RECORDINGS

BACH

Solo Sonatas & Partitas Vol.1: Partitas: no.2 in D minor BWV1004, no.3 in E major BWV1006; Solo Sonata no.2 in A major BWV1003 Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin)

BIS BIS-2577

The beginning of a thoughtful journey through solo Bach

Zimmermann’s Bach has evolved as you might expect from his album of the concertos recorded almost 35 years ago for EMI. Applying a much narrower band of vibrato and more selective use of it to this first volume of solo works, he brings more light and shade to his phrasing while retaining the core of a sound that holds its sweetness or evenness under pressure.

Some may find his approach to the Allemande of the Second Partita unduly plain; to me it sings with the unschooled musicianship and uncanny purity of a good treble in one of the cantata arias. He follows it with a Courante balancing a touring showman’s flourish with highdefinition finesse.

Little here is as individual or obviously remarkable as the Bach recorded for Ondine by his contemporary and compatriot Christian Tetzlaff, save in the self-contained humility of the close to the Chaconne and to the naturalness of the E major Preludio. There is some novel pointing of the E major Gavotte, underlining its rustic grace, but no less striking in its way is the simplicity of the minuets, and the snatched second note of the concluding Gigue is a very rare exaggeration. This is solo Bach to live with, not least for the gentle radiance of the BIS engineering.

PETER QUANTRILL

BEETHOVEN

String Quartets op.18: no.4 in C minor, no.5 in A major, no.6 in B flat major Chiaroscuro Quartet

BIS BIS-2498 (HYBRID SACD)

Brilliantly visceral playing from an outstanding quartet

A mere matter of months after its recording of the first three works from Beethoven’s op.18, the Chiaroscuro Quartet follows up with nos.4–6. Julian Haylock enthused about the previous volume in the January issue, remarking on its ‘semantically penetrating and supple world of dazzling light and shade, as befits this remarkable ensemble’s distinctive title’. Nevertheless, the light felt closer the northern light of the leader’s Russia or the violist’s Sweden, rather than the warmer Mediterranean sunshine of the cellist’s and co-violinist’s Spain and France. One might then have predicted that, among this second set of three quartets, the C minor of no.4 might suit these players better than the more buoyant nos.5 and 6.

Great unanimity of purpose from the Chiaroscuro Quartet

FABIAN FRANK

How wrong that prediction turns out to be. Once again, these are attentive, reactive performances, remarkable for their clarity and the unanimity between the four players. And, while the C minor mood of no.4 finds the players at their best, they’re just as responsive to the more ambivalent Fifth and the exuberance of the Sixth. The variations of no.5’s slow movement display the range of colours they are able to draw from their array of predominantly 18thcentury gut-strung instruments. Their pianissimos, too, command attention within a dynamic compass that covers the whole range without ever sounding forced. Vibrato becomes an effect rather than a default. And again, the production – by Andrew Keener, with engineer Fabian Frank, in Bremen’s Sendesaal – comes in close to clarify lines but allows just enough bloom to avoid sounding analytical. A compelling follow-up, and a delicious appetiser for the Chiaroscuro’s op.59.

DAVID THREASHER

HERMANN

Complete Surviving Music vol.2: Two Duos for violin and cello; ‘Suite’ for solo violin; String Trio; Piano Trio; Invenzioni a tre voci

To browse through more than a decade of The Strad ’s recording reviews, visit www.thestrad.com/reviews

Marko Komonko (violin) Theodore Kuchar (viola) Denys Lytvynenko (cello) Myroslav Drahan (piano)

TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC 0585

Compelling advocacy of the music of a forgotten Hungarian

Pál Hermann (1902–44) was a Hungarian-born cellist and composer who studied with Bartók, Kodály and Hugo Becker, was dubbed the ‘second Pablo Casals’, played for Schoenberg, was commended by Schreker, and taught in Berlin alongside Hindemith. That he is almost forgotten is one of the many tragedies of the 20th century: after a successful early career as a travelling virtuoso, he was forced by his Jewishness into a more urgent itinerant existence after 1933, escaping ultimately to Toulouse, where a spot-check by the Gestapo in 1944 caught up with him and he was sent to his death in a Lithuanian prison camp. Much of his music was written for him to play with colleagues and in particular with his duo partner Zoltán Székely, dedicatee of Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto, but little was published and only a smattering of pieces survives in manuscript (many of them newly transcribed and available for free on the IMSLP website).

