The latest CD releases reviewed

BAROQUE
Gabriela Montero (piano) EMI 514 8382 ***

Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero, encouraged by Martha Argerich, is making a feature of improvisation, both in the recording studio and in concert. Everything on her new CD, she says, is impromptu. "It comes from my heart, the carefree little girl inside me, and a desire to have fun and share with people the joy of spontaneous composition." The inspiration is all baroque, and the improvisations are at their best when they're both lively and kept remote from the world that spawned them. The two that stand out are Handel's Hallelujah Chorus and a Scarlatti sonata, both drawn into wittily sun- drenched rhythmic domains. www.emiclassics.com

HAYDN, BEETHOVEN, SCHUMANN, FAURÉ
Leonid Kogan (violin), Rudolf Barshai (viola), Mstislav Rostropovich (cello), Emil Gilels (piano) Deutsche Grammophon Early Masters 477 7476 (2 CDs) ****

Kogan, Rostropovich and Gilels started their collaboration as a trio in Moscow in 1945, and the recordings collected here were made between 1950 and 1958. The three great men play with a delightful sense of unselfish camaraderie in this set, which is being issued to show a little-known facet of the career of Rostropovich, who died last year. The big works included are Fauré's C minor Piano Quartet (the only piece to involve Rudolf Barshai), Beethoven's Archduke Trio, and an especially rich account of Schumann's Trio in D minor. The set extends to Beethoven's early, unnumbered Trio in E flat, and two trios by Haydn. The recorded quality is variable, but mostly clear. www.deutschegrammophon.com

CPE BACH: GAMBA SONATAS AND FANTASIAS
Gianluca Buratto (bass baritone), Vittorio Ghielmi (viola da gamba), Lorenzo Ghielmi (fortepiano) Winter & Winter 910 140-2 *****

The viola da gamba sonatas of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach are late flowerings for an instrument that, by the mid-18th century, had largely been superseded by the cello. It's especially interesting to hear them in a context which runs to two of Emanuel's free fantasias for keyboard, one of them morphed by Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg into a song for Hamlet's famous soliloquy, as well as two pieces in the composer's richest expressive mode, Les Langueurs Tendres and La Stahl (the latter depicting a friend). CPE Bach's intense and often fantastical expressiveness is an acquired taste, but this finely conceived and executed disc should add to his following. www.uk.hmboutique.com