The Platinum series from ASV‚ released to celebrate the company’s 21st birthday‚ is an object lesson in imaginative mining of the catalogue. Works have been recoupled by composer to create some appealing discs that combine the familiar and the less familiar. The Debussy collection opens with the Première Rapsodie played with sensitivity by Emma Johnson accompanied by the ECO and Yan Pascal Tortelier. It sets the mood for a disc that includes the two Arabesques (beautifully played by Gordon Fergus Thompson) and Clair de lune (a wonderfully fresh Shura Cherkassky party piece). In the Danse sacrée et Danse profane harpist Caryl Thomas joins the Prometheus Ensemble. Thomas joins Richard Blake and Yuko Inoue for the Sonata for flute‚ viola and harp – a work‚ in the words of the late Christopher Headington‚ ‘of nearly unbearable beauty’ – here beautifully done. The disc closes with The Lindsays’ high­octane reading of the String Quartet: a little tenderness might not have gone amiss but it’s certainly fine quartet playing. The Elgar disc is bookended by orchestral pieces – the Serenade for Strings with the ASMF under Sir Neville Marriner opens proceedings affectionately and the Elegy and Spanish Lady Suite from the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under Gavin Sutherland bring it to a close with considerable charm. In between fiddler Xue­Wei‚ accompanied by Pamela Nicholson‚ brings to La capricieuse a nicely judged salon feel. The meat in this club sandwich is the magnificent Piano Quintet in a fine performance by The Schubert Ensemble. The Platinum Poulenc programme is a particularly enticing confection of pieces without a profile am. The spikily neo­classical Suite Française receives a beautifully balanced performance by the London Wind Orchestra under Denis Wick – the range of colour they manage is impressive indeed. The Cello Sonata is a new recording and finds those two admirable musicians‚ Raphael Wallfisch and John York‚ on superb form. The miniature Mouvements Perpetuels are heard in an arrangement for flute and guitar‚ played charmingly by flautist William Bennett and guitarist Simon Wynberg. The remainder of the programme is given over to unaccompanied choral works – Exultate Deo‚ Salve regina‚ Ave verum‚ the four Motets pour le Temps de Noël and the four Petites Prières de Saint François d’Assise. The Joyful Company of Singers under Peter Broadbent have the measure of these alluring works. (It’s a shame that Emma Johnson’s fine reading of the Clarinet Sonata couldn’t have found its way onto the disc.) For Platinum’s Schumann collection three works step up from a Quicksilva CD to open a generous programme: Märchenbilder‚ Märchenerzählungen and the Adagio and Allegro‚ Op 70. They are played by Philip Dukes (viola) and Sophia Rahman (piano) with Robert Plane (clarinet) in the Märchenerzählungen. The piano is slightly backwardly placed but the performances are characterful. A similar balance occurs in the Piano Quintet for which Peter Frankl joins The Lindsays. It’s a strong account‚ perhaps a little sombre in tone but full of detail. Shura Cherkassky offers a deliciously scampering performance of the little Contrabandiste as a sorbet before the main course of the Quintet. A real gramophone classic returns in Universal’s new three­CD Trio series. The Grumiaux Trio‚ joined by Arpad Gérecz (violin) and Max Lesueur (viola) recorded Mozart’s six string quintets in 1973 in Switzerland. They have‚ quite simply‚ never been bettered. This is glorious music­making‚ perfectly judged and faultlessly presented. The final disc is filled out with the E flat Divertimento‚ K563 recorded in 1967 by the Trio. Snap this up while it’s still around. (I’m still puzzling over the Mozartian connection of the three strelitsia flowers on the cover.) A starry line­up of musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic comprise the Berlin Soloists on a recent Warner Apex coupling of the Mozart and Brahms clarinet quintets. Karl Leister‚ once the epicentre of Karajan’s BPO‚ is the soloist in one of his numerous recordings of these works. In September 1990 John Warrack wrote that Leister ‘gives most beautifully easy‚ charming‚ relaxed performances of both works‚ and the recordings are pleasantly fresh and immediate’. Need I add more except that they now cost about half what they did 12 years ago? Dvo·ák’s String Quartets Nos 9 and 10 (Opp 34 and 51‚ or B75 and 92) receive quite wonderful interpretations at the hands of the American String Quartet. Recorded for Nonesuch in 1985‚ this is appealing playing‚ the slow movements benefiting in particular from this group’s superbly Old World poise and charm. There is a really attractive sense of ebb and flow here. At Apex’s price‚ don’t hold back. Slightly tougher fare comes on another Apex – Kodály’s Sonata for solo cello and the Duo for violin and cello. It’s good to have such off­the­beaten­track material available at this price – a must for amateur cellists? – especially in such committed performance as these from Jerry Grossman and Daniel Phillips. The solo Sonata is one of the great cello compositions of the last century and is well worth getting to know. Finally‚ bravo to Decca for reissuing Michael Nyman’s three string quartets in fine 1991 performances by the Balanescu Quartet. This is accessible music that makes an engaging programme‚ even in the puzzling order of 2‚ 3 then 1. Naturally the impetus for each work is very different: No 1 is a fascinating conflict between John Bull and Schoenberg (the finest work here)‚ No 2 was written for the Indian dancer Shobana Jeyasingh and the elegiac No 3 for a benefit concert for Romania.