Chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 2013, Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo has a special affinity with the music of his compatriot Sibelius which this recording admirably demonstrates. Sibelius’ ever-popular ‘Lemminkäinen Suite’ is coupled here with ‘Spring Song’, and the lesser-known Suite from ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’. Sibelius composed the ‘Lemminkäinen Suite’ (also called the Four Legends, or Four Legends from the Kalevala), Op. 22, in the 1890s. Originally conceived as a mythological opera, Veneen luominen (The Building of the Boat), the suite is based on the character Lemminkäinen from the Finnish epic, the Kalevala.

The three works on this album were all composed between 1943 and 1953. Despite the extreme experiences and difficulties she faced during this undoubtedly most tragic time in Poland’s history, Grażyna Bacewicz managed to compose outstanding works which constitute splendid testimony to the vibrant creative potency for which she was renowned. Until 1939 her career as a virtuoso violinist and an emerging composer evolved naturally.

The three works on this album were all composed between 1943 and 1953. Despite the extreme experiences and difficulties she faced during this undoubtedly most tragic time in Poland’s history, Grażyna Bacewicz managed to compose outstanding works which constitute splendid testimony to the vibrant creative potency for which she was renowned.

The main work on the present disc is the Second Symphony – a darkly hued, powerful work lasting almost an hour. The composer apparently planned to dedicate it to King Edward VII as ‘a loyal tribute’, but the monarch’s sudden death in May 1910, led to the symphony being inscribed instead to his memory. Composed during the same years as the symphony, the two companion pieces on the disc also have a melancholy tinge: Elegy for strings, and Sospiri (‘sighs’) for strings, harp and organ.

Conducting this all-Elgar programme is Sakari Oramo, the Finnish conductor who has been all but adopted by English music-lovers and orchestras - for ten years he was music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and since 2013 he holds the post as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

French composer Florent Schmitt, a part of Ravel's Les Apaches group around 1900, has received renewed attention from recording companies, and this release is part of a group of Schmitt discs from Chandos, which has the engineering chops to handle their bulk. The suites from Antoine et Cléopâtre here were part of the music written for a six-hour ballet commissioned by dancer Ida Rubinstein.

Even though Magnus Lindberg's music is densely textured, highly varied, and unpredictable, and as complex, dissonant, and explosive as the wildest avant-garde music, it is often surprisingly pleasant, accessible, and exciting, particularly so in the kaleidoscopic and insanely colorful Clarinet Concerto (2002). This spectacular piece may serve as the best introduction to Lindberg's extremely virtuosic, multilayered music, especially because the focus on a single line instrument clarifies many of Lindberg's procedures and ideas – which can often seem buried in his thicker orchestral works – and highlights them in vivid relief against the elaborate and lush accompaniment.

If you’re only interested in a single disc of Joonas Kokkonen’s music, then let this be the one. It contains three out-and-out masterpieces, stunningly played and recorded with even more vividness and immediacy than on the already superb BIS complete orchestral music edition. Kokkonen’s austere but deeply felt idiom, with its atmospheric tone colors and fleeting lyricism, follows logically on the Sibelius of the Fourth Symphony. This is particularly true of Kokkonen’s Third and Fourth Symphonies, which have much the same feeling of organic growth from just a few simple motives that so often characterizes Sibelius’ work.

The second installment in Sakari Oramo's superb hybrid SACD cycle of the symphonies of Carl Nielsen on BIS presents the Symphony No. 1 in G minor and the Symphony No. 3, "Sinfonia espansiva," two ruggedly independent works that reflect the composer's late Romantic style yet point to the modernism to come. While the Symphony No. 1 was influenced by Brahms and offers a rich harmonic language, propulsive rhythms, and a fairly homogenous orchestral palette, the Symphony No. 3 is striking for its reliance on unfolding counterpoint and long-breathed lines, and most notable for the use of wordless parts for soprano and baritone voices in the pastoral slow movement. These performances by Oramo and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra are exceptional for their stunning power and spacious feeling, though the crisp details and focused sound quality will be the biggest draw for audiophiles.

