RECORDINGS

★ TRANSFORMATION

BACH Partita no.3 in E major BWV1006 REGER Praeludium and Fugue in D minor op.117 no.6 YSAŸE Sonata for solo violin in A minor op.27 no.2 KNORR Partita for violin solo AUERBACH par.ti.ta for violin solo Lea Birringer (violin)

RUBICON RCD1069

Transformative Bach-inspired collection highlights the architecture of the music

This is one of those rare recordings that seduces simply by the sound it makes. It perfectly blends projection and detail within a gentle ambient halo, and it comes as no surprise to discover the location: Berlin’s Jesus-Christus-Kirche, where, most famously, Herbert von Karajan’s analogue recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic were invariably captured. Lea Birringer’s tonal radiance and sparkling articulation captivate the senses throughout an ingenious programme celebrating the seemingly inescapable creative impact of Bach’s solo violin music.

In Bach’s E major Partita, Birringer combines youthful freshness with a beguiling subtlety of phrasing and dynamic that captures the music’s (mostly) sunny disposition to perfection. Her multiple-stopping/ spread chords are almost impossibly smooth and elegantly dispatched, her intonation flawless and sensitively attuned to the key’s natural cushioned brilliance, and moments of decorative fantasy exquisitely tasteful. She never seems to stop ‘dancing’ with the music, inflecting each section with just the right degree of supple temporal elasticity.

It is easy in both Reger’s D minor Praeludium and Fugue and Ysaÿe’s Second Solo Sonata (with its haunting Bachian echoes) to adopt a thrusting interpretative profile, yet Birringer never loses her cantabile composure, nor her rare instinct for nurturing her instrument’s natural resonances. No less captivating are her quick-fire musical reflexes in Lera Auerbach’s 2007 par.ti.ta, whose ten short(ish) movements (as Birringer points out in her fine booklet note) afford ‘an intriguing glimpse into the past and the future’. The real discovery, however, is the four-movement G minor Partita by Ernst-Lothar von Knorr (1896–1973), which features a chaconne, based on a popular German folk song, of time-suspending structural poise.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

BEETHOVEN

String quartets: nos.12 op.127, no.14 op.131

Ehnes Quartet

ONYX ONYX4215

Rich sound and seamless ensemble playing from an all-star quartet

This is the second of four discs by the Ehnes Quartet, featuring Beethoven’s string quartets nos.10–16 and the Grosse Fuge (opp.130 & 133 on Onyx was reviewed in August 2021).

Recorded over an intensive two-week period, through the wonders of modern technology James Ehnes and his distinguished colleagues (violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti, violist Richard O’Neill and cellist Edward Aaron) were able to record the entire series in Macon, GA, US, during the recent travel lockdown, with producer Simon Kiln controlling operations back here in the UK. Amazingly, whether listened to from a musical or technological standpoint, you simply would never know.

The first thing that strikes one about these imposing readings is the extraordinary sonority generated by this all-star quartet – luminous, richly opulent, immaculately balanced and cultivated, without an ugly sound within earshot. Indeed, the quartet’s tonal matching is so refined that at times it sounds as though all four players are somehow magically playing the same instrument. Musically, too, there is an extraordinary sense of oneness, which helps focus the attention purely on the music, without any sense of distraction.

It is perhaps hardly surprising that the most overtly lyrical and emotionally stable of the late quartets, op.127 in E flat major, responds so glowingly to the Ehnes Quartet’s immaculately integrated sound world. Yet if anything it is the C sharp minor op.131 that benefits most strikingly from a lack of sonic and technical strain. By gently nurturing the music’s cantabile– espressivo potentialities rather than its occasionally subversive semantic thrust, it feels more at one than usual with its quartet bedfellows.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

BEETHOVEN Violin Sonatas vol.3: nos.8–10

Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin) Martin Helmchen (piano)

BIS BIS-2537 (SACD)

Stylish yet sincere and focused playing in third volume from this duo

From the start, this series has been characterised by the sort of effortless style, grace and extreme sincerity with which we associate both musicians. The final volume is no different. Again, Zimmermann’s sound sits somewhere in between the historically informed world of modern players like Viktoria Mullova, and the Romantic spirit of his hero Arthur Grumiaux. Helmchen, playing with Classical style and ornamentation, is seated at a ‘straight-strung’ concert grand by Chris Maene – less boomy than a Steinway or Bösendorfer and a certain friend to other stringplaying collaborators.