This second volume concentrates on his chamber music. Of all the pieces here, the second Duo for violin and cello of 1929–30 is the most appealing, both for its textural ingenuities and for its high-spirited Hungarian flavour. The first Duo of 1920 is more diffuse but the short String Trio (1921) and Piano Trio (1924) have their moments and the untitled ‘Suite’ for solo violin (1919) is a remarkable work for a 17-year-old. The excellent recording was made in

Lviv last year with largely Ukrainian musicians, who play everything with vivid attention to detail and an effective sense of ensemble.

MATTHEW RYE

MATTHEW LOCKE: THE FLAT CONSORT

LOCKE Suites: no.1 in C minor, no.2 in B flat major, no.3 in D minor, no.4 in B flat major, no.5 in A minor; Duos for two bass viols: no.2 in D major, no.4 in C major Fretwork, Silas Wollston (harpsichord) David Miller (archlute, theorbo)

SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD 696

A fitting 400th birthday present for this master of the viol consort

Fretwork’s programme focuses on Locke’s eccentric and diverse approach to suite composition. His Flat Consorts have varied instrumentation (nos.1 and 2 involve a treble, tenor and bass viol and the others one treble and two basses) and are dominated by their restless fantazias. Fretwork’s four players swap roles for each suite and carefully shape these fantazias’ individual lines and the imitative interplay between them, contrasting their alternately sombre and lively affects with subtlety and refinement and negotiating tempo changes with a nice unanimity of ensemble. The group meets the more virtuoso challenges of Suites nos.3, 4 and 5 with ease and gives due weight to Locke’s theatrical gestures, adventurous harmonies and other stylistic idiosyncrasies. Their transparent textures have been skilfully captured in a balance that slightly favours the treble viol but gives due presence to the imaginative continuo contribution. The dance forms intertwined with the fantazias are powerfully characterised, especially the French-influenced Courante of no.3, the lilting Saraband of no.4 and the lively Jiggs of nos.1 and 2.

Two engaging Duos for bass viols, each sporting four fantazias, offer further textural contrast. Of similar construction and capricious idiom to the suites, they deftly balance what Locke himself described as ‘art and contrivance’ with ‘light and airy musick’ and are adroitly and persuasively dispatched.

ROBIN STOWELL

MENDELSSOHN

Violin Sonatas: in F major MWV Q26, in F minor op.4, in F major MWV Q7, in D major MWV Q18 (fragment) Alina Ibragimova (violin) Cédric Tiberghien (piano)

HYPERION CDA 68322

Mendelssohnian byways elevated to greatness by a stunning partnership

Mendelssohn only published one violin sonata (the F minor op.4) and left various others in different stages of completion. Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien start with the first version of his F major Sonata of 1838, giving it a good heroic opening with plenty of flair, which subsides into gentle caressing of the second subject. These contrasts of dynamism and repose, strength and delicacy, recur throughout the movement, giving shape and ever-shifting colour. The same can be said of the Adagio, in which the restrained grace of the opening melody opens into grand rhetorical gesture, with Ibragimova giving a keen dramatic edge to Mendelssohn’s more flamboyant passages, before falling away to reverie in the final bars. The finale is fleet and joyful.

The F minor Sonata from 15 years earlier opens with a recitative that is here flexible and gently questioning, and the remainder of this movement is nicely airy, with many subtleties of dynamic and rubato. In the central section of the Poco adagio second movement Ibragimova gives an exquisite demonstration of songful playing, and the Allegro agitato brings the piece to an end with an urgent gallop. The duo neatly catches the elegance of the 1820 Sonata in F major, with its whiff of minor-key Beethoven, and the closing Presto scampers along. In the D major fragment they are meditative, then tempestuous – and then the music tantalisingly breaks off, just as they’re really getting into their stride. The recording is close and well balanced.

