Buy or despair The Rastrelli cello quartet, reviewed by ALICE McVEIGH Ars Verona    TonArt 9625

When Keith asked me to review a CD I thought: frankly, can't be fussed.

Then I thought: hang on, a cello quartet, eh? Fact is, I love cello quartets. I even had one, back in the 80s, though we got a bit discouraged when, after a couple of South Banks, we approached a top background music agent, who said, 'Lovely but lugubrious. Forget weddings. Have you tried any of the big funeral chains?'

Three out of four of these Rastrellis were born in St Petersburg, but it was in Stuttgart, a couple of years ago, that they first got together. Technically accomplished enough to remind me of the twelve cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic, whose mass cello recordings have sold very well, this foursome is extremely musical, wonderfully well-balanced, and completely unfunereal. The record is largely jazz (Dave Brubeck, Gershwin, Piazzolla [listen -- track 6, 0:01-1:37]) starring some very cleverly written arrangements. If the four cellists sometimes sound, en masse, as if they'd be even more palatable, taken separately, in the Dvorák or Elgar cello concerti, that is not to downplay the brilliance of their execution. It's just that they sound almost too well-rehearsed for this kind of repertoire: Russian passion meeting Germanic scintillation not quite equalling true jazz.

Still, it is a great thrill to me, personally, to hear a cello quartet this excellent. I defy any other instrument to sound this good, by itself, in quartet set-up, and each of the four cello voices is at once perfectly distinct yet wonderfully blended [listen -- track 15, 0:00-1:17].

If you are a cellist, buy it. If you are not a cellist, despair.

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Record Box is Music & Vision's regular series of shorter CD reviews