Instrumental and vocal music are normally kept tightly in their pigeon holes but with Schubert it makes abundant sense to mix the two, as there are such close links between them. The idea here came from performances at Leif Ove Andsnes' chamber music festival in Risor, Norway, though the disc itself is a studio recording. The result is like a flower unfolding: the sonata leading to four songs, the third of which ("Auf dem Strom") has the added tonal element of a horn part (beautifully played by Timothy Brown). The D959 sonata is one of Schubert's most dramatic, with some wild and unexpected passages. Andsnes does not hold back here, yet it is the intimacy of his reading which really makes you sit up and listen. There is a sense of scale which is truly Schubertian-we are not in a large concert hall but sitting with the composer and a few friends. The same intimacy is followed through in the choice and performance of the songs, Ian Bostridge in fine voice and accompanied with such sensitivity by Andsnes. The pianist says it is the first part of a longer project. With performances like this, the more the merrier. -Keith Clarke.

Does the world need another Pagliacci? Well perhaps, if it amounts to something materially unlike the others on the market-and this new recording from Riccardo Chailly is just that. Where Karajan's classic DG version goes for expansive grandeur and Muti's various Philips readings for rapid gloss, Chailly makes no particular stand on tempi and avoids glossy effects. Instead he gives you a dark and grainy textured piece of drama with voices to match, the tone set by Carlos Alvarez (Tonio) upfront in a Prologue that leaves no doubt about who'll be the villain of the piece. You also get a shadow in the voice of Jose Cura (Canio) who makes this disc a calling card for his credentials as a serious singer-actor and contains the bell-like potential of his singing in an earthy desperation, more cinema-verité than conventional verismo. The sobs are there for "Vesti la giubba" but not in the dimensions that come with Pavarotti's hanky to attend them. You feel the private trauma of a man at the edge rather than the public histrionics of a performer playing to the gallery. Barbara Frittoli makes a slightly cool Nedda but registers in vocal colouring how differently she feels toward the three men in her operatic life. Among them Simon Keenlyside cuts an ardent, eloquently virile figure as her lover Silvio. And the Concertgebouw counts almost as a lover too, its brilliantly articulated playing compensating for a soft-edged chorus-but seductive with it. A distinctive Pagliacci? Yes. [+]