Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition Night on bald Mountain
Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra
Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra are thrilling in this recording of one of the orchestral repertoire's great showpieces. There are around 100 versions of "Pictures" in the current catalogue, and several contenders for "classic" status. Ormandy's association with the Philadelphia lasted for over 40 years and, like Karajan's with the Berlin Philharmonic, produced a distinctive "Philadelphia Sound". This is a terrific example of it.

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Schubert - String Quartet No. 13, String Quartet No. 14 "Death and the Maiden"
Tokyo String Quartet
The "Rosamunde" and "Death and the Maiden" quartets, arguably Schubert's best-known, are here given impeccable performances by the Tokyo Quartet. The unanimity of phrasing and purpose, the wonderful balance and recorded sound, and the simplicity and purity of approach make one return repeatedly to these readings.

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Granados Goyescas, Danzas espanolas
Alicia de Larrocha
Alicia de Larrocha has become synonymous with the music of the great Spanish pianist composers Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados, works which she has helped establish over a career which began in the 1940s. She brings to these works a subtlety and rhythmic nuance and a sense of charm and nobility that few have been able to match.

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Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 19 & 20
Rudolf Serkin featuring George Szell and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra
Rudolf Serkin, one of the many émigrés who arrived in the 1930s and graced American musical life, was a pianist of enormous intelligence and imagination. These Mozart concerti are intimately played and beautifully balanced, and the Columbia Orchestra is as tightly integrated as a small chamber ensemble. The recorded sound (from the early 1960s) is perhaps not as detailed as other versions but still wonderfully warm.

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Horowitz: The Celebrated Scarlatti Recordings - Expanded Edition
Horowitz's Scarlatti is a world away from authentic performance practice and the use of original instruments; in this case the harpsichord, for which the sonatas were composed. And yet, if this is "inuauthentic" playing, with its liberal use of the pedal and its huge range of dynamics and articulation, it is also also playing that only the most inflexible pedant could resist. Horowitz created these pieces anew for piano and established them as lynchpins of the recital repertoire. In his ability to capture the emotional rhythmic and expressive essence of each sonata Horowitz's performances are truly authentic.

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Great Performances: Jacqueline Du Pré and Daniel Barendoim Elgar
Cello Concerto, Op.85 with Philadelphia Orchestra; Enigma Variations with London Philharmonic
Du Pré was in transcendent form when she made this live recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto with Barenboim and the Philadelphia Orchestra some 37 years ago. While some may have reservations about the recorded quality and the odd audience cough, the playing is absolutely electrifying: truly the searing tribute to the victims of the Great War and the raw expression of mourning that Elgar surely intended. Barenboim's readings of the Enigma Variations and the two Pomp and Circumstance Marches (op. 39, nos. 1 and 4) are poised and brilliantly judged.

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Great Performances: Sibelius • Neilsen
Violin Concertos
Cho-Liang Lin and Esa Pekka Salonen
The Nielsen violin concerto is not often programmed nowadays; the Sibelius remains one of the repertoire's great warhorses. Both are here performed with marvellous control and panache. Cho-Liang Lin's sound is as sumptuous as it is consistent and the emotional direction of orchestra and soloist is uncannily well-matched. The recorded quality is superb. Although there are terrific recordings by Kavakos, Mutter, Ricci and Perlman, not to mention Heifetz's historic recording which reclaimed the work into the repertoire, Lin's is irresistible especially with the present coupling.

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BACH: The Goldberg Variations
Glenn Gould, Piano
This is the 1955 recording that ignited one of the most extraordinary musical career's of the 20th century. Gould's very personal but utterly transparent reading of Bach's Goldberg Variations has become a lodestar for pianists. The fact that it is already so ubiquitous raises the very good question of whether it needs to be included in any "essential" list. We are including it because it simply cannot be excluded! And because Gould was a student of The Royal Conservatory, whose professional school now bears his name.

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Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3 • Debussy La Mer • Ibert Escales
Boston Symphony / Munch
Charles Munch's brilliance as a conductor of French repertoire was well-established by the time he began working with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His performances are characterized by an extraordinary ability to grade and control orchestral colour while simultaneously keeping the performances fresh and spontaneous. The present recording of the Saint Saëns Organ Symphony, now almost 50 years old, remains the benchmark version.

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Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2
Van Cliburn, Kiru Kondrashin & Fritz Reiner, Conductors
Van Cliburn's victory at the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition - at the height of the cold-war - was an embarrassment to Russia and a massive victory for the USA, who supposedly had beaten the enemy at the their own game! The win led to a recording contract with RCA. The Tchaikovsky record won Van Cliburn a Grammy and sales burgeoned to over a million. However, behind the hysteria was, as the Russian judges had confirmed, the genuine article: a supreme virtuoso who had fully absorbed the Russian tradition.

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Great Performances: Leonard Bernstein, Rhapsody in Blue & An American in Paris
New York Philharmonic and The Columbia Symphony
Gershwin's American verve and vitality have rarely been better served on a recording. Leonard Bernstein's Rhapsody in Blue is romantic, sultry, full of wit and swagger; his American in Paris with a gleaming New York Philharmonic is lively and energetic with perfectly-judged tempi. The original CD transfer from the LP was a little over 30 minutes, but this new release pairs these two legendary performances with André Previn's impressive and rhythmically poised account of the Concerto in F. André Kostelanetz conducts his orchestra. If one had to choose a single CD of Gershwin's orchestral music, this would be it!

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Beethoven Piano Sonatas
Arthur Rubenstein
The sheer number and variety of Beethoven piano sonata recordings in the catalogue make it impossible to choose the "best" performances of single sonatas, let alone complete sets. Rubinstein's recording of arguably the four best-known of the 32 - "The Moonlight", "Les Adieux", "Pathétique" and "Appassionata" have the all the pianist's lyricism and graciousness as well as all the requisite explosive energy. Taken as a group, Rubinstein has few peers in the overall performance of these his favourite Beethoven works.

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Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky
Petrushka, Le Sacre Du Printemps
Here are performances of two of the most important works of the 20th century: Stravinsky's Petroushka and Le Sacre Du Printemps (The Rite of Spring). In this recording, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is conducted by the composer himself. There are close to 100 versions of "The Rite" in the recording catalogue, notably by Bernstein, Boulez and Tilson Thomas, but very few can begin to approach the authority of Stravinsky's 1960 recording.

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Brahms: Piano Concertos, Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Waltzes op. 39
Leon Fleisher, George Szell, Cleveland Orchestra
Of the multitude of Brahms recordings, Leon Fleisher's readings of the Concerti are unequalled for their magisterial power and volcanic technical transcendence. There is no pianist who can listen to these performances of two of the instrument's most demanding concertos without a sense of wonder.

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Mozart: Sonata for 2 Pianos in D K. 488 Schubert Fantasia for Piano 4 hands
in F minor D 940
Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu
Probably the most popular works in the two piano / four hands repertoire, these performances are unsurpassed in their poetic spontaneity, timbral subtlety and perfect ensemble. This is the proverbial desert island disc: expressive and perfectly judged.

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Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, Music for Strings Percussion and Celeste, Hungarian Sketches
Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The sound of this recording is so immediate and so transparent that it is difficult to believe it was recorded more than 50 years ago (in 1954). Reiner had been a student of Bartok's and in a field of recordings by Bernstein, Koussevitsky, Boulez, Szell and Leinsdorf, to name just the better-known versions, his account of the Concerto for Orchestra is generally considered the benchmark. The music simply unspools as if it could be played no other way.

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