The latest releases reviewed

POULENC: GLORIA; MOTETS
Polyphony, Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, Britten Sinfonia/Stephen Layton Hyperion CDA 67623 ***

Poulenc's 1959 Gloria contains some of the most jubilant passages by a composer who was uniquely gifted in the capturing of high spirits in music. And this new performance under Stephen Layton is one of the most jubilant recordings of it. As an example of accomplished performers letting their hair down it all works a treat. But there are downsides. The singers in his choir, Polyphony, can create unmarked accents in the way they bounce off the ends of phrases, and Layton encourages boisterous orchestral responses, which create an effect not unlike turning up the colour and contrast settings on a TV screen. The glory of the singing, treasurable of itself, is not always exactly what the composer ordered. www.hyperion-records.co.uk

BOTTESINI: MUSIC FOR DOUBLE BASS AND PIANO VOL 2 Joel Quarrington (double bass), Andrew Burashko (piano) Naxos 8.557042 ****

Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889) was an all-rounder. He composed 10 operas, conducted the Cairo premiere of Verdi's Aida, held important posts with opera companies in a number of countries, and, with the backing of Verdi, became director of the Parma Conservatory. But mostly he was "the Paganini of the double bass", who could play "as though he had a hundred nightingales caged in his double bass". The world of 19th-century Italian opera is never far away in the pieces collected here, which include a concerto (with piano, as intended), works that blend in clarinet and voice, and a duet for two double basses. Joel Quarrington's playing is by turns lyrical, elegant, agile and gruff, making this a most eloquent showcase. www.naxos.com

BEETHOVEN: LATE QUARTETS; QUARTET IN F MINOR OP 95
Busch String Quartet EMI Great Recordings of the Century 509 6552 (3 CDs) *****

This set contains what is widely regarded as the first great survey of Beethoven's five late string quartets on disc, recorded by the Busch Quartet between 1933 and 1941. The playing has moments that seem untidy by the standards of today's studio recordings, but the flaws are negligible in the face of music-making that seems to strip away extraneous gestures and get right to the heart of the matter in a way that's at once plain and profound. This set includes Felix Weingartner's string orchestra arrangement of the Grosse Fuge from the Busch Chamber Players (the quartet's leader, Adolf Busch, was also a pioneer in the world of chamber orchestras), and the powerfully compact Quartet in F minor, Op 95. www.emiclassics.com

RICHTER THE MASTER VOL 11
Sviatoslav Richter (piano) Decca 475 8652 (2 CDs) *****

Decca's Richter the Master series here goes beyond its trawl of Philips's 1994 Authorised Recordings set to performances taped at the Yamaha Centre in Vienna in 1989. It's an idiosyncratic selection of music by 20th-century masters, Prokofiev (the Second Sonata), Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Webern (the Variations Op 27), Bartók (Three Burlesques), Szymanowski, and Hindemith (the 1922 Suite), recorded in a life-like but distant perspective that allows the capture of audience noises. The playing presents Richter at his most formidably granitic - imposing, strangely timeless, all flavour, completely without frills or wastage of presentation, all content, no distractions. The ragtime finale of Hindemith's brutally iconoclastic suite has all the machine-like implacability the composer requested, and more. Astonishing stuff. www.deccaclassics.com