Something old, something new, something borrowed … I guess all transcriptions are borrowed – or purloined – and viola players have borrowed a fair few works, often appropriating them from other instruments. Timothy Ridout presents two interesting transcriptions – one old, one brand new – on this Harmonia Mundi album with pianist Frank Dupree. They’re a fine showcase for his sensitive playing and burnished tone, beautifully captured by the engineers in La Courroie, a venue in Entraigues-sur-la-Sorgue, even if one of the works doesn’t strike me as wholly successful.

Ridout here plays his own transcription of Schumann's Dichterliebe (‘A Poet’s Love’, giving the album its title) and it’s very faithful, switching between the viola’s lower and upper registers to vary character and only occasionally swapping voice and piano parts (in ‘Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen’). There’s sweetness in ‘Im wunderschönen Monat Mai’ and Ridout strikes a gritty baritone register for ‘Ich grolle nicht’. The jauntiness of ‘Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen’ works well but he spins out ‘Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen’ very slowly, as if to compensate for the missing text as the poet laments his beloved when he hears the song she used to sing. It helps if you know Heine’s texts – or have them to hand.

How well do lieder work in instrumental transcription? When songs are transcribed, they’re usually for solo piano to show off the pianist’s prowess, be it Liszt, Rachmaninov or Godowsky adding a vocal line to the existing two hands. But when it’s a solo instrument taking over that vocal line – especially in a song-cycle – I can’t help feeling that the absence of text reduces the music’s impact.

The other transcription works wonderfully. Vadim Borisovsky (long-serving viola player of the Beethoven Quartet) transcribed eight movements from Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet with the composer’s blessing, later adding a further five numbers, including two that add a second viola (Matthew Jones recorded them all for Naxos). Ridout presents seven of the numbers and his viola is perfect at catching the aching sighs of the Introduction and the youthful ardour of the ‘Balcony Scene’, accompanied with great character by Dupree. Prokofiev’s tongue-in-cheek wit is present in ‘The Street Awakens’ and Juliet’s skittishness of her first entrance – playing with her doll – is delightful (more carefree than Jones with Michael Hampton). There’s a suitably gruff tone for the severe ‘Dance of the Knights’, plus some glassy sul ponticello effects in its eerie middle section when Juliet reluctantly dances with Paris. Both the ‘Balcony Scene’ and ‘Juliet’s Death’ touch the heartstrings, Prokofiev’s music just as moving in transcription as in the orchestra pit.