The latest releases reviewed
Virgin Classics 502 1132 ****
The Unfinished Symphony was by no means the only work Schubert failed to complete. The String Quartet in C minor, D703, is normally represented by a single completed movement, to which the Artemis Quartet here add the tantalising fragment of the Andante which was to follow. The playing combines a nervy edge with a frequent lightness of touch, and the two minutes-plus that Schubert finished of the Andante flows with unsugared ease. Observant directness is a feature, as well, of the great C major Quintet. Truls Mørk and the Artemis allow air into their phrasing, achieving high emotional thrust without overloading the music's texture. And they fill the sublime slow movement with the heartbreak of restraint. www.virginclassics.com
DIM SUM Ying String Quartet Telarc ***
The Chinese-American Ying Quartet here offer a selection of musical morsels (hence the title Dim Sum), many excerpted from larger pieces, by eight fellow Chinese-American composers. The composers are all still living, and they range in age from Chou Wen-Chung, born 1923, to Vivian Fung, born 50 years later. The music seeks to bring together the worlds of Chinese and western music, sometimes with an almost old-style romantic nationalist air, sometimes with an altogether edgier finish (Ge Gou-ru's Fu and Tan Dun's Cloudiness). Zhou Long's Song of the Ch'in has wonderfully evocative textures. But it's actually two movements from Chou Wen- Chung's Clouds which marry the different musical worlds with the strongest sense of vitality and independence. www.telarc.com
40 DEGREES NORTH Xuefei Yang (guitar) EMI Classics 206 3222 ****
Beijing-born, London-resident guitarist Xuefei Yang here brings together work evocative of her home country and the music of Spain - the title 40 Degrees North refers to the approximate latitude of Beijing and Madrid. There are just two original guitar works in the collection, Stephen Goss's The Chinese Garden and Francisco Tárrega's Variations on The Carnival of Venice, both of which respond superbly to Xuefei Yang's fleetness of finger and fine control of colour. The Chinese arrangements include part of the famous Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, and there are some Albéniz standards on the Spanish side. Among the arrangements, however, it's Yang's direct-speaking account of Granados's Valses poéticos which make the strongest impression. www.emiclassics.com
THE ARTIST'S CHOICE COLLECTION Alfred Brendel (piano) Philips 478 0421 (8 CDs) ****
Alfred Brendel gives up the concert platform this year, after he completes his farewell tour. Philips, Brendel's record label of nearly four decades, is marking the occasion with a special-price eight-CD set of personal selections he has made in a series of Artist's Choice issues, recording in which, as he wryly puts it, "the player recognises his own intentions with a modicum of pleasure". From his studio recordings Brendel has chosen works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Liszt. But for Schubert sonatas he turned to live recordings which, for my money, now definitely take pride of place over the studio work. Brendel's notes tantalisingly promise a live Brahms First Piano Concerto to come. www.deccaclassics.com
