The latest releases reviewed.

CELLO CONCERTOS BY SCHUMANN, VOLKMANN, DIETRICH, GERNSHEIM Alban Gerhardt, Rundfunk-Sinfonie- orchester Berlin/Hannu Lintu Hyperion CDA 67583 ****

It fell to Robert Schumann in 1850 to write the first durable cello concerto of the 19th century, and only a handful of composers managed to match his achievement in the decades which followed. The second instalment of Hyperion's Romantic Cello Concerto series presents three later works which didn't quite manage to hit the mark. Robert Volkmann's single-movement Concerto in A minor of 1855 lays virtuoso hi-jinks onto a Schubertian foundation. Albert Dietrich's Concerto in G minor from the 1870s expresses a more persuasive romantic lyricism that evokes characteristics of his teacher, Schumann. Friedrich Gernsheim's Concerto in E minor, published as late as 1907, is of a darker hue, and takes Brahmsian mannerisms into the 20th century. Schumann's by-no-means-unproblematic Concerto in A minor stands head and shoulders above the competition here. Gerhardt and Lintu's unforced manner concentrates on the lyrical opportunities in all four works. www.hyperion-records.co.uk
Michael Dervan

Offenbach, famous for his operettas, was also one of the greatest cello virtuosos of his day. He was still an active performer when he wrote his little-known Concerto Militaire in 1847. It's a large work (43 minutes) of almost ridiculous difficulty for the soloist, piling on extravagance after extravagance and sometimes carrying on with the insouciance of a slapstick movie character who feels compelled to change behaviour almost every time he turns a corner. It has met its match in the irresistibly daredevil Jérôme Pernoo and the period-instruments players of Marc Minkowski's Musiciens du Louvre. Remaining works (the Orphée aux enfers Overture, Les Fées du Rhin and a snowflake ballet from Voyage dans la lune) present unexpected combinations of Offenbach familiar and unfamiliar. www.deutschegrammophon.com Michael Dervan

PFITZNER: SYMPHONY IN C; STRAUSS: DON JUAN; TILL EULENSPIEGEL; SALOME'S DANCE; FESTLICHES PRÄLUDIUM Hanns Ander-Donath (organ), Staats- kapelle Dresden/Karl Böhm, Kurt Striegler Profil Edition Günter Hänssler PH 07010 ***

The Staatskapelle Dresden, which performed at the National Concert Hall last month, had a long association with Richard Strauss in concert and in the opera pit during the composer's lifetime. This new disc, the 13th in a series devoted to the orchestra's long recorded history, features Strauss's Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel and Dance of the Seven Veils in Dresden performances under Karl Böhm, a close associate of the composer whose direct, tightly pointed, tautly sprung manner brings to mind the composer's own conducting style. Böhm was also an advocate of the altogether more conservative and now rather neglected Hans Pfitzner, whose 1940 Symphony in C is alternately gauche and svelte. The real rarity, though, is a radio recording of Strauss's grandiose Festliches Präludium for organ and orchestra, made under Kurt Striegler at Dresden's Frauenkirche less than a year before that historic building was destroyed in the firebombing of the city. The quality of the recordings, made between 1939 and 1944, is variable. Michael Dervan

WEISS: LUTE SONATAS VOL 8 Robert Barto (lute) Naxos 8.570109 ****

Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750), lutenist extraordinaire, was a highly prolific composer, esteemed by no less a figure than Johann Sebastian Bach himself. The three sonatas, Nos 19, 34 and 36, on Roberto Barto's eighth Weiss collection for Naxos are all suites of dance movements. The moods range from grave rumination to almost giddy exaltation, and Barto's responses are as finely gauged as ever. www.naxos.com Michael Dervan