor Jun Märkl, principal conductor of the Orchestre National de Lyon, offers a most unusual Debussy collection. There are just two original works, one major (the Nocturnes), one minor (the Berceuse héroïque), plus two orchestrations (of three piano studies, by Michael Jarrell, and of Clair de lune by André Caplet) and a 25-minute suite prepared by Marius Constant from the opera Pelléas et Mélisande. The opening Pelléas suite sets the tone, with Märkl offering a moody account of some of the moodiest music in the French repertoire. Mystery is at the heart of his approach to the Nocturnes, too. And the three piano studies (Nos Nine, 10 and 12) turn out to be unusually effective in orchestral guise. www.naxosdirect.ie MICHAEL DERVAN


BEETHOVEN: QUARTETS IN E FLAT OP 74 (HARP); IN F MINOR OP 95

Mundi HMU 807460   ***

There's an almost unflappable quality to the Tokyo Quartet's playing here that is highly engaging. The very straightness of their approach to the opening movement of the Harp Quartet (so-called because of its use of pizzicato) actually serves to highlight the radical nature of much of the writing, and their playing of the rest of the work is of the same, never-put-a-finger- wrong quality. The Quartet in F minor, Op 95, is a compact, tightly-wound piece, which here sounds comparatively relaxed, not without tension, not exactly sedate, but lighter than ideal in forward-propelling tension, even when the music is, by its own standards, at its most unwound. The underlying concern often seems more governed by contemplation than drive. www.tinyurl.com/6mchwb  MICHAEL DERVAN

BEETHOVEN: STRING QUARTETS IN C MINOR OP 18 NO 4; IN E MINOR OP 59 NO 2

Artemis Quartet Virgin Classics 380 2682 ***

The Berlin-based Artemis Quartet are at the opposite end of the spectrum to the Tokyo Quartet. Their approach can be highly-strung, nervy, excitable, almost apt to fly off the handle. Yet there's also a sense of containment, as if the players are more concerned with private passions than the grander gestures of a public platform. The manner frequently turns fascinatingly introverted, soft-spoken, almost ruminative. If you don't like the prospect of a hot-and-cold approach to early- and middle- period Beethoven, this is probably not a disc for you. If you're up for an emotional journey that can turn on the proverbial hair, this may be just what you've been looking for. www.emiclassics.com MICHAEL DERVAN