The latest releases reviewed

TUMA: PARTITE, SONATE E SINFONIE

Concerto Italiano/Rinaldo Alessandrini

Naïve OP 30436

*****

The history of music doesn't really fall into clear period, and the music of the Bohemian composer Frantiek Ignác Antonín Tuma (1704-74) is there to prove it. His output demonstrates how elements of learned baroque (he was a pupil of the great theorist JJ Fux) could rub shoulders with music of simpler, galant sensibility.

But don't think for a moment that Tuma will ever sound bland in the hands of Rinaldo Alessandrini. Concerto Italiano's performances under Alessandrini take listeners by the scruff of the neck and make sure everyone hangs on for the full ride. Alessandrini finds both the shock value and the charm of the lighter moments in his selection of partitas, sonatas and sinfonias for strings.

The approach works a treat. www.naiveclassique.com MICHAEL DERVAN

THE KING'S SINGERS COLLECTION

The King's Singers

EMI 207 0632 (5 CDs)

****

Since the King's Singers' London debut 40 years ago, no less than 19 men have worked in the world's best-known vocal sextet, exploring music from the 16th century to specially commissioned works, from arrangements of popular music (and arrangements of arrangements of popular music, in their tribute to the German Comedian Harmonists of the 1930s) to close-harmony versions of folk songs.

EMI's five-disc collection from the 1980s and 1990s stretches from madrigals and folk songs to The Beatles, the Comedian Harmonists and the likes of Randy Newman. Impeccable vocal finish and a twinkle in the eye can be taken for granted, though even at this remove it's still a little startling to hear some of the Beatles songs enunciated with such starched Home Counties clarity. www.emiclassics.com MICHAEL DERVAN

BOWEN: COMPLETE WORKS FOR VIOLA & PIANO

Lawrence Power, Simon Crawford-Phillips

Hyperion CDA 67651/2 (2 CDs)

****

York Bowen (1884-1961) stood apart from the turmoil that so enlivened composition in the early 20th century. His tenacity brought him a long period of neglect, which is now being alleviated, at least on CD. Bowen's work often sounds like that of a gentlemanly, British Brahms, everything well turned and perfectly cut. It's not actually that easy to make the viola sound as fully at home as it does in the two sonatas and various shorter pieces collected here.

That's not just a tribute to Bowen (himself a viola player) but also to the mastery of Lawrence Power. The set includes a remarkable Fantasia for four violas, and an arrangement of the opening movement of Beethoven's MoonlightSonata with an added viola part. www.tinyurl.com/5jub7c MICHAEL DERVAN

HELENA TULVE: LIJNEN

NYYD Ensemble/Olari Elts, Stockholm Saxophone Quartet, Silesian String Quartet

ECM New Series 476 6389

****

The music of Estonian Helena Tulve (born 1972) is by conventional standards unorthodox. It uses performing techniques not always readily taught in music schools, but it's also unorthodox in other ways.

Tulve's assured handling of those techniques allows the music a kind of gestural certainty you might expect it to have if built on a long-established tradition. The strength of trajectory is achieved in spite of the proliferation of slightly meandering melodic trails, potentially disruptive tremors, and a fondness for moments of keening descent.

The selection of works here includes a song cycle, Lijnen(to texts by Roland Jooris), the saxophone quartet Öö, the string quartet nec ros, nec pluvia. . . , and three works for ensemble, à travers, abyssesand cendres. www.ecmrecords.com MICHAEL DERVAN