Two great masterpieces nestle among this week’s choices – Beethoven’s Third Razumovsky Quartet, the Op 59 No 3 in C, part of the Elias Quartet’s magnificent cycle for Wigmore Hall Live and, part of another ongoing series, Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons – a terrific performance of an overwhelmingly powerful work

More Beethoven comes courtesy of the early Trio for Piano, Clarinet and Cello in B flat, a work that predates the Op 18 quartets by a year or so and part of a group of chamber pieces that employ woodwinds – played with this kind of authority by Eric Le Sage, Paul Meyer and Claudio Bohorquez, it’s a charmer. 

From a splendid new album by the impressive Seattle SO, comes Ravel’s La valse – a truly disquieting reflection, surely, on the gradual breakdown of cultural life as imagined through the Viennese waltz. 

Other gems just out include a Vivaldi concerto from the Gramophone Award-winning La Serenissima, Richard Strauss’s appropriately arresting Festmarsch, a Nunc dimittis composed by Julian Anderson, a Soler keyboard sonata and a Chopin Nocturne played by the increasingly impressive George Li, an alumnus of the last Tchaikovsky Competition. Pre-release tracks this week are a Bach keyboard movement played by Víkingur Ólafsson, who gave us such a masterly album of Philip Glass a few years ago, and Alice Sara Ott playing a Debussy favourite. And, to close, the final moments of Rameau’s Le temple de la gloire, in a lively performance directed by Nicholas McGegan. 

Listen on:

Spotify, Apple Music, Qobuz

The tracks:

R Strauss Festmarsch

Staatskapelle Weimar / Kyrill Karabits (Audite)

JS Bach Concerto in D minor, BWV974 - Adagio

Víkingur Ólafsson (DG)

J Anderson Nunc dimittis

Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge / Geoffrey Webber (Delphian) NOT IN QOBUZ  

Vivaldi Concerto for two horns, strings and continuo in F, RV538

La Serenissima / Adrian Chandler (Avie) NOT IN QOBUZ    

Beethoven Trio for piano, clarinet and cello in B flat, Op 11, 'Gassenhauer'

Eric Le Sage, Paul Meyer, Claudio Bohorquez (Alpha)

Ravel La valse

Seattle Symphony Orchestra / Ludovic Morlot (Seattle SO)

Debussy Suite Bergamasque - Clair de lune

Alice Sara Ott (DG)

Beethoven String Quartet in C, Op 59 No 3, 'Razumovsky'

Elias Quartet (Wigmore Hall Live)  

Soler Sonata No 80 in G minor

Soo-Jung Ann (Naxos)

Shostakovich Symphony No 4

Boston Symphony Orchestra / Andris Nelsons (DG)

Chopin Nocturne No 20 in C sharp minor, Op posth

George Li (Warner Classics)

Rameau Le temple de la gloire -  Act 3, 'Air pour les romains et les romaines' 

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra / Nicholas McGegan (Philharnonia Baroque Productions)