After a filigree and convivial Sonata no.8, does the ‘Kreutzer’ catch fire? This is a performance looking backwards to Viennese Classicism rather than forwards to incendiary, first-person Romanticism. The excitement is found less in histrionics (though there is the odd surprise), more in the focus and agility of two musicians who sound as though they are locked in musical and optometric conversation. Some might find the Variations mannered.

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Zimmermann’s ‘Lady Inchiquin’ Stradivari of 1711 sounds with a subtlety and sweetness that matches closely the brightness of Helmchen’s piano. Perhaps that’s why the Sonata no.10 is the real triumph here: softly spoken throughout, with the sense of intimacy and restraint approaching transcendence. The sound is faultless.

ANDREW MELLOR

BEETHOVEN Violin Sonatas nos.6, 7 and 8, op.30

Christian Tetzlaff (violin)

Lars Vogt (piano)

ONDINE ODE1392-2

A duo in perfect harmony and with a shared sense of mercurial mischief

These are good (but expensive) times for collectors of Beethoven violin sonatas on disc. Hard on the heels of the above-mentioned Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen comes the long-established partnership of Tetzlaff and Vogt. Mercurial mischief sets them apart from their rivals – not just finishing each other’s sentences in the opening movement of the A major Sonata and the finale of the G major but daring each other on like naughty boys throwing water bombs or playing near a railway line. A high-risk strategy, but there’s always something to arrest the ear, such as the accents and hair’s-breadth bowing that lift the A major’s slow movement from placid lyricism, or the wait-and-see pauses and surprises lying around corners of the G major’s central minuet.

The booklet prints an absorbing conversation between violinist and pianist, in which they discuss the ‘cold fire’ of Beethoven’s C minor moods, and how in life ‘there’s a much greater art to being happy than sad’. Quite so, and the sonata’s Adagio cantabile is accordingly treated as an interior dialogue, as if distantly overheard from the front-line skirmishes of the outer movements. Taken at pace, almost (but never quite) tripping over itself, the Scherzo gains a quality of distracted, sublime silliness that feels true to the composer of the late bagatelles and ‘Diabelli’ Variations. The engineering is close but recital-hall realistic, with Tetzlaff standing towards the right.

PETER QUANTRILL

BRITISH SOLO CELLO MUSIC

BRITTEN Tema ‘Sacher’; Suite no.3 WALTON Theme for a Prince; Passacaglia GARDNER Coranto pizzicato MERRICK Suite in the Eighteenth-Century Style ADÈS Sola ANON Under the little apple tree; Autumn; The grey eagle; Grant repose Steven Isserlis (cello)

Mishka Rushdie Momen (piano)

HYPERION CDA68373

British cellist brings all his character and virtuosity to music from his homeland

Steven Isserlis clearly had a productive lockdown, during which this project reached fruition. His booklet notes have the captivating informality of a chat over a coffee, with many intriguing conversational asides. Inevitably perhaps the towering contribution comes with Britten’s Suite no.3 –a masterpiece of solo writing. Isserlis is truly under the skin of this work, providing acute attention to detail with regard to articulation.

Beyond that, though, he fathoms the range of emotions so perfectly, with both elegant and raw playing to suit the invention. It’s a lovely idea to include the themes that feature in the Suite in arrangements for cello and piano, the final one being conceived for multi-track cello which really gives us the notion of a cello choir. The other highlight for me in this fascinating release is Thomas Adès’s Sola, which manipulates a sequence of scalic passages in a witty and inventive manner and is given a fervent rendition by Isserlis.

The recording has both bloom and clarity which is perfect for the solo genre. Walton’s Passacaglia is given a lucid and convincing performance, but to my mind lacks the mesmerising and distinctive writing of his Cello Concerto. Equally, Frank Merrick’s pastiche Suite, reminiscent of both Handel and Reger, seems to outstay its welcome, although Isserlis delivers the last ounce of characterisation and virtuosity in shaping the material.

