The Classical Collection

The latest organisation to take up the idea of self-branding CDs is one of London's best-loved and most intimate concert venues, the Wigmore, a hall that's as pleasing to the ear as to the eye. Next month sees the first releases in Wigmore Hall Live, with characterful recitals by Sir Thomas Allen and Dame Felicity Lott and two very different chamber music programmes. The Arditti Quartet (WHLive0003 ****) have long specialised in uncompromising avant-garde repertoire, backing the newest, strangest and toughest musical nuts. Their debut Wigmore Live CD is about as close as you'll ever get from the Ardittis to a "soft option". The four wired lines of Conlon Nancarrow's String Quartet No 3 hop hot-foot at simultaneous tempos, an absorbing quarter-hour's worth coupled with evocative if occasionally barbed quartets by Gyorgy Ligeti (his shimmering Quartet No 2) and Henri Dutilleux (his Bergian Ainsi la Nuit). It's listenable, certainly, but hardly as amiable as Mendelssohn's Octet played by The Nash Ensemble (WHLive0001 ****), a youthful masterpiece that harbours much tenderness beneath its surface bustle. The Nash make a marvellous job of the piece, taking the long first-movement repeat and, come the development section, quietening their pooled tone to a murmur so that the build-up toward the opening theme's return is doubly exciting. The andante has a beguiling, dreamy quality about it, the scherzo combines elfin charm with incisive attack and opening of the finale's moto perpetuo (on cellos) kicks up a real storm. Excellent sound, too, considering - though inner detail among the eight instruments isn't quite as well focused as it might have been in a recording studio. The coupling, by the way, is Beethoven's extravert Clarinet Trio.

For me, though, the Nash's best recent offering is a strongly recommendable coupling of Dvorak's String Sextet in A (ASV Gold GLD4011 *****) with the String Quintet in G. The Sextet sprung to life in the wake of the Slavonic Dances and shares with them an almost palpable feel-good factor, sunny themes, glowing textures, dancing rhythms and the occasional shadow that, while offering some food for thought, throws the rest of the score into even more joyful relief. But what makes this CD unmissable is the Quintet (with double bass), a more volatile and muscular piece than the Sextet, with a blissfully smiling slow movement as its unforgettable highlight. The entrancing fill-up is a B major Intermezzo scored for the same forces.

As to Dvorak's Complete String Quartets (Supraphon SU 3815-2, eight discs ****), the Panocha Quartet offers compelling accounts of all 14, tightening the hour-long argument of the early D minor and raging through the first movement of the volatile E minor - two works that you hardly ever hear in concert. The Panochas bring a personal touch to the cycle's many quieter episodes, not least the 12 haunting songs-turned-Cypresses, miniature narratives that encapsulate Dvorak's world, invariably in less than three minutes apiece. Dvorak's greatest quartets start from the D minor Op 35 (with another adorable slow movement) and reach toward the Indian-summer wisdom of Opp 105 and 106, taking in the ubiquitous "American" Quartet en route. It's a journey that's well worth making, especially in the company of such accomplished and well-recorded performers.

r.cowan@independent.co.uk