The Prague Chamber Orchestra contributes some very good string playing to this Mozart reading by Sir Charles Mackerras. The approach is modern but well informed, with clean, light, agile, and luminous results. Mackerras observes the repeats (including that of the first movement recapitulation) and chooses excellent tempos. The Romance is especially lovely. Telarc's recording yields a fairly realistic concert-hall perspective, but the distant pickup and reverberation tend to muddy the texture a little. The coupling is an excellent account of the Posthorn Serenade.

Musical scholar that he is, Charles Mackerras adopts period performance practice, but opts for modern instruments. The Prague Chamber Orchestra is one of the world's best small ensembles. They play this music with impeccable wit, sophistication, and style. Of course, Mackerras himself studied in Prague–Mozart's musical home away from home–and has long enjoyed an excellent relationship with the city's orchestras and musicians. With swift tempos, employment of a harpsichord accompaniment, and all the repeats taken in each work, these finely honed interpretations offer a uniquely consistent view of Mozart's symphonic achievement. Telarc's superb sound allows the music to fall very gratefully on the ear.

Sir Charles Mackerras has a reputation for providing exciting and full-blooded interpretations in Janáček and baroque music and this thrilling collection of Handel recordings dating from almost 50 years ago is a case in point.

The multi-award-winning partnership of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Sir Charles Mackerras is reunited in this second collection of Mozart Symphonies featuring Nos. 29, 31 ('Paris'), 32, 35 ('Haffner') & 36 ('Linz'). This much anticipated recording follows on from the astounding success of Mozart: Symphonies 38-41 which resulted in Mackerras and the SCO winning the Critics' Award at the 2009 BRIT Awards and led to Mozart: Symphonies 38-41 being named 'Disc of the Year' at the 2009 BBC Music Magazine Awards.

If your ideal vocal recording places the performer next to your seat and your ideal vocal performance has the performer singing directly into your ear, this disc by mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozená will be just about ideal. No matter what the repertoire – and Kozená performs everything from Bach to Gounod to Shostakovich – and no matter what the context – and Kozená takes on everything from song to opera to oratorio – Kozená is right next to the listener, singing straight into his/her ear. Given her exceedingly warm tone, her extremely rich delivery, and her extraordinarily sibilant pronunciation, Kozená's intimate delivery may be too much for those with heart conditions or those all too easily affected by singers. But for those made of sterner stuff, Kozená's performances here will be the stuff dreams are made of.

There are a bewildering number of versions of Gluck's opera. Gluck first composed the work in Vienna in 1762 with a libretto in Italian and the title role sung by a castrato. This initial version, in its austerity, was the work that changed the course of opera. In 1774, Gluck rewrote Orfeo to meet the tastes of Paris audiences. The work became longer and lost some of its harder edges. In the late 1830s, Gluck's great admirer and follower, Hector Berlioz, prepared his own version of Gluck's score. Performances of Orfeo tend to draw from several versions, with the cuts or changes that the conductor deems appropriate. There is no definitive score for Gluck's opera.

Bryn Terfel has it all. His rich, deep baritone voice is capable of navigating the rapids and doing the vocal leaps and cartwheels that Handel routinely demands of his singers, even the ones with big, deep voices that usually move more slowly. He is Welsh, and in his mastery of words–clarity of projection and precise emotional expression–he calls to mind another great Welsh performer, Richard Burton. This recital, accompanied by Sir Charles Mackerras with skill and sensitivity, runs the whole gamut of Handel's vocal styles, from military bluster (powerfully present in the first aria, "Arm, arm, ye brave") to humble piety (in the second selection, "Vouchsafe, O Lord"). There is erotic awe in "Where'er you walk," comic grotesquerie in "O ruddier than the cherry," and pure splendor in "The trumpet shall sound." A marvelous recital.

Without doubt, this is one of the most important recordings of music by Janácek in recent years. Paul Wingfield’s restoration of the original performing version of the Glagolitic Mass is a fine piece of work and deserves to become the standard text. Those familiar with the Mass will notice changes right at the start, where the ‘Intrada’ (normally the conclusion) appears twice, at both the beginning and end. This introduces a number of fundamental alterations to rhythm and instrumentation which make for a markedly different whole: undoubtedly harder to perform, but infinitely sharper in outline.

