The latest CD releases reviewed

BEETHOVEN: PIANO SONATAS VOL 2
Paul Lewis Harmonia Mundi HMC 901903.05 (3 CDs) ****

The second volume of Paul Lewis's Beethoven sonata cycle ranges wide, from some of the smallest of the mature sonatas (Opp 14, 78, 79 and 90), through some of the best known (the Pathétique and Waldstein) to the veritable Everest of the Hammerklavier, with the Sonatas in B flat, Op. 22, and in A, Op. 101. Lewis's Beethoven has an intriguing, unforced energy. There is something comfortable, almost lived-in, about the style, but this is no drawback. He's undaunted by grandeur of scale, and at the same time has a keen ear for details of colour and voicing. One of the great pleasures in this set is the way he manages to convey both a sense of interpretative centrality and individuality. www.uk.hmboutique.com Michael Dervan

SAINT-SAËNS: CELLO SONATAS; SUITE OP 16
Maria Kliegel (cello), François-Joël Thiollier (piano) Naxos 8.557880 ***

Saint-Saëns wrote one of the most popular of cello concertos in 1872. But his follow-up, written in 1902, has faded from view, and his two cello sonatas (1872 and 1905) remain real rarities in the concert hall. The earliest piece here, and the rarest, the Suite, Op. 16, dates from 1862. The British cellist Steven Isserlis, one of the composer's staunchest supporters, cherishes his "delight in beautiful melodies, in well-rounded forms, and in sunlit musical smiles". The German cellist Maria Kliegel sometimes goes in search of rather more urgent and anguished outcomes, and her playing, always technically secure, sounds best when she eases off on the expressive intensity. French pianist François-Joël Thiollier sounds in fuller stylistic sympathy with the music, marrying its spirit and drive with ease. Michael Dervan

KAGEL: PANDORASBOX, BANDONEONPIECE; TANGO ALEMÁN; BESTIARIUM; EIN AUFNAHMEZUSTAND; LUDWIG VAN
Mauricio Kagel and others Winter & Winter 910 128-2 (2 CDs + DVD; limited edition) ****

This beautifully packaged and well- documented 75th birthday tribute goes well beyond the celebration of Mauricio Kagel as an iconoclastic composer. It presents him also as an adventurous author of radio plays, if that term can fully encompass the fantasies of his 1969 Ein Aufnahmezustand, and maker of films, by including a DVD (sadly, without subtitles) of his decidedly anti-hagiographic Ludwig Van, created for the Beethoven bicentenary year of 1970, with Joseph Beuys among the collaborators. The musical works included are Pandorasbox (the overcome bandoneon player being Kagel himself), Tango Aléman (Kagelised tango, well the far side of Piazzolla, with vocals - the composer, again - in an aptly emotionalised fantasy language), and Bestiarium for a trio of players on bird-call and hunters' whistles. Kagel, as ever, is a man who treads where others fear to go. www.uk.hmboutique.com Michael Dervan

DVORAK: QUARTET IN G OP 106; JANACEK: QUARTET NO 2 (INTIMATE LETTERS)
Artemis Quartet Virgin Classics 353 3992 ***

Dvorak's most popular string quartet, the American, is his shortest. The Quartet in G, Op. 106, written two years later, is at least as fine, though definitely not as immediate in tuneful appeal and is more than 50 per cent longer. The 38-minute length (not extreme for a composer whose longest quartet extends to 70 minutes) may go some way to explaining the work's low profile, but the music's moods are not always easy to integrate successfully. The Artemis Quartet pressure the extroversion and sometimes lay on the angst a bit heavily, but then they mostly play like angels at the other end of the spectrum. The stormy contrasts of Janacek's Second Quartet, the love confessional Intimate Letters, are far more amenable to their highly-strung approach. www.virginclassics.com  Michael Dervan