Clarinet Trios by Brahms, Schumann, Fruhling. Michael Collins, Steven Isserlis, Stephen Hough (RCA)

If you've scanned the list of composers above, you're probably asking, "Who's Fruhling?" The extremely obscure Carl Fruhling (the New Grove makes no mention of him) lived from 1868 to 1937 and spent most of his working life in Vienna. His music, judging by the Clarinet Trio here, seems to have taken Brahms as its model, and will appeal to anyone interested in highly-polished playing of sub-Brahmsian writing. The super-sophisticated and rather laid-back approach to the Brahms itself seems too delicate, even a bit precious. There's a firmer spine to Brahms, even autumnal, late Brahms, than these players reveal. On the other hand, their playing of Schumann's Fairy Tales, Op. 132, is imbued with exactly the right sort of fanciful fantasy.

- Michael Dervan

Regine Crespin sings Berlioz, Ravel, Debussy and Poulenc (Decca Legends)

Regine Crespin was one of France's major operatic exports from the 1950s until she quit the stage around 10 years ago. Decca's new Legends series brings together her finest recordings of French song, Berlioz's Les Nuits d'ete and Ravel's Sheherazade (both recorded with the Suisse Romande Orchestra under Ansermet in 1963, when she was in her mid-thirties), plus Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis and a Poulenc selection (recorded with pianist John Wustman in 1967). Crespin here showed a hand-and-glove relationship to French repertoire, sense and sensuality taking priority rather than any sort of dramatic vocal display. There's a sense of luxuriantly sensitive artistry at work here which really deserves the description "legendary".

- Michael Dervan

Bach: Gamba Sonatas. Pieter Wispelwey, Richard Egarr, Daniel Yeadon (Channel Classics)

The Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey here engages on an unusual exercise in appropriation. It's not at all unusual for cellists to colonise Bach's Gamba Sonatas. Wispelwey uses a piccolo cello, but that's not all; he does a sonata each in tandem with organ, fortepiano (!) and harpsichord, and adds a cello to two of the works, even though they weren't actually conceived with continuo parts. And he sandwiches each of the sonatas between movements arranged from other works by Bach. It's a fascinating exercise by one of the most consistently interesting cellists active in the recording studio today, but it's not really a musical success. There's simply too much here that's to do with Wispelwey rather than Bach. A rare misfire from an imaginative performer.

- Michael Dervan