Classical CDs for Christmas

Joyce DiDonato's <i>Colbran, The Muse</i> gets five stars. Photo / Supplied

Yes Virginia, Christmas is possible without assembly-line trinkets, cheap sugary wine and candy canes - or its musical equivalent, Hayley Westenra's Christmas Magic album. There is far worthier local fare waiting on shop shelves, starting with the second instalment of the New Zealand String Quartet's Mendelssohn Quartets, rendered with the dash and verve that these players bring to their concerts.

Atoll Records has an array of wonderful titles and hopefully punters have already caught up with DeConstruction, Tzenka Dianova's nuts, bolts 'n' fairydust exploration of John Cage and Erik Satie on prepared piano.

Atoll's second collection of Richard Farrell recordings reveals the late New Zealand pianist could barnstorm with the best of them in some fiery, previously unreleased Chopin Etudes. Yet, Farrell brings an almost patrician nobility to Rachmaninov's Corelli Variations and his Brahms Intermezzi are wonders of dream-laden evanescence.

Some months ago, I extolled Andreas Staier's excursions into Schubert on fortepiano. Now, our own Kemp English delivers the B flat Sonata and Moments Musicaux on the intriguingly titled Schwammerl album. English is a top-notch musician and Paul Downie's 8-foot fortepiano is an instrument of many and varied colours, recorded in a rather generous space, and at its tremulous best in the final Moment Musical.

Amongst the hundreds of chamber music discs vying for your wallet, a new Glossa release with clarinettist Eric Hoeprich playing Mozart and Brahms Quintets with the London Haydn Quartet is eminently desirable.

The Mozart, in particular, is a gem, full of unpredictable joys. When Hoeprich's 18th century bassett clarinet combines with the gut-stringed quartet, the lovely Larghetto takes on a harmonium-like sweetness.

There are special pleasures too in a Harmonia Mundi recording disc of Faure Piano Quartets in which the French Trio Wanderer is joined by violist Antoine Tamestit. Be warned, its pretty Seurat cover is no preparation for the unbridled energy of Faure's Scherzos.

On the symphonic side, Mahler's Second Symphony, recorded live by Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the end of last year, is now available on the orchestra's own label. Mahler himself talked of the work raising one on angel's wings to the highest heights; Haitink makes such superlatives seem inadequate, especially when mezzo Christianne Stotijn melts hearts in her Urlicht song or the world itself seems to unfold in the work's vast Finale.

There are two more impressive musical vistas in a pair of recent Naxos releases, both with charismatic conductor Marin Alsop as navigator and guide. Leonard Bernstein's Mass mystified many when it first appeared in 1971 with its often cheeky jostle of Broadway, cathedral and synagogue.

Alsop, a Bernstein protegee in her time, catches it all, while Jubilant Sykes' stunning account of the central Celebrant role floats effortlessly from a whisper to a scream, with every shade in between. This release also marks the coming-of-age of Alsop's own Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

The conductor has chosen Colorado Symphony Orchestra for her new account of John Adams' groundbreaking opera Nixon in China, its first revisiting since the original cast recording of 1988. Allow a few hours for this, as you'll be hooked from its opening chorus. Robert Orth is electrifying as Tricky Dick, positively manic in his big "News" aria while Alice Goodman's libretto deals the kind of lines you don't expect in an opera house, as when Tracy Dahl's Madame Mao introduces a dancing quartet with, "Let's teach these motherf***ers how to dance."

For more traditional specimens of the singer's art, assuming you already have Cecilia Bartoli's indispensible Sacrificium, Joyce DiDonato's Colbran, the Muse is definitely prime choice. DiDonato stays well clear of familiar arias like "Una voce poco fa" in this tribute to Rossini's singer-wife, even though the American mezzo was wowing Covent Garden audiences in The Barber of Seville earlier this year singing in a wheelchair, after fracturing her leg on stage.

Lovely music from forgotten operas like Armida, Maometto II and Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra lives again in renditions that will bring as much if not more cheer to the soul than any Christmas carol.

****
New Zealand String Quartet, Mendelssohn Quartets 2 (Naxos)

*****
Richard Farrell, The Complete Recordings Volume 2 (Atoll)

****
Kemp English, Schwammerl (Ode)

****
Mozart and Brahms, Clarinet Quintets (Glossa, through Southbound)

*****
Gabriel Faure, Piano Quartets (Harmonia Mundi, through Ode Records)

*****
Mahler, Symphony No 2 (CSO, through Ode Records)

*****
Bernstein, Mass (Naxos)

*****
John Adams, Nixon in China (Naxos)

*****
Joyce DiDonato, Colbran, the Muse (Virgin Classics)