The latest releases reveiwed

Georg Wenzel Ritter (1748-1808) was one of the great bassoon virtuosos of his time, and the player for whom Mozart wrote the bassoon part in his Sinfonia Concertante for wind. The six pieces in Ritter's own Op 1, a set of quartets for bassoon and string trio, were published in Paris in 1777. If, like me, you find the idea of the instrumental combination attractive, you may be a little disappointed by the results on this new Naxos disc. The performances are technically clean, but rather on the dry side. For all their skill, the players don't seem to have managed to find much beyond the formulaic in the writing, and the result is a kind of bland aural wallpaper. www.naxos.com   MICHAEL DERVAN

Sviatoslav Richter was a great pianist who was both maverick and touchstone. These new sets, culled from Philips' 21-CD 1994 "Authorised Edition" of live and studio performances, all include gems. Most remarkable, perhaps, is the extraordinary, controversial, time-distorting slowness of the first movement of the late Sonata in G in the all-Schubert set. Richter makes magic out of Weber's Third Sonata, with a whirlwind finale for the record books - it comes with sonatas by Haydn and Beethoven. An all-Beethoven set runs to chamber music as well as solo sonatas, a mesmerising Archduke Trio with members of the Borodin Quartet, and a rich account of the Piano and Wind Quintet with members of the Quintette Moraguès. www.deccaclassics.com   MICHAEL DERVAN

Franz Krommer may be a little- known composer, but his 1815 Concerto for two clarinets is delightful, a kind of amiable double warble, with lots of competitive imitation for the two soloists. Sabine Meyer recorded it 15 years ago with her brother Wolfgang, and there's no difficulty seeing why she should want to return to such a delightful frolic, with teenage whizz-kid Julian Bliss as a perfect partner. They each tackle a solo concerto by Louis Spohr - No 2 to Bliss, No 4 to Meyer - with lots of verve and a dash of fantasy, and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields directed by Kenneth Sillito are admirable partners. www.emiclassics.com   MICHAEL DERVAN

Kirill Kondrashin (1914-81) was one of the major Shostakovich interpreters of the 20th century. This live performance of the composer's quotation-rich (Rossini, Wagner, and himself) Fifteenth Symphony, taped in Dresden in 1974, is typically direct in approach. The first movement is unapologetically manic, and sounds almost futuristic. The second spins from bleak spareness into turmoil and back again. Scherzo and Finale continue in a mode that, however soft in statement, carries an almost hallucinogenic potency of gesture, in the face of which the flaws in the playing seem almost minor. The coupling is the world premiere of a gleefully wayward set of Variations by the underrated Boris Tchaikovsky (1925-96). MICHAEL DERVAN