At the end of an overlong day laden with teaching and other duties, Edward Elgar lit a cigar, sat at his piano and began idling over the keys. To amuse his wife, the composer began to improvise a tune and played it several times, turning each reprise into a caricature of the way one of their friends might have played it or of their personal characteristics. "I believe that you are doing something which has never been done before," exclaimed Mrs. Elgar. Thus was born one of music's great works of original conception, and Elgar's greatest large-scale "hit": the Enigma Variations. The enigma is twofold: each of the 14 variations refers to a friend of Elgar's, who is depicted by the nature of the music, or by sonic imitation of laughs, vocal inflections, or quirks, or by more abstract allusions. The other enigma is the presence of a larger "unheard" theme which is never stated but which according to the composer is very well known. The identity of the phantom tune left the world with the composer, and guesses have ranged from "God Save the King" to a simple major scale.

Sir Charles Mackerras leads a fine performance of Mozart's last opera seria, a work that should be far better appreciated than it is. Full of dignity and poise, aria follows duet follows aria, fascinatingly scored, and exactly the correct length. The numbers are expressive and filled with the information we need to know these characters. Sesto, a travesty role, is taken by Magdalena Kozena, who follows in the footsteps of Teresa Berganza, Cecilia Bartoli, and Anne Sofie von Otter and proves their equal. Her gorgeous voice and technique shine through.

It was this set which, in company with one from Sir Colin Davis issued by Philips a few weeks earlier, inaugurated the era of 'progressive' Messiah recordings. They had of course been foreshadowed—by Sir Adrian Boult, notably, and by the work of such editors as John Tobin and Watkins Shaw. But this was one of the first to use a chamber orchestra, lively tempos and ornamentation: and between them Davis and Mackerras made us listen afresh to a work whose performance traditions had threatened to become hidebound… The forces aren't 'authentic', but rather larger, and women's voices are used in the chorus. It is however an excellent chorus, well disciplined and clean.

Surely a Judas Maccabaeus recorded on modern instruments nearly twenty years ago is one to ignore? Well, no. Charles Mackerras is one of music’s fresher minds, and he has always favoured incisive rhythms, clear textures, light bowing and carefully varied articulation in Baroque music. The ECO responds with verve to the wondrous grace and variety of Handel’s music. The late Russell Burgess’s Wandsworth School Choir is an eloquent testament of what is possible in an inner-city comprehensive given will-power and a gifted enough teacher. And who would willingly trade a cast of Ryland Davies as Maccabaeus, John Shirley-Quirk as Simon, the incomparable Felicity Palmer and Janet Baker, at the height of their powers, as the Israelitish Woman and Man, for another? Not I.

– Stephen Pettitt

This is the second fine Don Giovanni we have had within the past year. Like Gardiner (Archiv), Mackerras includes every note Mozart wrote for both the original Prague version and the Viennese revival. Moreover, it is easier than ever for listeners to ‘programme in’ their preferred version: all Prague die-hards have to do is to bypass Don Ottavio’s ‘Dalla sua pace’ in Act I – a beautiful aria, in all conscience, though it holds up the dramatic action at a crucial stage. By coaxing a modern orchestra into a real awareness of period style, Mackerras seems to have the best of both worlds: the playing has admirable liveliness and intensity, and there are none of the intonation problems that so often plague actual period instruments. Mackerras does use natural trumpets, and their rasping sound lends real bite, not least to the overture’s chilling opening chords. In his introductory essay Mackerras argues that Mozart’s Andantes in ‘cut-time’ (ie two beats to the bar) are often taken too slowly.

Don Giovanni is one of the timeless classics of all opera. Mozart's music, and the words of his great collaborator Da Ponte, are brought to life in Francesca Zambello's engrossing production from 2002 with its rich and colourful designs by Maria Bjornson. The music is memorable, dramatic and enjoyable: from the seductive solo voices of the famous 'La ci darem la mano' to the fabulous ensemble as Don Giovanni's infatuated conquests, vengeful victims and their outraged relatives join forces for justice. And retribution does finally come to Don Giovanni, a serial womanizer and a murderer, with the searing flames of Hell ready to engulf him. Simon Keenlyside heads the outstanding cast, conducted by renowned Mozart expert Charles Mackerras.