TIM HOMFRAY

MOERAN

Violin Sonata in E minor; Sonata for two violins; Prelude for cello and piano; Piano Trio in D major Fidelio Trio, Nicky Sweeney (violin)

RESONUS CLASSICS RES 10296

Lyricism is to the fore in this carefully programmed recital

Moeran has found powerful advocates in the Fidelio Trio’s Belfast-born violinist Darragh Morgan and his pianist wife Mary Dullea. Their persuasive interpretation of the Violin Sonata encompasses an opening movement of intense drama, a dark, disquieting Lento, potently realised, and an energetic finale in which the composer’s instinctive folk-music leanings are effectively conveyed. The couple are joined by Tim Gill for a warm-hearted rendition of Moeran’s lyrical Piano Trio. Although the melodic material of the opening Allegro seems somewhat diffuse, the players skilfully interweave the folk-like melodic strands in the rhapsodic slow movement and dispatch the ensuing scherzo with convincing abandon, providing welcome relief in the more peaceful trio. They also revel in the finale’s melodic richness and ever-varying textures and highlight the cyclical return of the first movement’s opening theme before the animated coda.

The Armida Quartet: marrying empathy and scholarship in Mozart

FELIX BROEDE

Morgan and Nicky Sweeney offer a refined account of the two-violin Sonata, seamlessly negotiating the contrasting episodes in the first movement, executing its skittish, pizzicato-laden Presto with panache, and skilfully delineating the architecture of its Passacaglia. Gill and Dullea give a pleasing sense of shape and purpose to the simple, yet profound Prelude. The engineering is first-rate throughout.

ROBIN STOWELL

MOZART

String Quartets vol.4: in C major K157, in B flat major K159, in E flat major K160, in C major K465 ‘Dissonance’ Armida Quartet

CAVI-MUSIC 8553205

An ongoing cycle making a striking case for early Mozart

This is the fourth volume in a complete recording of Mozart’s string quartets that has evolved in tandem with a new scholarly edition being published by Henle. As with its predecessors, it juxtaposes works from the composer’s precocious teens with a mature composition, in this case the ‘Dissonance’ Quartet that concludes the set Mozart dedicated to Haydn.

Ten years after winning first prize in the Munich Competition, the Berlin-based Armida Quartet is at the top of its game, and has retained a freshness of approach that befits the youthful Mozart. With crisp articulation and a sophisticated use of vibrato, the players come close to an ideal synthesis of period practice and modern instrumental set-up.

Thanks to the Armida’s thoughtful phrasing and transparent playing, the early quartets come across as more than merely promising. Their far from insignificant inner parts are discreetly brought out, and each movement’s individual atmosphere is unerringly caught; even an occasional tendency to rush seems to reflect the music’s youthful enthusiasm.

The Armida savours the name-giving dissonances in the introduction to K465, while the group’s observation of the first repeat in the Minuet’s da capo is just one sign of the careful consideration that has gone into this project.

CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE

MOZART

Violin Concertos: no.1 in B flat major K207, no.2 in D major K211, no.3 in G major K216, no.4 in D major K218, no.5 in A major K219 ‘Turkish’; Adagio in E major K261; Rondo in C major K373 Gil Shaham (violin) SWR Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas McGegan

SWR MUSIC SWR19113CD (2 CDS)

A fascinating encounter between oldworld opulence and modern musicianship

Typically probing musicianship from Mullova and Beatson

AGA TOMASZEK

Pair Gil Shaham with a versatile orchestra directed by such an enlightened musician as Nicholas McGegan and the outcome is a pragmatic hybrid of historical and traditional performance styles. Shaham, playing the ‘Countess Polignac’ Stradivari, is reasonably attuned to Classical decorum, save for some indulgent touches of vibrato and portamento, particularly in the slow movements, and he gives accurate, polished accounts of all five concertos, effortlessly rattling off the outer movements’ solo passages with fleet fingerwork, light bowing, subtle inflections and crystal-clear articulation. Striking, too, are his poised, lyrical accounts of the central slow movements, most notably of K218, with its chirpy second idea and magically hushed final solo passage. The rondo finales are characterised by their exuberance and sheer fun, most notably that of K219, in which a gentle minuet section is interrupted by the fiery ‘Turkish’ episode, spiced up by snarling crescendos and double basses playing percussively coll’arco al rovescio.

Shaham takes occasional liberties with the printed text and adds a modicum of tasteful extempore embellishment. Cadenzas, though, are largely overlong and anachronistic, as are most of the Eingänge (lead-ins); but some do fit the bill handsomely, most notably in the Rondeau of K219.

The makeweights in this package, the single-movement Rondo K373 and the Adagio K261, are both elegantly delivered. The orchestral contribution, which is especially commendable for its detail in K211, is consistently alert, neat and buoyant, with the pairs of horns and oboes ideally balanced against the modestly sized string ensemble. The studio recording leaves little to be desired.

