This week's classical CDs reviewed

RAMEAU: LA PANTOMIME
Skip Sempé, Olivier Fortin (harpsichords) Paradizo PA 0005 (CD + bonus DVD)****

In an interview in the CD booklet, Skip Sempé offers an apologia for arranging pieces from Rameau's Pièces de Clavecinen concerts (written for harpsichord with violin and viola da gamba) for two harpsichords. He needn't have bothered. His actual performances with Olivier Fortin show a heady lavishness that leave the impression that two harpsichords may well be more than twice as good as one. Sempé is stimulated by what he calls Rameau's "provocative display of newly invented and novel effects," and make sure no one misses them. His rubato may sometimes be a little interpretatively intrusive (as in the opening L'Enharmonique), but that seems a small price to pay for the overall richness of effect. www.tiny url.com/6mchwb MICHAEL DERVAN

STRING QUARTETS BY DEBUSSY, FAURÉ, RAVEL
Quatuor Ébène Virgin Classics 519 0452****
France's Quatuor Ébène don't actually put their best feett forward at the opening of this disc, the first
fruit of a new, exclusive contract with Virgin Classics. They are just a little too insistent in the opening
movement of Debussy's G minor Quartet. This might seem a bad omen for the elusive delicacy of Fauré's late Quartet in E minor. But the Ébènes are one of those groups who seem perfectly balanced in
musical intelligence and technical resource. They bring distinctive character to all three pieces here
(and much more restraint to Ravel than to Debussy), and find in both Fauré and Ravel moments of
harmonic magic that simply pass other groups by. www.virginclassics.com MICHAEL DERVAN

BENJAMIN BRITTEN: THE COLLECTOR'S EDITION
Various performers EMI Classics 217 5262 (37 CDs)****
Benjamin Britten shot to fame at 24 with the success of his Frank Bridge Variationsat the 1937
Salzburg Festival. In the 1940s he began his great sequence of haunting works for his partner,
the tenor Peter Pears, and put British opera on the international map with Peter Grimes. This EMI
survey covers all areas, features a multitude of reputable performers, and includes a handful of
recordings by Britten and Pears from the 1940s. It's weakest on the later operas, with coverage ending
at 1961. But it still presents a broad conspectus of a fecund, powerfully expressive composer, and the
juvenilia that has appeared since he died in 1976 is well represented. The set comes without liner notes
or texts. But at less than €3 a disc who's complaining? www.emiclassics.com MICHAEL DERVAN