JOANNE TALBOT

★ ’ROUND MIDNIGHT DUTILLEUX

Ainsi la nuit MERLIN Night Bridge SCHOENBERG Verklärte Nacht Ébène Quartet, Antoine Tamestit (viola) Nicolas Altstaedt (cello)

ERATO 9029664190

A varied and imaginative tapestry of night music, sumptuously performed

This is one of the most imaginatively planned discs to have come my way in quite a while. Rather than merely lumping together two nocturnally inspired chamber works, the Ébène Quartet literally provides a bridge between them in the form of a selection of jazz standards newly arranged by the quartet’s cellist Raphaël Merlin. Taking its cue from Dutilleux’s multi-movement Ainsi la nuit, Night Bridge intersperses inventively embellished, dream-like ‘memories’ of ‘Moon River’, ‘Round Midnight’ and so on with atmospheric parentheses. An introduction leads in naturally from Dutilleux’s final ‘Temps suspendu’ and the pulsating low E flats of its dawn-chorus-filled coda, ‘Lever du jour’, seem naturally to presage the Ds at the start of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht.

But more than simply a well put-together programme, these are particularly fine performances as well as being sumptuously recorded. The night music of the Dutilleux is compellingly played, and comes across as far more than just a showcase of imaginative quartet writing – there’s an aching quality to ‘Litanies 2’, for example. Meanwhile, this account of the Schoenberg, with the Ébène joined by two esteemed colleagues, really feels like the work of an expanded quartet, so integrated is the ensemble. There’s a flexibility to the phrasing – never indulgent – that clearly seems to narrate the story of Dehmel’s poem.

MATTHEW RYE

KURTÁG

Six moments musicaux op.44; Officium breve op.28

DVOŘÁK String Quintet op.97

Parker Quartet, Kim Kashkashian (viola)

ECM 2649

Works by wildly contrasting composers partnered together are a revelation

Formed in Boston almost 20 years ago by students at the New England Conservatory of Music, the Parker Quartet count violist Kim Kashkashian and composer György Kurtág among their mentors, both of whom feature on this, the quartet’s first disc for ECM.

Dvořák’s Quintet (featuring Kashkashian) at first seems an unlikely partner to the two Kurtág pieces, and there’s no surprising revelation to counter this after hearing the disc as a whole; but that’s a minor quibble when the playing is as generous and committed as this. With a pert, upbeat sound, Dvořák’s first movement shines with optimism and sprung rhythms. The precision and joie de vivre continue in the rustic second movement, and the poise of the Larghetto variations movement contrasts with the good-natured jolliness of the Finale.

But it’s the spare, perfectly crafted sound world of Kurtág that draws the best playing. The 15 micro movements of Officium breve (1988–9) are austere and uncompromising but the performance is fearless yet probingly beautiful. In the Six moments musicaux (2005), the Parker Quartet – brilliantly captured in this recording – conjures a kaleidoscopic, post-Expressionistic range of mood and atmosphere, ranging from searing vertical sheets of dissonance to barely perceptible glowing half-lights. The result is nothing short of astonishing.

EDWARD BHESANIA

MENDELSSOHN

Violin Concerto in E minor 1 ; Violin Sonata in F major ; Songs Without Words (arr. Walter) 2

Augustin Dumay (violin) Orpheus Chamber Orchestra 1 Jonathan Fournel (piano) 2

ONYX ONYX4230

Exquisite Mendelssohn still sounds fresh and joyous in familiar hands

One of the most cosily held assumptions about Mendelssohn’s ubiquitous E minor Concerto is that (alongside the Bruch G minor) it is a kind of warm-up exercise for the giddy heights of Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Sibelius. In fact, such is its exposed diamantine filigree, seamless cantabile and intonational iridescence, that for anyone suffering a dreaded attack of nerves, it is one of the last pieces you’d want to be playing.

It also stands apart from the German Romantic mainstream insofar as it requires ideally a silvery, pure, sweet sound: Nathan Milstein had it, so too Christian Ferras and Alfredo Campoli, and, needless to say, Augustin Dumay. As soon as Dumay launches into those indelible opening arpeggiations, supported with a truly chamber-scale litheness and finesse by the Orpheus players, you know instinctively that this is the real thing. If Dumay’s 1988 recording with the LSO and Emil Tchakarov for EMI is notable for its youthful freshness and sparkling virtuosity, some 30 years later those special qualities are still very much in evidence, yet there is now an added depth and affectionate intimacy to Dumay’s phrasing that is cherishable.

