C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)

This young Italian pianist was silver prizewinner at the 2013 Van Cliburn Competition and makes her Warner concerto debut with Pappano. They had not worked together before but in May are touring with the Tchaikovsky – which Rana had been playing for almost ten years. And 3-4m in she certainly hits her stride: arguably her first-movement cadenza is over-complicated but mostly this is as good as its gets – robust technique, a wide dynamic range and real bravura at the ends of (ii) and (iii). Pappano provides a big, even brash, accompaniment and the piano is well balanced in the big hall acoustic.

With a Bartók cycle to come, the Lyon-based string quartet has already recorded all of Shostakovich’s string quartets for Arion. The music here – the ‘Élégie’ Adagio a transcription from Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk – is their programme ‘Opus’ (ordered as listed above) an ‘acrobatic waltz’ [sic] which they have been giving with Australian performance group C!RCA; the Internet has video clips. They play with compelling concentration, certainly bringing out all of the rawness of the epic No 8, with its ‘DSCH’ quotations. And you might need to turn the level down, as they are recorded rather as the Juilliards were by CBS, each player seemingly with his own mic.

Kopatchinskaja is a ‘Marmite’ violinist, as anyone who has loved/suffered her Bartók and Prokofiev recordings will attest. And when you read the booklet at HRA and see its (in part informative) notes are couched in the form of artful love letters between soloist and conductor you might fear the worst from this 2014/13 Moscow/Madrid theatres coupling. All the singers in Les Noces are native and MusicAeterna uses period instruments. The authenticity tells in their marvellously sung, energetic Les Noces, and unusual timbres add to the concerto performance.

Perhaps reissued to mark Arvo Pärt’s recent 80th birthday, this was a ground-breaking album release on LP in 1984 and some of the music was soon taken up by other artists: fellow Estonian Neeme Järvi with Cantus, Tasmin Litle with Fratres. ECM’s programme has 12 Berlin Philharmonic cellists playing it and the violin/piano version with Gidon Kremer and Keith Jarrett. Tabula Rasa is for two solo violins, prepared piano (Schnittke playing, no less) and small orchestra. Cantus, a threnody with strings and final tolling bell, written in memory of Britten, especially had a cult following (though it doesn’t inspire me!).