Xenakis: Choral music. New London Chamber Choir, Critical Band/James Wood (Hyperion)

Iannis Xenakis has long been one of the wildest, least tameable forces among contemporary composers. What, then, might you expect from the choral output of a man whose musical grittiness and gut-piercing ferocity are in a class of their own? Two of the five pieces here, Nuits and Knephas (Darkness) are laments, textless but phonically rich, the former dedicated to "unknown political prisoners" in 1967, when the exiled, ex-partisan composer was still under sentence of death in his native Greece. Like Medea they show Xenakis in inimitable, viscerally thrilling mode, abundant in clustery chords and threatening microtones. The Sophoclean A Colone and Serment (Oath - as in Hippocratic) sound by comparison almost light. The performances by James Wood's remarkable New London Chamber Choir are riveting. Michael Dervan

Bruckner: Symphony No 2 (1872). NSO/Georg Tintner (Naxos). Bruckner: Symphony No 6. New Zealand SO/Georg Tintner (Naxos) The veteran conductor Georg Tintner (born 1917) has certainly been getting around for his Bruckner series on Naxos. The first instalment was recorded in Scotland, the just-issued second and third in Ireland and New Zealand. All three performances share a ready gift for the pacing and scaling of the music. Tintner moves his Bruckner with a natural gait and secures from his orchestras an appealing soft nap in the string tone. He sustains momentum without the suggestion of undue haste, and he manages to project an openness of declaration without shedding anything of the necessary aura of spiritual mystery. At £4.99 a disc you can't go wrong. The NSO recording of the rarely-heard 1872 version of the Second Symphony is one of the finest things the orchestra has committed to disc. Michael Dervan

Strauss: Two Piano Trios; Four Pieces for Piano Quartet. John Graham (viola), Monticello Trio (ASV) The name of Richard Strauss is not one you expect to find in the lists of musical prodigies. Yet he began composing at the age of six was barely into his teens when he wrote, for use within the family circle, the piano trios recorded here. You'll find scarcely a hint of the later master, as his conservative, horn-playing father steered the young composer towards the classics and clear of such unacceptable modern models as Wagner. Yet the speed of development in the year that separates the two charming trios is breathtaking. The Monticello Trio play both (and the later, short piano quartet pieces) with amiable directness, judiciously avoiding any expressive inflation of the material. Michael Dervan