ROBIN STOWELL

SCHUBERT

Violin Sonata in A major D574; Fantasie in C major D934; Rondo in B minor D895 Viktoria Mullova (violin) Alasdair Beatson (fortepiano)

SIGNUM SIGCD 706

Glowing period Schubert recorded in a new South Yorkshire studio

It’s unusual to begin an album review with acoustic, engineering and instruments, but they’re so distinctive here that it feels the place to start. Acoustics-wise we’re in Ayriel Studios, a new chamber-sized studio in North Yorkshire where an intimate dryness emulating the sound of a modest 19th-century salon has been created. To this, add engineering pitted gently but noticeably in Mullova’s favour, which works even over equally weighted close conversation. I would, however, have enjoyed more fortepiano in the mix at the points where it carries the melody, not least because Beatson produces a vivid panoply of colour from a copy of an 1819 Conrad Graf, whose golden, limpid-toned definition allows for tremendously detailed articulation. There are also occasional moments where Beatson coaxes from it a ravishing cloaked quality, courtesy of its moderator, such as in the distant mistiness of his pianissimo shimmers at the opening of the Fantasie in C major.

Mullova has strung her 1750 Guadagnini with gut and makes the most of that expanded timbral range via readings of uncluttered, Lied-like simplicity and a wide dynamic range. Schubert’s sunshine, fragility and passion are all there. The vocal feel is further accentuated by hers being a far from zero-vibrato approach, but instead using it to create a range of expression.

This could easily become addictive, such is the impression of entering an exquisite older world.

CHARLOTTE GARDNER

SCHUBERT

Complete Violin Sonatas Lena Neudauer (violin) Wolfgang Brunner (fortepiano)

CPO 555 152-2

An abundance of personality combined with period-instrument clarity

These elegant performances feature clear, warm-toned playing from Lena Neudauer on her gut-strung Guadagnini, with judicious use of vibrato. There are also two fine old fortepianos, a Franz Münzenberger of 1810 and an 1830 Conrad Graf.

Wolfgang Brunner plays the Münzenberger for the first three sonatas (designated sonatinas on the whim of their publisher). The recital starts with the Third in G minor. The players open with a snap, after which the severe first subject melts beautifully into the warmth of the second, while in the Andante they produce a joyful outburst in the central B major section. In the Andante of the D major (no.1) Brunner plays a cadenza, in which the necessarily clipped notes of the Münzenberger hang in the resonant acoustic, and the final Allegro vivace is a gleeful dialogue between the players. Neudauer’s ferocious first entry in the A minor Sonatina (no.2) sets up the drama to follow.

For the A major Sonata, also known as the ‘Grand Duo’, Brunner switches to the Conrad Graf, with its richer and more sustained sound. Neudauer’s sultry playing of the opening melody, nicely contrasting with the more muscular writing, suggests we are edging into more Romantic sensibilities. The insouciance of the Andantino gives way to an almost operatic central section, and the finale is a thoroughly theatrical entertainment. The recording is close and excellently balanced.

TIM HOMFRAY

SCHULHOFF

Five Pieces for String Quartet POPOV String Quartet in C minor op.61 ‘Quartet-Symphony’ Quartet Berlin-Tokyo

QBT COLLECTION QBT 001

A major world-premiere recording of a neglected Soviet composer

Schulhoff’s Five Pieces have inspired a heady variety of interpretations on disc, from the full-toned, gently ironic Bennewitz Quartet (Supraphon), via the impassioned eloquence of the Aviv Quartet (Naxos), to the spiky, deeply unsettling insinuations of an ad hoc ensemble at the 1990 Lockenhaus Festival (Philips). By comparison, the Quartet Berlin-Tokyo, warmly recorded in Berlin’s Gustav-Adolf Church, brings an espressivo intensity to Schulhoff’s restless textural interchanges, most strikingly in the Tango fourth movement, complete with sultry portamentos. The group also captures to the full the wild gyrations of the tarantella finale.

