The Compact Collection

This week's best CD releases: MacMillan String Quartets Nos. 1 &2, Tuireadh, Momento - Robert Plane; Vaughan Williams chamber works - The Nash Ensemble; Bantock Violin Sonatas 1 & 2 - Lorraine McAslan and Michael Dussek

"The loneliness one dare not sound": Emily Dickinson's frightened image could well serve as the motto for James MacMillan's Tuireadh (Gaelic for lament) where Robert Plane's gull-like clarinet swoops or hovers around the anguished Emperor String Quartet in remembrance of the ill-fated North Sea oil-rig Piper Alpha. Some have spoken of the work's "keening", its sighing and sobbing. But the overriding impression for me is of solitary witness: the scrub of bows on gut like wave-slapped wreckage, or a winged clarinet fighting off jagged string chords. Every now and again MacMillan cues an ethereal chorale. A moment of respite or the crooked finger of a summoning god? Tuireadh shares its disc with MacMillan's two string quartets, the First, Visions of a November Spring, taut and boldly modernist, with D major swarms troubling the first movement and recollections of early Bartok in the second. Memories of later Bartok inform sections of the Second Quartet. Never one to pose, MacMillan strips his language for Momento, a brief evocation of Hebridean psalm-singing that conjures the modal serenity of Beethoven's A minor String Quartet, Op. 132. It concludes a remarkable programme that's beautifully played and superbly recorded.

This sense of an inward confrontation is present in the second of Vaughan Williams's two string quartets. The period covered is wartime, the mood midway between grim action music and qualified serenity (Largo). Hyperion's recording with the Nash ensemble has a fluidity that's quite unlike the excellent Maggini Quartet's broader-paced alternative for Naxos (8.555300), proof that slower tempos don't necessarily probe deeper. Couplings will prove decisive. Naxos favours the less memorable First Quartet and the idyllic Phantasy Quintet, which also turns up on the Hyperion disc. The remainder of Hyperion's release is given over to the wistful Six Studies in English Folksong for cello and piano, the piano solo The Lake in the Mountain and the late, obdurate Violin Sonata.Performance and recording standards are consistently high.

As indeed they are on Mike Dutton's new CD of the two numbered violin sonatas by Sir Granville Bantock. Both recall Brahms, Schumann and Fauré, which is not to say that they lack their own voice. The most precious gems are the two miniatures: Coronach and Salve Regina, heartfelt music lovingly crafted. All are being given their world premiere recordings.

MacMillan String Quartets Nos. 1 &2; Tuireadh; Momento Robert Plane (clarinet), Emperor String Quartet BIS BIS-CD-1269

Vaughan Williams chamber works The Nash Ensemble Hyperion CDA76313

Bantock Violin Sonatas 1 & 2; Coronach; Salve Regina Lorraine McAslan (violin), Michael Dussek (piano) Dutton CDLX 7119