Dumay’s natural affinity with Mendelssohn’s elfin world of post-Classical gesturing spills over into the F major Sonata, in which he is accompanied with enchanting sensitivity, grace and precision by recent winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, Jonathan Fournel. Played like this, brimming over with joyful spontaneity, it is difficult to understand why it is so relatively neglected. Dumay and Fournel finish with a radiant selection of nine songs without words.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

REMEMBERING

NØRGÅRD Between (Cello Concerto no.1) 1 Remembering Child (Viola Concerto arr. Kullberg) SAARIAHO Notes on Light 3

Jakob Kullberg (cello) BBC Philharmonic 1 3 ,Sinfonia Varsovia 2 / John Storgårds 1 , Michael Francis 2 , Szymon Bywalec 3

BIS BIS-2602 (SACD)

Three Nordic cello concertos offer vocal textures and more light than shade

Nordic cello concertos are not in short supply, but Notes on Light (2006) cuts against the geographically deterministic grain of long dark nights of the soul. A clear form helps: five movements, of which the ‘Eclipse’ fourth gives the soloist a rest from his otherwise taxing labours. So does the theme of light, which draws from Saariaho (not unusually in this respect) refined and moonlit textures to offset the cello part’s sighing mezzo register and support its cantilena sections.

The concerto’s lyrical heart is the third-movement ‘Awakening’ but the emotional charge is carried largely by the dappled expressionism of the harmony. Kullberg comes into his own, however, in the ‘Heart of Light’ finale as it strives towards and maybe achieves a cool transcendence.

Remembering Child makes a more direct appeal, composed in memory of the teenage American peace activist Samantha Smith, who died in 1985. Even when transposed down the octave, Kullberg’s own arrangement loses none of the original’s plangency in the centred, evenly registered tenor of his playing. I found Between a tougher nut to crack: thickly scored and more diffuse especially in the first movement, whether or not intentionally so on Nørgård’s part, as the piece embodies a gradual coming to terms between soloist and orchestra. The world of Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces op.16 is lusciously evoked in the brief middle movement, but the finale returns to a mode of oatmealtextured rumination. The precision and security of both engineering and execution score over previous recordings of all three works.

PETER QUANTRILL

PROKOFIEV Violin Concertos: no.1 in D major op.19, no.2 in G minor op.63; Sonata for Solo Violin in D major op.115 Tianwa Yang (violin) ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra/Jun Märkl

NAXOS 8.574107

A balance of sweetness and strength makes this Prokofiev pairing stand out

Tianwa Yang is currently on a roll with single-composer collections for Naxos (look up her Sarasate and Rihm), and this elegantly captured all-Prokofiev effort is especially strong.

First up is the Violin Concerto no.1, its theme sketched in 1915 as 24-year-old Prokofiev fell in love, then completed in 1917 having been captivated by the Polish violinist Pawel Kochański playing Szymanowski’s Mythes. Yang’s silvery legato sweetness is a perfect match for this intensely lyrical work, and the orchestra is equally alive to the score’s brightness, pace and array of translucently scored colours. The fairy-like recapitulation of the first movement’s opening theme is a delicately luminous knockout from everyone. Equally effective is Yang’s sharp-edged clout when the Scherzo takes an acerbic turn.

The Second Concerto of 1935 is an opportunity to appreciate Yang’s darker warmth, and the luxurious, heady vibrato and romance she brings to its central movement’s soaring lines. Then the buoyant playfulness and folk pep of her Solo Sonata (1947) is a reminder, if one were needed, of the qualities that won her a 2015 ECHO Klassik Award for her solo Ysaÿe album. If you want to cover both Prokofiev concertos in a single album, no need to hesitate here.

CHARLOTTE GARDNER

★ SOL & PAT RAVEL

Sonata in A minor for violin and cello M73 KODÁLY Duo for violin and cello in D minor op.7 ZBINDEN La Fête au village op.9; and works by J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Coll, Leclair, Ligeti, Markowicz, Xenakis and Widmann Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin) Sol Gabetta (cello)

ALPHA CLASSICS ALPHA757

Two old friends are even more than the sum of their parts

On another day this CD might have been called Pat & Sol. They’re old chums, as they tell us in their transcribed conversation in the booklet, and it shows in their easy musical unanimity. The main works here are Ravel’s Sonata and Kodaly’s Duo, both challenging in so many ways and both done more than justice. In Ravel’s opening Allegro they are robust and vibrant after the delicate, translucent opening, with great rhythmic dovetailing. There are outbursts of pagan ferocity in the Très vif, with Kopatchinskaja playing ‘sur le chevalet du talon’ with a vengeance that makes one fear for her instrument, soon balanced by the silky tenderness in the following Lent. They invoke a spiky Bartókian sound world in the final Vif, an aggressively rhythmic peasant dance.