However, the disc’s main point of interest is the world-premiere recording of Gavriil Popov’s fourmovement ‘Quartet-Symphony’, premiered in 1951 and nearly an hour long. The 25-minute opening Allegro eroico e molto risoluto juxtaposes music of Shostakovich-like rhythmic intensity with lyrical secondary material. Hints of pedalpointed orientalisms underpin the light-as-air scherzo, while the finale sidesteps generic Soviet musical gestures to create a semantically elusive sound world. Little wonder Popov’s First Symphony had been banned by the authorities in the mid-1930s for failing to fly the flag! The Quartet Berlin-Tokyo throws itself into the fray, palpably relishing Popov’s creative volatility.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

WEBER

Six Sonates progressives op.10 Arnold Steinhardt (violin) Seymour Lipkin (piano)

BIDDULPH 85010-2

Quirky early Weber from a distinguished American duo

This is a delightful album and to hear Weber played better you would have to go to the three sonatas recorded by the great duo of Leonid Kogan and Grigory Ginzburg. Best known for his years as leader of the Guarneri Quartet, Arnold Steinhardt is on silktoned form on this 1995 recording.

From the opening of the F major Sonata, the legendary Seymour Lipkin (1927–2015) is a very positive presence. In the A major Sonata the piano expounds a theme – originally intended for the opera Silvana – at considerable length and has the second of four variations to itself.

Dating from 1810, the works follow all but the last of Beethoven’s violin sonatas. You do feel you are in the new era but, in calling them ‘progressive’, Weber might as well have meant quirky. Quickfire changes of mood abound and the commissioning publisher rejected them, realising they were not for amateurs.

Steinhardt and Lipkin clearly enjoy all 15 movements – including two polonaises, an ‘Air russe’ and one marked ‘Carattere espagnuolo’ – and are well recorded, a few fierce violin notes apart. The Largo of the C major, lasting just a minute, is profoundly played. At 44 minutes the disc is short measure but not short of incident.

TULLY POTTER

DANIEL WALDHECKER

AMERICA

Works by Bernstein12 , Cooke34 , Copland1 , Ellington1 , Gershwin1 , Price1 , Ward1 and Weill156Daniel Hope (violin) Zurich Chamber Orchestra 1 , Marcus Roberts Trio 2 , Joy Denalane (vocals) 3 Sylvia Thereza (piano) 4 Joscho Stephan (guitar) 5 Alexander Ponet (percussion) 6

DG 4861940

Daniel Hope stateside and off duty, but very much on form

This is Daniel Hope in easy listening mode, with rich, silvery tone and a neat sense of swing. In the opening Gershwin Song Suite (arranged by Paul Bateman, as is everything except Copland’s ‘Hoe-Down’) he brings syncopations and portamentos to five standards (whether the world really needs another soupy version of Summertime is a moot point) and really gets into his stride in I Got Rhythm. In this Gershwin set he is playing not just with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, which acquits itself admirably throughout, but also with the Marcus Roberts Trio, a jazz combo that shows how it really should be done.

In the West Side Story Suite, Hope plays in knowing, twinkling dialogue with himself in the conversations of ‘America’ and bathes ‘Maria’ in glowing vibrato. He and the orchestra have a fine, energetic workout in ‘Mambo’, where they get to shout as well as play.

There are a couple of other collaborators. Joy Denalane sings Sam Cooke’s A change is gonna come with soulful eloquence as Hope weaves above her, and guitarist Joscho Stephan riffs and ripples through four numbers by Kurt Weill in the American Song Suite, in which there’s no hint in Hope’s smoochy account of ‘Mack the Knife’ of the protagonist’s murderous instincts. The recording is suitably lush.

TIM HOMFRAY

Daniel Hope turns on the charm in his American songbook

PARIS BAR

Works by Françaix, Tansman and Lajtha Notos Quartet

SONY 886449765942

An impressive dive into lesserknown piano quartets

The Notos Quartet’s growing reputation has up until now been based largely on music of an impassioned nature, whether it be studio recordings of Bartók, Dohnányi, Kodály and Brahms, or live YouTube performances of Schumann and Walton. Now this piano-based quartet has turned its attention to music that, at least in the case of Françaix’s Divertissement and Tansman’s Suite-Divertissement, requires a slightly lighter touch.

Almost inevitably in works of this kind, the piano takes centre stage and, in the Françaix, Antonia Köster injects just the right degree of playfulness into the proceedings. Violinist Sindri Lederer, violist Andrea Burger and cellist Philip Graham share with Köster a highly tuned sensitivity for musical balance and palpably enjoy the freewheeling neo-Classicism of this piece.

The six-movement Tansman – an Introduction et Marche, Sarabande, Scherzino (Polka), Mélodie, Nocturne and Finale – is emotionally more wide-ranging, and the Notos responds in kind, with playing that ranges from extreme delicacy to full-on melodic rapture.