It is surprising, given the popularity of the repertoire, that all the recordings of Saint-Saëns' complete concertos currently before the public pre-date the CD era and none of them are fully digital. In addition it has never before been possible to obtain all the composer's output for piano and orchestra on only two CDs. For these reasons alone this latest addition to the 'Romantic Piano Concerto' series is likely to become one of the most successful of all. The Gramophone 'Record of the Year' winning team of Stephen Hough and the CBSO are joined by their new principle conductor Sakari Oramo in performances which combine all the elegance required for the Frenchman's music with the utmost bravura. Saint-Saëns himself was a formidable pianist and his rare 1904 (!) 78rpm recording of Africa has until now been matchless; finally in Stephen Hough's performance he has a rival.

It was a clever idea to place all three of Rachmaninoff's large sets of variations on a single CD (in descending order of popularity and familiarity). The Paganini Rhapsody needs no introduction. The Corelli Variations are based on "La Folia," a theme used in several works from the Baroque period. Actually, the theme is from Portugal and not "of" Corelli at all, although Corelli made particularly good use of it in a composition of his own. When this fact was brought to Rachmaninoff's attention, he agreed to strike Corelli's name from the music's cover – but not from its title page! Nevertheless, the work has been known as the Corelli Variations ever since. The Chopin Variations are based on the C-minor Prelude from the Polish master's Op. 28 collection. This is the same prelude that Barry Manilow used as the basis of the song "Could it Be Magic?" in the 1970s.

Nikolai Lugansky and Sakari Oramo conclude their Rachmaninov cycle with the Second and Fourth Concertos, generally matching the proficient (though somewhat generic) standards characterising earlier releases in this series. The Second’s ample rubato and incisive climaxes are far better judged than in the recent, horrifically indulgent Lang Lang/Gergiev recording (DG, 4/05). And although Lugansky’s piano dominates in the mix, the first movement’s rolling arpeggios do not pull focus from the orchestra who, of course, have all the thematic material. In the slow movement I’d prefer a firmer, chamber-like profile between the pianist and first-desk wind soloists. You’ll also glean more ferocity and shapely characterisation from Stephen Hough, Krystian Zimerman, Sviatoslav Richter and Julius Katchen throughout the finale, but this is not to disparage Lugansky’s fleet, assured and world-class fingerwork.

One of the aspects that appeals to this listener about Nikolai Lugansky's approach to the perennial favorite piano concerti of Sergei Rachmaninov is the commitment to the organic feeling of each work. So often these concerti are served up as early career, flamboyant exercises to introduce the young pianist du jour to already accepting audiences. And at times the imprint on the works imposed by the various pianists is what remains in the hall after the performance, not Rachmaninov.

Maurice Ravel composed a number of works which have become classics of the repertoire both for solo piano and for orchestra. On the present disc, all except one work were first conceived for piano, which raises the question how it is possible to transfer such pianistic music to the orchestra without making it sound like a mere ‘colourized’ version. Ravel’s orchestral writing was the result of a long apprenticeship and careful study of orchestration treatises as well as scores, notably of works by Rimsky-Korsakov and Richard Strauss. Although his skills as an orchestrator are much admired today, his ability to coax new sounds out of the orchestra wasn't always appreciated in his own time, however – in 1907 the critic Pierre Lalo complained that ‘in Ravel’s orchestra, no instrument retains its natural sound…’

Countess Mária Theodora (Dora) Paulina Pejačević was born in September 1885 in Budapest. Young Dora grew up with all the advantages of an aristocrat: a fairy-tale life of opulent palaces set in idyllic landscapes; privilege, comfort, leisure, and wealth. From an early age she defied convention and walked her own path, one that eventually led her to ‘despise’ the aristocracy. Her father, Count Teodor Pejačević, a lawyer, held several high posts, including that of Civil Governor of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia (1903 – 07). Her mother, Lilla Vay de Vaya, an ‘exceptionally beautiful’ Hungarian countess, was a gifted pianist and singer, and a fine amateur artist. Her parents arranged private lessons with teachers at the Music School of the Croatian Music Institute, at Zagreb, which lead to further instruction in Dresden and Munich. Dissatisfied with the ‘limits’ of her formal studies, Pejačević pursued her own intensive course of self-instruction in composition. Having taken her music education into her own hands, she set off to enrich and broaden her intellectual horizons, travelling to cultural centres in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.