Kopatchinskaja opens the Kodály with a soupy, almost Grappelli-like account of the opening melody, with a rhythmic freedom that presages what is to come. They play some of it like a giant cadenza, building splendidly to the great largamente. The central Adagio is almost a miniature tone poem of tragedy and resignation, filled with passion. In the final Presto they both sound like they’re enjoying Kodály’s hell-forleather-eccentricities. Zbinden’s 1947 La fête au village is a humorous set of pictures of a village festival in six short movements, vivid and sometimes intoxicated. Most of the other works here are barely two minutes long but they are all striking in their different ways. This really is a wonderful disc, all closely recorded and clear.

TIM HOMFRAY

SAINT-GEORGES

Symphonies concertantes: op.9 no.1 in C major, op.9 no.2 in A major, op.10 no.1 in F major, op.10 no.2 in A major; Symphony in G major op.11 no.1 Yury Revich, Libor Ježek (violins) Pavla Honsová (viola) Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice/Michael Halász

NAXOS 8.574306

Engaging music in performances that don’t quite take flight

The performances of these four engaging two-movement symphonies concertantes by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the extraordinary French–African polymath, will not resonate in the memory. Although Yury Revich and Libor Ježek’s accounts of the two op.9 works reveal them as a responsive pair of solo violinists who, equally strong in musical personality, play with assurance and control, lucid phrasing and purity of tone, their and Michael Halász’s perception of allegro seems too leisurely and sedate. The outcome, not assisted by a boxy recording, sounds somewhat heavy and lacking in appropriate élan. Much the same applies in the readings of the two op.10 works, in which Revich and Ježek are joined by violist Pavla Honsová, thus broadening further the spectrum of solo instrumental colour. The solo trio are equal to most of these works’ technical challenges, but blend seems inconsistent and occasional suspect intonation remains. Particularly effective, though, is the imitative minore episode in the quirky final Rondeau of op.10 no.2.

Halász and his forces, without continuo, accompany tidily and conclude with a workmanlike account of the three-movement Symphony op.11 no.1, in which the central Andante is gracefully and expressively delivered. However, despite their introduction of striking dynamic contrasts, the outer Allegros still seem exanimate.

ROBIN STOWELL

FOUR VISIONS OF FRANCE

SAINT-SAËNS Cello Concerto no.1 in A minor op.33; Romance in F major op.36 HONEGGER Cello Concerto LALO Cello Concerto in D minor FAURÉ Élégie Daniel Müller-Schott (cello) Deutsches SO Berlin/Alexandre Bloch (conductor)

ORFEO C988211

German cellist brings an international feel to collection of Gallic works

Despite the disc’s title, the composers’ visions feel just as much German, Spanish or American as French.

Nonetheless they make an interesting juxtaposition in Müller-Schott’s Gallic foray. The Munich-born cellist whips up a storm at the start of Saint-Saëns’s Concerto. This is a taut and vigorous performance, the outer movements taken at quite a lick, with the finale’s semiquavers unbelievably fast. His bowing is silky smooth in the Allegretto, the first phrase beautifully expansive.

Honegger’s Concerto makes an intriguing centrepiece. Müller-Schott relishes its jazz passages, easing into the notes from below, enjoying its many quirky moments and making the lively finale buzz with rhythmic energy. Fauré’s orchestral accompaniment adds much to the expressiveness of the Élégie. The cello theme is deeply moving and on its third hearing Müller-Schott adds a morbid, depressive touch with a well-chosen glissando between its first two notes.

In Lalo’s Concerto, the solo cello is not sufficiently to the fore in the first movement when contrasted with the orchestra’s loud interjections, in this otherwise well-balanced, up-front and clear recording. Its grand gestures and declamatory, recitative-like passages are accomplished with dignity. Saint-Saëns’s Romance ends the disc with a message of consolation, as Müller-Schott spins out its long, lyrical melody with the warm sounds of his 1727 Gofriller cello.

JANET BANKS

SCHUBERT

Piano Trio no.1 in B flat major D898; Valses nobles D969; Piano Trio in E flat major D897 ‘Nocturne’

Gould Piano Trio

RESONUS 10289

Beautiful, spontaneous-sounding Schubert with immaculate ensemble

These performers capture the spirit of Schubert’s First Piano Trio in a spontaneous, unforced and imaginative account. They contrast its lyricism and drama with commendable musicality, especially in the opening movement, taking time to pinpoint structural detail such as false reprises in remote keys, observing scrupulously the composer’s dynamic markings and shaping phrases with seasoned artistry.

