JOAN TOWER: “PLATINUM SPIRALS.” Joel Smirnoff, violin....

JOAN TOWER: “PLATINUM SPIRALS.” Joel Smirnoff, violin. “NOON DANCE.” Collage. “WINGS.” Laura Flax, clarinet. “AMAZON.” Da Capo Chamber Players. CRI SD-517. This tour around Tower’s output for soloists and small ensembles spotlights her facility in capturing the communicative possibilities of instrumental virtuosity. Smirnoff, the new second violinist of the Juilliard Quartet, swoops through the wide intervals of the 1976 “Platinum Spirals” with easy elegance, while Flax lends a fleet aviary impetus to the 1981 “Wings.” Despite an earnest performance, “Amazon” doesn’t easily reveal the constant flow intended by the composer, but “Noon Dance,” with its folksy rhythms and omnipresent charm, should find little trouble entering the repertories of chamber ensembles everywhere.