Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Schubert, Sibelius, Wagner

Brahms: Complete Waltzes for Four Hands Fiametta Tarli & Ivo Varbanov (ICSM Records)

49 waltzes in 56 minutes? Er, yes please, if they’re this good. These ones are by Brahms, a composer who wrote most of his greatest music in triple time. Waltzes by the Strauss family can be a little cloying, as anyone who's sampled too many Andre Rieu albums will attest. But Brahms's music is never saccharine, and the best numbers assembled here are marvels. Like the tenth, G major waltz from the Op. 39 set, which lasts less than 30 seconds; a breezy, compact jewel. It sounds as if it was written on the hoof, despite being technically and formally immaculate.These performances, by Fiametta Tarli and Ivo Varbanov, are exceptional; relaxed, idiomatic and impeccably co-ordinated. You'd expect nothing less from a husband and wife duo, sharing a single piano stool. Much of the fun comes from listening out for typically Brahmsian rhythmic tropes – as in Op. 39's A minor waltz, where you think you're listening to a 2/4 polka before you realise that you're in 3/4.

More sophisticated are Brahms's piano versions of both sets of Liebeslieder Walzer. You don't get Georg Friedrich Daumer’s texts, but this never seems a loss – these pieces can lose their charm if sung unsympathetically. The transcriptions are superb: the vocal quartet lines seamlessly assimilated and the textures are beautifully rich. With Tarli and Varbanov you can hear the subtle change of mood in the second set, the musical language more sophisticated and introspective. They also give us the deeply moving epilogue Zum Schluss, originally a Goethe setting. Their Steingraeber grand sounds glorious, and the recording quality is exceptional. Detailed notes and stylish presentation – a lovely disc.

Schubert: Symphonies 2 and 6 Sinfonieorchester Basel/Dennis Russell Davies (Sinfonie Orchester Basel)

The next high-profile release on the Berlin Philharmonic's own label will be a weighty Schubert set conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. But, in the meantime, here's the latest instalment in Dennis Russell Davies's ongoing Basel cycle. We're no longer used to hearing large forces playing Schubert and Beethoven, and on the evidence of this disc it's our loss. Russell Davies looks austere and unsmiling in the booklet, but he conducts both symphonies with a palpable sense of fun, Schubert's debt to Haydn made clear. A little Schubert can sometimes go a long way, but these performances kept me gripped and entertained. The slow movement of No. 2 has irresistible momentum, and the Presto vivace is a delight. This is an enchanting, compact symphony – if you feel you've overdosed on Beethoven, you know where to turn. And, incredibly, it was composed when Schubert was just 17.

Symphony no. 6 is better still; its high spirits reflecting Rossini's influence. Schubert's opening movement could almost be an opera buffa overture. Solo winds chatter and burble over responsive, cleanly-articulated strings. Russell Davies gives the Scherzo's trio a charming lilt, and the last movement fizzes. There's a passage mid-movement which sounds like an errant cuckoo clock, and the flute trills in the closing seconds provide the icing on the cake. This is my new favourite symphony, a joyous disc which will prompt me to track down the other releases in this series. Well-balanced and sonorous live recordings, with no hint of audience noise.

Wagner: Overture to Tannhäuser, Sibelius: Symphony no 2 Boston Symphony Orchestra/Andris Nelsons (BSO Classics)

Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra have recently been signed up by DG, but this disc is among the first to appear on the orchestra's own label. Nelsons' parents took young Andris to a performance of Wagner's Tannhäuser when he was just five, and he has described the experience as “the biggest thing that happened in my childhood,” the single event which prompted him to become a musician. This live recording of the Overture was taped at Nelsons' first engagement as chief conductor in September 2014. Technically, this is a superb recording, the orchestra sounding rich and immediate. Intonation during the Pilgrims' Chorus is impeccable, and the ensuing fast music has delectable lightness. The solo strings at the overture's centre are exquisite. There's no stodginess; Nelsons is always impetuous and exciting. At the close you feel a little aggrieved, wishing that he could have carried on and given us the whole opera.

What we do get is an impressive, intelligent performance of Sibelius's Symphony no 2, recorded several months later. Colin Davis taped a famous Sibelius cycle with this orchestra in the 1970s, but Nelsons' version of No. 2 has a tad more oomph and character. The close of the first movement exposition is magnificent, a delicious blend of ecstatic strings, pulsing horns and a single, sustained trumpet note. Lovely stuff, and Nelsons manages to make Sibelius's quirky development section thrillingly unpredictable. We get peerless pizzicati from the Boston lower strings at the start of the slow movement, and the scherzo combines accuracy with giddy impetuosity. Growling tuba and basses in the finale had me punching the air in delight, leading to a coda which is roof-raising but never pompous. An exceptional release, despite its short running time.

• Buy Andris Nelsons's Sibelius on the BSO website