Their tempo for the Andante seems unusually brisk and that of both the Scherzo and the final Rondo somewhat pedestrian, although their finale choice does make the eventual Presto dash to the finish all the more effective. Rubato is winningly employed, particularly in the Scherzo and the middle section of the Andante, and the ensemble throughout is immaculate. Captured in the reverberant ambience of the chapel of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, the recording is largely well balanced, but the brilliance of the piano’s upper registers sometimes submerges the strings in piano/ pianissimo passages.

The couplings in this first volume include Schubert’s twelve Valses nobles, characterfully dispatched in a world premiere recording of an arrangement by the 19th-century Viennese composer Julius Zellner. A more traditional ‘filler’, the raptly emotive ‘Notturno’ (the First Piano Trio’s original slow movement), is performed here with striking sensitivity, concluding proceedings in an atmosphere of reflective calm.

ROBIN STOWELL

YSAŸE

Scènes sentimentales nos.3 & 5; Élégie; Trois Etudes-Poèmes; Petite fantaisie romantique; Violin Concerto in G minor Sherban Lupu (violin) Henri Bonamy (piano) Liepāja Symphony Orchestra/Paul Mann

DIVINE ART DDA 25222

Out of the archives come seven new works by the Belgian violin master

This album with seven first recordings results from Sherban Lupu’s rummaging in literally dusty Belgian archives, especially at Liège Royal Conservatoire. A major discovery is the third Etudes-Poème (Cara memoria), a funeral march with lyrical passages and a dramatic climax. The third Scène sentimentale launches the programme boldly, with a lovely second theme; the fifth is attractive; the Élégie, completed and named by Lupu, is quite grave; the first Etude-Poème, a swaying Sérénade, has been given a piano part by Sabin Pautza; the attractive second features double-stops; and the adorable Petite fantaisie romantique, the only piece previously recorded, has a muted ending.

For the 1893–1910 G minor Concerto, Lupu consulted many partial versions and four more or less complete. Pautza orchestrated it based on Ysaÿe’s existing fragments of scoring. The opening tutti is interrupted by a violin cadenza and a second cadenza comes towards the end. In one movement lasting 25 minutes, the work calls for furious fiddling but halfway through an attractive contrasting theme appears.

Lupu’s intonational control has slipped a little from its perfection in his prime – he was 67 at the time of the sessions – but his understanding of Ysaÿe’s idiom is total. Bonamy is a sensitive partner and the sound is good.

TULLY POTTER

THE FOUR QUARTERS

Music by Adès, Bartók, Bush, Gurney, Miller, Marsey, Parker, Price, Purcell and Schumann Solem Quartet

ORCHID CLASSICS ORC100172

Striking concept album with committed playing but a bewildering mix of styles

This debut disc from the young, UK-based Solem Quartet is a high-concept offering based around the hours of the day, and built around Thomas Adès’s The Four Quarters, whose movements provide the framework for an eclectic collection of other music themed (sometimes rather loosely) around night, morning, daytime and the return of night and sleep. There’s a lot to take in, not least in the disc’s sometimes bewildering richness of styles – from some convincing viol consort impersonations in two Purcell arrangements to a traditional Burns tune, a rethink of Kate Bush, and some gloriously jazzy Florence Price.

The Solem players are brilliantly adaptable, however, and thoroughly convincing in both their playing and their inventive arrangements: second violinist William Newell’s lush reimagining of Bush’s ‘And dream of sheep’, for example, is played with moving suppleness and intensity, while all four players respond to the microtonal birdsong inflections of two movements from Cassandra Miller’s Warblework with immaculate precision and spirit.

Crucially, their Adès traversal is confident and assertive, with a richness to their sound and spot-on accuracy in the composer’s complex rhythms. There’s a sense, however, that the disc is simply too ambitious: gathering such a diverse range of repertoire irons out and ignores stylistic differences, which can only be a good thing, but also saps at a sense of focus. Given the overall diurnal theme, there’s surprisingly little contrast between the pieces, which generally inhabit a slowish, somewhat introspective sound world. Nonetheless, there’s no faulting the group’s persuasive playing, captured in close, authentic sound.

DAVID KETTLE