Latest CD releases reviewed by MICHAEL DERVAN

BOELY: CHAMBER MUSIC

Quatuor Mosaiques, Ensemble Baroque de Limoges, Christophe Coin (Cello), Eric Lebrun (organ) Laborie Records LC 05 ****

If you've heard the name or music of French composer Alexandre Pierre François Boëly (1785-1858), it's probably been in connection with his organ music. The forward- looking, romantically inclined Boëly is represented on this new CD in three pieces for cello and organ. In the more substantial works for string ensemble – a trio, quartet, and a sextet (plus an isolated quartet movement) – it's the composer's reverence for Haydn and Beethoven that's wholly to the fore. And the fine performances here suggest that, French or no, Boëly was a clear master of the Viennese idiom of the early 19th century. www.ebl-laborie.com

KORNGOLD: VIOLIN CONCERTO; OVERTURE TO A DRAMA; MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING SUITE

Philippe Quint (violin), Orquesta Sinfonica de Mineria/Carlos Miguel Prieto Naxos 8.570791 ****

There are three Erich Wolfgang Korngolds on this disc. There's the prodigy, widely compared to Mozart (notice the middle name!), hailed by Mahler and Strauss among others, who wrote his astonishingly accomplished Schauspiel Overture at the age of 14. There's the mature 22-year-old of the incidental music for Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. And there's the familiar, Oscar-winning Hollywood Korngold of the Violin Concerto, a piece crafted out of a number of film scores which was premièred by Heifetz in 1945. Philippe Quint's quicksilver deftness helps contain the syrupy romanticism which is both the work's calling card and its limitation. www.naxosdirect.ie

HAYDN: STRING QUARTETS OP 33; QUARTET OP 42

Festetics Quartet Arcana A414 ****

The Hungarian Festetics Quartet here rounds off its survey of Haydn quartets, the first CD cycle of the works to be completed on period instruments. The Op 33 quartets are the 1781 set, which Haydn said were written in "a completely new and special way" and which prompted Mozart to write his own set of six as a homage. The Op 42 quartet is an isolated work that gets very little attention. The Festetics take an unforced approach to Haydn, and the dryish acoustic of the recording sets the stage for a style that seems more geared for private pleasure than public demonstrativeness. It's a style that manages to be both reserved and observant, allowing almost everything to fall into place with natural-seeming ease. www.arcana.eu

SCHUMANN: FRAUENLIEBE UND-LEBEN; LIEDERKREIS OP39

Not many singers nowdays use the description contralto. It carries too many associations of over-ripe, fruity tone and limitations of manoeuverability. Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux obviously has no qualms about the designation, for she has none of the defects of the breed. Her tone has a creamy finish, and although she's a true contralto, there's no sense of unwieldiness. Her singing suits these two great song cycles as well as the individual songs of love and marriage she has chosen as couplings. The strangest is undoubtedly the nine-minute long Die Löwenbraut, The Lion's Bride, a ballad of a woman and a lion in a cage with her lover outside, which comes to a particularly bloody end. www.naiveclassique.com