Leon Fleisher et al: "Music for Strings and Piano Left Hand" (Sony Classical); Flesch Quartet: "Korngold: String Quartets 1 & 2" (ASV); Ingrid Jacoby: "Korngold: Piano Music" (Carlton Classics)

The strongest representation of the pre-Hollywood Korngold on these three discs comes in the Suite for two violins, cello and piano left hand, written for the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein. Leon Fleisher, confined to left-hand work since 1964, and his colleagues (who include Joseph Silverstein and Yo-Yo Ma) luxuriate in the lavish late romanticism of the writing, showing (as they do, too, in Franz Schmidt's schmaltzy G major Quintet) a sharpness of response and a range of characterisation that elude the Flesch Quartet in either the Viennese nostalgia of the Second Quartet or the rangier harmonic adventures of the First. Ingrid Jacoby's drylyrecorded piano survey concentrates on the astonishing gifts Korngold revealed as a teenage prodigy. Michael Dervan

Quatuor Mosaiques: "Mendelssohn: String Quartets in E flat, Op 12, and A minor Op 13" (Auvidis Astree)

There's little threat of the period-instruments players of the Quatuor Mosaiques falling into the traps of treating early Mendelssohn as some sort of formally-perfect, decorative imitation of earlier models (Beethoven), or of trying to pressure the music with an alien urgency. What they seem to be striving for is a sinewiness of stressed lines that can lay bare conflicts and draw out dissonances that are usually shied away from - the invitation is there in the contrapuntal richness of the writing. The Quartets in A minor and E flat, written at the ages of 18 and 20, emerge from the Mosaiques' refined reconsideration as weightier, more imposing works, but definitely, also, as less conventionally "Mendelssohnian" ones. Michael Dervan

Busch Quartet et al "Brahms: Clarinet Quintet; Horn Trio" (Pearl); Dennis Brain: "Dennis Brain" (Pearl)

It's strange, if you think about it, that the Busch Quartet, leading musical objectivists of the inter-war years, should have teamed up with English clarinettist Reginald Kell in 1937 for the Brahms Clarinet Quintet. The often interpretatively idiosyncratic Kell was, after all, the man credited with introducing vibrato to the clarinet in classical music. On the day, however, the musicians brought out the very best in each other, the music flowing with levitational freedom and the Hungarian-flavoured, quasi-improvisatory slow movement sounding utterly captivating. The coupling is more formally sculpted, the Horn Trio with Adolf Busch, Aubrey Brain and Rudolf Serkin from 1933. Pearl have also valuably assembled early (1943-47) recordings of Strauss, Mozart, and Beethoven by the most celebrated horn player of the century, Aubrey's son, Dennis. Michael Dervan