This week's Classical releases reviewed

A SPOTLESS ROSE

Deutsche Grammophon 477 7635 *****

This new Marian choral collection sets out its century-jumping stall right at the start. The blurry, slow swirl of John Tavener’s A Hymn to the Mother of God floats impressively in the haloed acoustic of the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral. The leap back in time to Josquin Deprez’s Ave Maria, virgo serena hardly sounds like a leap at all, any more than the next move, to Stravinsky’s early 20th-century Ave Maria. The arrival of Giles Swayne’s Magnificat I, highly energised, often hocketing, does create shockwaves. And so it goes as this beautifully sung disc arcs up to the calm of Herbert Howells’s A Spotless Rose, and returns to glorious indulgence in Henry Górecki’s Totus tuus, with the second-half shock provided by James MacMillan’s Seinte Mari Moder Milde. www.tinyurl.com/5b9s4r

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO 8

LSO 0669 **

Last July’s performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in Valery Gergiev’s complete cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra seems to have been a gloriously quixotic undertaking. The venue was St Paul’s Cathedral, where the cavernous acoustic is as generous with sonic trails as the Red Arrows team is with visual ones on a windy day. There is a palpable sense of occasion and no lack of atmosphere. But clarity has seriously eluded the microphones, and the richer the scoring the more confusing the sonic muddle becomes. There are moments when magnificence shines through, but, in all honesty, these are few enough. In spite of some sterling singing (the soloists include Ailish Tynan) and fine orchestral playing, this CD makes for a frustrating experience. www.tinyurl.com/ctth2r

HAYDN: THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS

Glossa GCD 921109 ***

String quartet performances of Haydn’s Seven Last Words have become a regular and successful Easter phenomenon in Ireland. So much so it’s easy to forget that the original set of slow meditations, which Haydn wrote in 1785 for use at a Holy Week ceremony in Cádiz, was for orchestra. Arrangements as an oratorio, and for string quartet, as well as solo keyboard, followed on account of the work’s popularity. If you’re familiar only with the work as a quartet, then Frans Brüggen’s period instruments performance is altogether less sombre than you might expect. And the movements are connected, not by spoken text, but by specially commissioned musical links by Ron Ford, which serve as wake-up calls as much as simple transitions. www.glossa music.com

MOZART: SONATAS FOR FORTEPIANO AND VIOLIN

Harmonia Mundi HMU 907494 ***

This is a kind of Jekyll-and-Hyde CD. Müllejans plays an early 18th-century Clotz violin and Bezuidenhout a Derek Adlam copy of an Anton Walter fortepiano from the 1790s. When the players are in their stride, there are few problems. The fast finale of the Sonata in C, K296, is beautifully judged, the much slower but often busy Variations, K360, sharply characterised. Both players happily engage in mostly discreet embellishments, and Bezuidenhout’s use of the cushioning una corda pedal is sometimes magical. The downside? Müllejans’s vibrato in slower passages and on longer notes can sound wavery, even woozy, and the duo’s rubato can be unpersuasively disruptive. Sample before you buy. www.tinyurl.com/6mchwb