Double Play: Dreaming about the fires of youth: Edward Seckerson and Stephen Johnson on brilliant Brahms and retiring Rachmaninov

RACHMANINOV: Piano Concerto No 3. Vocalise Evgeny Kissin, Boston Symphony Orchestra / Seiji Ozawa (RCA 09026 61548-2)

THE MOTHER of romantic piano concertos, the most prodigiously gifted player of his generation: you'd expect fireworks. You'd be wrong. Not unless you have in mind the indoor variety. At 21 going on 40, Evgeny Kissin sounds so preoccupied with being grown up that he's quite forgotten how it is to be young. If ever a performance sounded set in its ways, old before its time, this one does.

The opening is a statement of intent: slow, self-consciously poetic, a whisper away from lethargic. In his 'maturity' Kissin has slammed the door on passion and volatility; he welcomes repose, sinks gratefully into the shadows, savours the half-lights. But even the rich, melancholic effusions of the slow movement, beautiful though they are, feel somehow removed, distanced. It's a performance turned in on itself, the emotion so strictly controlled that the spirit is compromised. The manner is subdued even where the pulse of the music races. The technique dazzles; the adrenalin doesn't flow.

Nothing ignites from within. Not even the awesome first- movement cadenza: Kissin takes the larger of the two options only to stunt its growth with his restraint. The roar of audience approval at the close came as almost a shock. Can the fires of Kissin's youth really have gone out so soon? ES

THE Third Concerto's Russian chant-like opening theme can rarely have emerged so dreamily - or so slowly - on to the stage. A slight quickening of the pulse brings a corresponding increase in electricity, and later in the movement Kissin manages some suitably sonorous fortes (essential when the grander original cadenza is used), but the first impression never quite fades. It isn't just that Kissin doesn't play to the gallery - he hardly seems aware of its existence.

What the young Russian offers is one of the most poetic, atmospheric and gently moving performances of the D minor Concerto I've heard. The restraint may be surprising, until you look at the score and see how much of this piece is marked piano, or quieter. Of course there's brilliance and for prestidigitation he's the equal of any of his current recorded rivals, but when it comes to agility the muscular acrobatics of the coda were eclipsed in my memory by Kissin's light fantastic touch in the second movement's central scherzo section - a very individual kind of magic, that.

Some of the piano soliloquies were lovelier still - an inwardness there that reminded me of Rachmaninov's own recording, and the tonal palette is remarkable too - broad, but subtle, never tricksy. Perhaps what it lacks in the end is the redeeming touch of vulgarity, or at least gutsy directness. But Rachmaninov the dreamer was rarely better served. The sweet and tender Vocalise arrangement seems to grow straight out of the concerto - need one say more? SJ

BRAHMS: String Quartet in B

flat. SCHUMANN: String

Quartet in A minor

Vogler Quartet

(RCA 09026 61438-2)

I'VE a feeling that the overriding tone is a good deal more gratifying than the recording would have us believe. The ambience is chilly, there's a dry, unyielding quality to the sound of bow on string. That makes for a certain guttural excitement in the confrontational first-movement allegro of the Schumann, but it is far less appealing as the glorious Adagio rolls out, its exalted trills so suggestive of the keyboard master.

Yet there is something 'nervy', edgy, about the Vogler manner, too. It's rather effective in the first movement of the Brahms, which is not nearly as genial, as carefree as it at first sounds. I like the way they sit on that unexpected harmonic clash, the sting in the tail of the hunt- like first subject; I like the knife- edged tensions between reverie and anxiety (speaking of knife edges, there's a very nasty edit into the development).

Some may find their shaping of the slow movement's opening paragraph ungiving, wary to the point of undermining Brahms's shock tactics later in the movement. Few will be able to resist Stefan Fehlandt's viola, a rich dusky presence in the Scherzo where he alone is au naturel amidst the other muted voices: that's one of Brahms's most telling colouristic effects. ES

SO far this outstanding young German ensemble have shown quite a flair when it comes to repertoire. Their Berg-Verdi (yes, that's Alban Berg and Giuseppe Verdi) coupling was all the more startling because they played both works so idiomatically, brilliantly and with such feeling. Now they choose two works that have both been challenged for being not quite 'real' string quartets, and show them to be so full of wonderful ideas, wonderfully developed, that you begin to wonder why the question was ever raised in the first place.

The viola-led intermezzo of the Brahms has to be one of the most gorgeous ersatz scherzos that he ever wrote. If I haven't realised that before, that must be because I haven't heard it played like this. The Schumann is approached differently - plenty of schwung, but not neglecting the light touch. The dedication to Mendelssohn, in token of 'an inner bond', seems more than usually apposite. This is more than restoration, it's revitalisation, especially effective when so well recorded.

With groups like this and the fine young Swiss Carmina Quartet around, the future of the string quartet promises to be, at the least, interesting. SJ