This is the premiere recording of László Lajtha’s early Piano Quartet, composed in 1925, not long after the first of his ten string quartets. The Notos relishes to the full its intoxicating, elusively Franco– Hungarian flavour.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

PRIMAVERA II: THE RABBITS

Works by Balakrishnan, Franklin, Getty, Jolley, Josquin, Kim, Macklay, Mazzoli, Muhly, Nourbakhsh, Reid, Seo, Shekhar and Weston Matt Haimovitz (cello)

PENTATONE 5186293

Plenty of bounce in an album inspired by the past but embracing the new

Primavera II: The Rabbits is the second instalment in cellist Matt Haimovitz’s projected cycle of six releases covering no fewer than 81 new commissions for solo cello (there are 14 here). They are based around both Botticelli’s 15th-century painting Primavera and Charline von Heyl’s contemporary response in Primavera 2020, with all the inevitable associations of the Covid pandemic and resulting social upheaval that those entail. That might well feel like a few too many threads of socio-cultural influence to weave together as a context for Haimovitz’s wide-ranging collaborations, and, indeed, the temptation is simply to listen and respond to the wealth of music here on its own terms.

Thankfully there’s plenty to enjoy – and to provoke and challenge, too, from the poise and granitic purity of Haimovitz’s own serious-minded multi-cello reimagining of the Kyrie from Josquin’s Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae through to the raucous, relentless workout of Jennifer Jolley’s Compulsive Bloom. Tomeka Reid offers some Brittenesque simplicity in the gently tumbling gestures of her lyrical Volplaning, while David Balakrishnan summons a Jimi Hendrix-like driving dynamism in his compelling Theme and Variants.

It’s a bewilderingly diverse collection, though Haimovitz traces a cunningly considered route through it all, allied to a fierce commitment whatever the music’s style. His delineation of voices and textures is remarkable – in the complementary lines of Missy Mazzoli’s minimalist

Cellist on a mission: Matt Haimovitz champions the new

DAVID BRENDAN HALL

Beyond the Order of Things (After Josquin), for example, or the wonderfully expressive range of pizzicatos in Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s Cyclical Rabbits – and his unshowy technical agility is matched by an open-minded responsiveness to the pieces’ individual demands and characters. Its high-concept inspirations aside, this is a thoroughly absorbing, constantly surprising collection, captured in close, warm sound.

DAVID KETTLE

20 FOR 2020: VOL.3

ADAMS A Weeping of Doves HAILSTORK Hora COATES Berceuse ZUBEL Unisono III NICKEL Fractures of Solitude Inbal Segev (cello) Ian Rosenbaum (marimba) Charlotte Mundy (voice) Christopher Tyler Nickel (oboe d’amore/cor anglais/bass oboe)

AVIE AV2464

A refreshing artistic response to the pandemic from this gifted cellist

Such is our collective experience over the past couple of years that the title of Israeli-born, US-based cellist Inbal Segev’s ‘20 for 2020’ project virtually speaks for itself. This third release collects together five of the 20 new cello works by contemporary composers that Segev commissioned with the aim of capturing aspects of the pandemic crisis in music, and also of imagining ways out of it.

It speaks volumes, in fact, that US-born, Munich-based Gloria Coates felt so floored by events that she was unable to offer an entirely new work, instead transcribing her brief Berceuse, originally for violin. And, despite the richness and seamless legato of her playing, Segev’s account is surprisingly gutsy, even turbulent – an approach she maintains across all five pieces with varying degrees of success. She provides a gloriously vivid, switchback counterpoint to the startlingly strange vocals (nimbly supplied by Charlotte Mundy) and electronics in Agata Zubel’s joyfully unhinged Unisono III, exploiting the cello’s enormous range and sonic capabilities to the fullest.

Adolphus Hailstock tips his cap to Segev’s heritage in his exuberant Hora, which imagines a traditional Jewish wedding dance, and draws lush, nuanced, never less than assertively projected playing from the cellist. There’s an almost artificial sound, however, to Inbal’s eight multitracked cellos in the closing Fractures of Solitude by Christopher Tyler Nickel, such is the strength and directness of her playing, and it’s a nasal purity that also feels rather out of place in the thoughtful A Weeping of Doves by American environmental composer John Luther Adams, atmospheric though it is. The five pieces make a compelling collection, though a broader range of approaches might have served the music more fully.

DAVID KETTLE