On track:From velvet smooth to rougher delights

By WILLIAM DART

When Steven Isserlis and Stephen Hough played Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata in Auckland last year, the balance wasn't quite satisfactory.

Hyperion Records gets it right for the duo's new CD and the special beauties of the Sonata shine forth, from the first movement's premonition of the big theme from the Second Piano Concerto, to the spine-tingling play of light and dark in the Andante. Such is the ensemble that at times one could swear the two men have windows through to one another's souls.

Not surprisingly, their Franck Sonata has such emotional engagement one almost forgives its appropriation from the violinist's repertoire.

The disc is completed with the stylish melancholy of a Prelude and Oriental Dance, penned by a teenage Rachmaninov, and two Franck songs.

While the artistry of soprano Rebecca Evans is unquestionable, a text would have been most welcome for the setting of Dumas' "Le Sylphe" (not Hugo as stated in Isserlis' entertaining notes), and "Panis Angelicus" in four minutes provided this reviewer with his sugar quota for the next six months.

From the velvet of Isserlis and Hough, we go to the rougher delights of Jordi Savall's new collection, Le Parnasse de la Viole (AllaVox), in which the Spanish viol player grunts and gasps his way through a winning collection of 18th-century French music.

One of the three discs features the pieces of Marin Marais (1656-1728), with the shuddering textures and sombre colours suggesting that Savall and his quartet are intent on taking these pieces across the Pyrenees.

The other two discs contain six suites by Monsieur De Sainte Colombe le Fils. They're delivered by a spirited Savall, apart from the last track, where the actor Jean-Pierre Marielle provides suitably solemn chapter headings for a tribute to the composer Lully. There is a special connection here: Marielle played the father of the composer in Tous les Matins du Monde, the 1991 film about Marin Marais.

At $76.99, this doesn't come cheap but, considering the luxurious packaging, the masterly Savall and a recording that puts you right there in the drawing room, you might want to catch this wonderful music before it disappears back into the mists of time.

* Steven Isserlis and Stephen Hough, Rachmaninov & Franck Cello Sonatas (Hyperion CDA 67376); Jordi Savall, Le Parnasse de la Viole (AllaVox AV 9829)