This week's classical CDs reviewed

INTIMATE LETTERS

Emerson String Quartet Deutsche Grammophon 477 8093 **

The Emerson Quartet is among the most accomplished before the public today. But the group's approach to Janacek's two late quartet masterpieces, The Kreutzer Sonataand Intimate Letters, is ultimately a frustrating one. The Emersons treat Janacek's highly fragmented, speech-derived style in a way that simply ignores too many details of inflection and nuance. It breathes strangely. It's a bit like speech that's so heavily accented

by the patterns of a foreign tongue that it becomes hard to decipher. In musical terms, the players seem to want to draw Janacek straight back into the 19th-century romanticism he had turned his back on. The 15-minute coupling, Bohuslav Martinu's Three Madrigals for violin and viola, written in New York in 1948, are done with attractive zest. www.tinyurl.com/5b9s4r

MARTUCCI: SYMPHONY NO 2; THEME AND VARIATIONS; TARANTELLA; GAVOTTA

Orchestra Sinfonia di Roma/ Francesco La Vecchia Naxos 8.570930 ****

Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909) was an Italian composer working against type – he turned his back on opera. His Second Symphony of 1904 is regarded as one of his most important works, although its eclecticism can still create barriers for listeners. A recent New York performance provoked this put- down: “Brahmsian but without the melodies.” But that’s actually part of what makes it so interesting. It’s an unlikely melting pot. Brucknerian abruptness and Sibelian surge are among the traits. And yet, like, me you may end up putting labels on lots of moments and still feel that you’ve heard nothing else quite like it. The three shorter pieces, all arrangements, are less interesting, and more persuasive the lighter they are. www.naxosdirect.ie

HAYDN: 7 LONDON SYMPHONIES; SINFONIA CONCERTANTE

Chamber Orchestra of Europe/ Claudio AbbadoDeutsche Grammophon 477 8117 (4 CDs) *****

Claudio Abbado’s Chamber Orchestra of Europe Haydn recordings, made between 1986 and 1995, are modern instrument performances carried through with the lightness and litheness of the world of period instruments. There’s something irresistibly felicitous about the music-making. Abbado’s soft-spoken transparency has the cleansing feel-good factor of perfectly ripe fruit. Each of the symphonies recorded here (Nos 93, 96, 98, 100- 103) bristles with good things, and the Sinfonia Concertante (Marieke Blankenstijn, violin, William Conway, cello, Douglas Boyd, oboe, Matthew Wilkie, bassoon) is equally fine. Even at the new low price, the measure is still short; everything could have been fitted onto three discs. www.tiny url.com/5b9s4r

SZYMANOWSKI: MUSIC FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO

Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cédric Tiberghien (piano) Hyperion CDA 67703 ****

Alina Ibragimova is an enthralling interpreter of Szymanowski. She seems fully in command of the Polish composer's melting effects, his dizzying downward spirals, his extremities of sensual indulgence. And pianist Cédric Tiberghien is fully tuned in as well. Rather than begin at the beginning, this disc opens in medias res, as it were, with the heady Szymanowski of 1915, the year of the Nocturne and Tarantella, and the set of Mythes, which includes the composer's best-known violin and piano piece, La fontaine d'Aréthuse. Neither the more straightforward harmonic colouring of the earlier Sonata in D minor and Romance in D nor the later reworkings of Paganini Capriceswith piano can quite compare. The final Berceuse d'Aïtacho Eniais intriguingly pared- down. www.tinyurl.com/5jub7c