Despite fine recordings of operas by Britten and Tippett and a distinguished career as founder­conductor of the London Sinfonietta‚ David Atherton has been rather under­used by recording companies recently. GMN‚ of which he is co­founder and artistic director‚ is evidently going to put that right. These are very good performances‚ by an orchestra and a conductor who seem to be enjoying themselves. The rhythmic heft and brassy exuberance of the Scherzo à la russe are sensibly placed first‚ to engage the attention‚ but in Orpheus it is the austere beauty and poignant expressiveness of the music which absorbs these players‚ and the brief but shocking eruption of quiet violence as the Furies attack. ‘Expressiveness’? Why yes: these musicians know‚ or Atherton has told them‚ that the Interlude in Scene 2 represents the damned in Hades pleading with Orpheus to continue his song‚ that the bar of silence in the pas de deux accompanies Orpheus tearing the veil from his eyes and Eurydice’s precipitate death. Of course they must be played expressively. Conductor and orchestra are very good‚ too‚ at finding the wit alongside the grace of Scènes de ballet‚ as well as the grandeur of its Apotheosis. The first of the ‘Four Studies’ is ideally raucous‚ the last colourfully brilliant‚ the others pungently characterised. The recordings‚ six or seven years old‚ are admirably responsive. There are numerous versions of all four pieces in the catalogue‚ but anyone in search of this particular coupling will find nothing to disappoint them here save one brief moment of sour tuning. GMN announces four further volumes in this series; they should be well worth investigating.