MICHAEL DERVANon this week's classical CD releases

BACH: THE ART OF FUGUE

Lorenzo Ghielmi (harpsichord, fortepiano), Il Suonar Parlante/ Lorenzo Ghielmi (viols)

Winter & Winter910 153-2 *****

Bach's Art of Fugue is often presented as a sort of musical gobstopper – a piece that's simply so great and so complex it cant be absorbed or assimilated like anything else. It can seem more like an intellectual monument than a musical statement. This new recording offers a performance by a consort of viols, with variety provided by solos on harpsichord and fortepiano. The viols hark back to a pre-Bachian performing tradition, but they do actually manage to create the impression of a performing tradition as a reference point. And, oddly, the fortepiano (which is certainly not part of any such tradition) doesn't jar at all. This is a fresh and intriguing take on a work that's often made to seem indigestible. www.tinyurl.com/ctth2r

PROKOFIEV: PIANO CONCERTOS

2 & 3 Evgeny Kissin (piano), Philharmonia Orchestra/Vladimir Ashkenazy

EMI Classics264 5362 ***

Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto of 1913 is a tough nut to crack. Its 22-year-old composer set out to write a blockbuster, and he himself found it "incredibly difficult and mercilessly tiring" to perform. It's just the sort of thing that the phenomenally gifted Evgeny Kissin should be able to get his teeth into. Sadly, his approach to the gargantuan first movement is not so much sober as at times slightly sedated - even his exceptionally clear account of the notoriously challenging cadenza doesn't really catch fire. With lacklustre conducting from Ashkenazy, the work's dark flamboyance never really materialises. The much more popular Third concerto fares better, but not as well as in Kissin's 1993 DG recording with Abbado. www.tinyurl.com/5b9s4r

SHOSTAKOVICH: THE GIRLFRIENDS; SALUTE TO SPAIN; RULE, BRITTANIA!; SYMPHONIC MOVEMENT

Polish National Radio SO/Mark Fitz-Gerald

Naxos 8.572138****

These première recordings include music for Lev Arnshtam's 1935 film The Girlfriends, incidental music for two plays, Adrian Piotrovsky's Rule Brittania! and Alexander Afinogenov's Salute to Spain(about the Spanish Civil War), and an unfinished Symphonic Movement, originally intended for the Ninth Symphony of 1945. It's this sweeping, triumphant, grandiose, bleeding chunk that's the real find. It's the originally opening of the Ninth Symphony, planned to celebrate wartime victory. But Shostakovich just couldn't finish it, and wrote an altogether more lightweight piece instead. There are no neglected masterpieces here, but lots of interesting sidelights on the younger Shostakovich. www.naxosdirect.ie

THE COMPLETE HMV STEREO

RECORDINGS Shura Cherkassky (piano)

First Hand Remasters FHR 04 (2 CDs) *****

What made the pianism of Shura Cherkassky (1909-95) so special? It certainly wasn't anything on the lines of faithfulness to the letter of the score. It was, rather, his unerring dedication to clarity of line, the inevitable flash of inspiration, the unlikely gesture made plausible. Cherkassky liked to show how far out of bounds he could go, technically and musically, and still take his listeners with him. The Bach/Busoni Chaconne which opens this collection of fine HMV recordings from 1956 and 1958 makes all these points and more. The lion's share goes to Chopin and Liszt, but the most astonishing gems are Godowsky's arrangement of Saint-Saëns's The Swan(the added filigree done with miraculous liquidity) and Liadov's Musical Snuffbox. www.tinyurl.com/ko9d6a