This is the debut album of Benjamin Bernheim, signed to the Deutsche Grammophon after several sensational appearances with major opera companies. Like many other debuts, it mixes French and Italian arias, with an odd Tchaikovsky item thrown in, but pay attention, and it will be apparent that Bernheim is a cut above. Raised in Switzerland, he has perhaps a natural way with both French and Italian music. You get the feeling, though, that Bernheim could sing almost anything and make it convincing. His voice is not big, but it has many shades, and he falls easily into the grooves of Massenet and Verdi without seeming to shift gears in any way.

The young Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, praised for the luminosity and rich colours of her voice, makes her recording debut for Warner Classics with El Nour. Her enticing and absorbing recital programme crosses cultures, combining art songs by French, Spanish and Egyptian composers with Egyptian folk songs and popular songs from the Middle East. As she explains, “‘El Nour’ in Arabic means ‘the light’, and this album sheds light on how music that has been interpreted many times can be perceived in a different light. The idea is to connect three cultures – Arabic, French and Spanish – and to show how much, despite cultural, geographical and historical differences, they have in common when it comes to music”.

Composed in 1824 by Hector Berlioz at the age of twenty-one and premiered at the church of Saint-Roch in Paris in 1825, the Messe solennelle has come down to us following an eventful history. After Berlioz declared that he had destroyed the score, the mass was considered lost until it was rediscovered in Antwerp in 1992. This remarkable work helps us both to appreciate the development of Berlioz’s style – already revolutionary in his early years – and to understand what he owed to his contemporaries, notably Cherubini, whose monumental Requiem Hervé Niquet has already recorded (Alpha 251).

The large collection of antique instruments at Les Siècles' command makes its recordings more than just speculative period exercises, but something approaching musical time travel. Led since 2003 by its founder, François-Xavier Roth, this singular French orchestra has given thrilling historically-informed recreations of the repertoire of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries on vintage instruments that were available to the musicians of the time, crafted by hand, and possessing the unique sonorities and tunings of different regions.

"The most dramatic piece that Berlioz ever wrote," is how conductor John Nelson describes La Damnation de Faust. The composer designated this thrilling hybrid of oratorio and opera a 'légende dramatique'. Following in the triumphant footsteps of Les Troyens, also recorded at the Auditorium Erasme in Strasbourg, this performance reunites Nelson and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg with singers Michael Spyres, Joyce DiDonato and Nicolas Courjal.

The 2010 New Year’s Eve concert from Berlin frames two of the most prominent stars on DG’s roster: Elina Garanca and Gustavo Dudamel. Recorded live, this gala performance sparkles with a selection of arias and orchestral works that include excerpts from one of Garanca’s most celebrated roles, Bizet’s Carmen, and Marguerite in Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust. As well as providing world-class accompaniment, the Berlin Philharmonic makes a stirring contribution to the program with the overture to Berlioz’s thrilling Roman Carnival and excerpts from Manuel de Falla’s ballet, The Three-Cornered Hat.

This 7CD set is the fruit of the love affair that developed in Paris between Leonard Bernstein and the Orchestre National de France in the 1970s. Beside long-admired studio recordings, featuring Mstislav Rostropovich and Alexis Weissenberg among the soloists, it presents live performances completely new to the catalogue: a 1975 programme to celebrate Ravel’s centenary – with Bernstein himself as soloist in the G major piano concerto – and orchestral suites taken from two of Bernstein’s most celebrated and brilliant works, both infused with jazz: the film score On the Waterfront and the landmark Broadway musical West Side Story.

Kiri Te Kanawa does well by these songs, avoiding the billowing excesses of sentiment that in other hands (or vocal chords) can make them sound much too soggy. Although Berlioz gathered them all together under the present title, all of the songs were composed at different times for different singers, so they aren't really a cycle at all. I seldom listen to all of them at once, and you should feel free to take them in any order that suits you. "The Death of Cleopatra" is an early cantata that perfectly suits Jessye Norman's stately delivery. She's always at her best playing royalty, and if they're dying in mortal agony, so much the better.

Soprano Sandrine Piau has been known mostly as a Baroque specialist, but she has recorded several albums of 19th century French mélodies with spectacular results. Si j'ai aimé (the title comes from one of three songs by the little-known Théodore Dubois) will be very hard for her to outdo. The list of attractions is very long and begins with the repertory. There are some familiar pieces here, such as the opening pair of songs by Saint-Saëns, but many of the composers – Dubois, Charles Bordes, Alexandre Guilmant – are rarely performed, at least outside France, and all the songs here are top-notch.

Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler already enjoyed a worldwide legendary standing during his lifetime - he was considered the German conductor and performances were greeted with rapturous applause. Today, more than 50 years after his death, Wilhelm Furtwangler is still an icon and his work has become an integral part ofthe music scene.

The Berlioz Te Deum has been relatively neglected on disc in comparison with his other major works. This latest version has John Nelson as an incisive, understanding conductor of Berlioz, revelling in the weight of choral sound, balancing his forces beautifully. He's helped here by fuller, more detailed digital sound than on previous versions.

There are some works which seem to be suspended in their time. La Damnation de Faust is a visionary project which took decades to become known as a chef-d’oeuvre, firstly in the rest of Europe and then in France, but posthumously. Today it is an emblematic work, built up of anthological pieces fro orchestra and choir and soloists’ aits which remain in our memories. Its interpretation by François-Xavier Roth in concert version enables us to hear this work with force and the audacity of early Berlioz: sombre but brilliant.

This is a delightful recording from a conductor more closely allied than any other to Berlioz's music. With Berlioz the devil is always in the detail; he was an extraordinary orchestrator and capable of writing unidiomatically for instruments–especially the woodwinds–in order to get exactly the sound he wanted. Or rather, sounds, for the whole texture is made up of many layers. Davis understands this as if by instinct, and draws some beautiful playing from the instrumentalists without ever losing sight of the whole picture. It has been said that the French style of phrasing is all foreplay and no climax: the singers bring this teasing quality to their long, flowing lines but with a charmingly English home-counties blush too. Elsie Moris's light tone is a perfect match for Peter Pears' cool, silvery voice in this respect - and the choir too makes a good full sound without ever getting too heavy. The two discs also include some other gems from the pen of this most idiosyncratic of composers.