Ever since Michael Tilson Thomas and Ralph Grierson made the first recording of Stravinsky’s four-hand reduction of The Rite of Spring in 1967 for EMI, a good number of piano duetists have taken up the work’s challenges on disc. This latest offering features Fazil Say, who shares the spotlight with himself via studio multitracking. Say essentially sticks to what Stravinsky wrote, while fleshing out the piano textures with effective octave doublings, registral changes, and an occasional added bass note in the Danse Sacrale.

With tangos and Ellingtonia under his belt, this ever-curious occasional crossover classicist takes another break from the Berlin Staatsoper, the Chicago Symphony, and Bayreuth to dabble in an unfamiliar (to him) idiom. Though the results are about as spontaneous as a sunrise, this collection does cover a wide range of brief bits of Braziliana from inevitable tunes by Ary Barroso, Luiz Bonfá, and Antonio Carlos Jobim to songs by Milton Nascimento and Caetano Veloso and classical selections by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Darius Milhaud.

This collection was first compiled in 1970 or so from recordings dating as far back as 1961. The set, now remastered and issued on cd, includes performances by three generations of harpsichordists, with Gustav Leonhardt providing the central focus. Leonhardt includes (in BWV 1060, 1062 and 1065) his former teacher from the Schola Cantorum in Basle, Eduard Mueller (the student modestly playing second harpsichord to his mentor in 1060 and 1065) while his own first-generation students Anneke Uittenbosch and Alan Curtis join him for BWV 1061, 1063-1065.

For Modern Talking fans this release was rather historical and is probably the best among Thomas's solo discs. Nothing super-duper, no chills down [my] spine, but it has some solid quality, considering the ever-strong and charming voice and brave take on musical styles different from Euro Disco that made Thomas so famous. It is music for specific mood, rather relaxing, even though too sugar-sweet on some tracks. If you are a fan, you shouldn't regret this album, though at the time it was not adequately accepted after Modern Talking's split. Worthy collectible item.

In the Telemann mountains, much of the topography remains terra incognita because most of Telemann's music remains an undiscovered country. But whatever future generations of hardy musicologists may uncover, it is unlikely that Telemann's Nouveaux Quatuors en Six Suites published in Paris in 1738 will be displaced as among his output's highest peaks.

This disc, recorded live toward the end of Jacqueline du Pré's grievously short career, displays both her irresistible magic–the sumptuous, warm tone, the spontaneous immediacy of expression, the technical and emotional risk-taking born of total faith in her talent and musical instincts–and her unbridled excesses: the liberties, the extreme tempi and tempo changes, the passionate abandon, the incessant slow, sentimental slides.

Here, together with a Schumann recital (see page 126) are the first fruits of Andras Schiff's new Teldec contract; a live recital taken from the prestigious series, ''Meesterpianisten'' in Amsterdam. I wish I could be more enthusiastic about such a debut, for Schiff is unquestionably among the most gifted and mercurial musicians of our time; a 'masterpianist' indeed. His programme, too, is exemplary with Handel's theme heard again in Brahms's Handel Variations and with Reger's massive Bach Variations as a daunting and enterprising close.

Apart from very occasional live performances of the Italian Songbook, Wolf’s 46 remarkable songs can only be experienced and appreciated in their entirety from recordings. This disc from Bonney and Hagegård keeps distinguished company with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Irmgard Seefried (twice: 1958 and 1959); Fischer-Dieskau and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1969); and Ruth Ziesak and Andreas Schmidt (1991). Wolf’s settings of Paul Heyse’s mid-19th-century translations of Italian folk verses offer an intricate and colourful tapestry of reflections on life and love. The craftsmanship of these songs is truly amazing.

This zippy ballet is early Beethoven–the only work of its type that he ever wrote. It dates from the same time as the First Symphony, which is around 1800, and is noteworthy in two other respects: it's the only piece of orchestral music that Beethoven ever wrote that uses a harp (I know–big deal–but from such trivia are music snobs made. Go intimidate your friends!), and he uses a tune that later becomes the main theme of the finale of the Third Symphony, and consequently the subject of the Eroica Variations for piano solo. Nikolaus Harnoncourt is great with music of this sort, investing it with uncommon urgency and making it sound suitably grand.