It is almost exactly a quarter of a century since Pierre Boulez recorded his complete Webern survey. This new collection, apart from being useful for anyone who doesn't want to buy three whole CDs of Webern, offers an interesting insight into how Boulez's way with a composer probably more central to him than any other has changed. For a start he gives him a little more time: most of the pieces here are slightly but significantly slower than they were in 1970. This allows lines to be more subtly moulded, phrases to acquire a touch more poise. This is not to say that Boulez has softened and now phrases Webern as though he were Chopin, but grace and even wit (the second movement of the Quartet) are now noticeable alongside his customary precision. The Ensemble InterContemporain have been playing these pieces constantly since they were first founded, and it shows in the absolute assurance of their performances.

The Orchestre national d'Auvergne invite us to dive into the lyricism of the musical universe of Berg, Webern and Schreker. In the heart of Vienna, at the twilight of romanticism, Webern and Schreker embrace their beginning careers. With much spirit and expression, their works convey a surprising melodic breadth, as the first lights of expressionism loom on the horizon. On the other side, Berg's Lyric Suite echoes Beethoven and Mahler but also reveals all the extent of the serial modernism. The Orchestre national d'Auvergne, conducted by Roberto Forés Veses, brings us to Vienna as the musicians perform this programme with an exceptional verve.

Pollini is so much a part of the contemporary music scene that it's amazing to realize that the earliest material on this disc (Stravinsky and Prokofiev) dates to the 1940s. These two performances retain their power to startle and amaze, both through Pollini's seemingly effortless virtuosity and through the immediacy of his musical conceptions. This Prokofiev is a close rival even to Richter's. Webern, from six years later, is so colorful and well organized that it makes the difficult music almost easy to listen to. Not many listeners will put up with Boulez's obscurities, but there is still plenty to make the disc worthwhile.

Three works from pivotal years in the development of the 'Second Viennese School'—and indeed the whole of western classical music—in performances by the award-winning Heath Quartet.

Karajan reportedly felt so strongly about his recordings of the Second Viennese School that he agreed to finance them himself when DG balked at picking up the tab. These are great performances, to be sure. Indeed, there may be some others that are comparable, but none are superior. The Berg pieces never have sounded so decadently beautiful, nor the Webern so passionately intense, or the Schoenberg so, well, just plain listenable. The Berlin Philharmonic strings make their usual luscious sounds, but here the winds, brass, and even percussion rise to the occasion as well. And sonically these were always some of Karajan’s best efforts. Essential, then, and a perfect way to get to know these three composers on a single disc.

The Juilliard String Quartet was one of the pioneering string quartet formations of the 20th century. Virtuosity in playing technique, sovereign creative power and precisely coordinated tonal balance with X-ray-quality intonation purity characterized the playing of the New York formation around founder and primarius Robert Mann. Indulging in tonal beauty was not their priority. In this way, they moved somewhat outside of what was customary in Central Europe at the time. Their complete recordings for the RCA label, for which they recorded in the short period from 1957 to 1960, appear for the first time bundled on 11 CDs.

String quartet fans will relish this excellent release from ECM. Although the Shostakovich 8th is one of the most over-recorded pieces in the string quartet literature, the performance here is worth having, and is combined with a somewhat familiar but not as widely recorded piece by Webern (for those who might be afraid to listen to anything by Webern, let me assure you that this is a most lovely, lyrical, hauntingly beautiful work, not at all daunting) and a quartet by a composer that will be unfamiliar to most, Emil Burian (1904-1959), whose String Quartet No. 4 is a haunting piece that makes for an attractive finish for this fine CD by the Rosamunde Quartet. The sound quality is rich and radiant in the best ECM tradition.

Recordings that include strings quartets by Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern are common, but an album that includes music for quartet and voice by each of them is a rarity. Schoenberg's Second String Quartet, with a part for soprano in its third and fourth movements, is standard repertoire, but the version of Berg's Lyric Suite with a vocal part in the final movement is highly unusual, and Webern's bagatelle with voice, an unpublished movement apparently once intended to be part of the Six Bagatelles, Op. 9, receives what is probably its first recording. Novelty aside, the high standards of these performances make this a formidable release. Founded just before the turn of the millennium, Quatuor Diotima plays with the assurance and mutual understanding of a seasoned ensemble. The quartet has a lean, clean sound and the ensemble is immaculate, playing with exquisite expressiveness, an ideal combination for this repertoire.

Karajan reportedly felt so strongly about his recordings of the Second Viennese School that he agreed to finance them himself when DG balked at picking up the tab. These are great performances, to be sure. Indeed, there may be some others that are comparable, but none are superior. The Berg pieces never have sounded so decadently beautiful, nor the Webern so passionately intense, or the Schoenberg so, well, just plain listenable. The Berlin Philharmonic strings make their usual luscious sounds, but here the winds, brass, and even percussion rise to the occasion as well. And sonically these were always some of Karajan's best efforts. Essential, then, and a perfect way to get to know these three composers on a single disc.

One of Schoenberg's leading pupils and disciples, Anton Webern continued to write songs throughout his life. It is thus possible to follow his development as a composer, from early traditional writing to the more experimental work of his later years, from the tonal to the atonal, and to the sparer textures for which his work became well known.

Whenever the Borodin Quartet notches up an anniversary, so too does its cellist (and so in 2005, while the ensemble marks 60 years as what the Russians call the Quartet named Borodin , we also toast Valentin Berlinsky on his 80th birthday). This is very much as it should be: Valentin Berlinsky is both patriarch and soul of the quartet. As anchorman throughout of the group which turned to the Soviet authorities for its present name in 1955, Berlinsky has lived through many changes of personnel in the early years, guided the quartet through difficult times at home and on countless tours, and still imparts his ineffably cultured tones to its latest incarnation.

“This is not at all what I wrote, but play it like this. Do play it this way!” exclaimed Dmitri Shostakovich after Yudina performed the freshly written 24 Preludes and Fugues. This exclamation contains the key to understanding of Maria Yudina’s performing art – a controversial and disputable one that left a profound imprint on the cultural environment of the twentieth century. The 10-album set is the biggest part of Maria Yudina’s surviving studio and concert recordings from the Melodiya archive made between 1948 and 1969.

Chailly has radically rethought his approach to these works, re-examining the scores and returning to the recorded interpretations of a generation of conductors alive during Brahms lifetime, principally Felix Weingartner and one of his Gewandhaus predecessors Bruno Walter.

Karl Amadeus Hartmanns work is very difficult to attribute to any particular compositional school. Although he was not a revolutionist in terms of notation or performance forces, he was able to creatively subordinate all the achievements of modern musical language to innovative formal approaches. Hartmann wrote with extraordinary verve, creating artistic phrases with a broad ambitus, at the same time he could masterfully juggle short motifs, subjecting them to elaborate variational and contrapuntal transformations. In terms of harmonics, Hartmanns music is tonal, though strongly chromatic, which deprives the listener of a secure sense of anchoring in a specific key.