The program for this album of Debussy's chamber music is unusual: except for the enchanting Syrinx, for solo flute, all the pieces are written in the classical chamber music forms. Only in the realm of chamber music did Debussy do this, and hearing a group of such works together on the same bill is of considerable interest. Here Debussy could not get away without modulating, but the balance among texture, harmonic field, and fixed, sonata-like forms shift in fascinating ways.

This release by hot French soprano Sabine Devieilhe has multiple strengths that propelled it onto the charts right out of the box, so to speak. Appreciation for Devieilhe's manifest vocal gifts should not obscure the superb work done by recording and mixing engineer Hugues Deschaux, working in the Salle de répétition no. 1 of the Philharmonie de Paris. Especially on the orchestral tracks featuring the group Les Siècles under François-Xavier Roth, Deschaux creates a mysterious sound environment in which Devieilhe seems to hover alluringly in the distance.

Honegger was an eclectic composer whose achievement is well reflected in this stimulating compilation. Dutoit’s recording of the oratorio King David is particularly compelling: on hearing it one understands why the composer frequently returned to the formula of narrator, soloists, chorus and orchestra.

French pianist Alexandre Tharaud is known for programs that hold together only marginally, and so it is here: Mozart's French piano student who went by the name of Mademoiselle Jeunehomme (or Jenamy or Jénomé) is associated with only one of these works, and possibly not even with that one: she is said to have given the premiere of the sprawling Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major, K. 271, but the work has all the hallmarks of music Mozart wrote for himself.

Even though she is a celebrated operatic star with many brilliant coloratura roles in her repertoire, Diana Damrau is also a versatile performer in many other styles of vocal music, including concert arias, art songs, pop standards, and songs from musicals and movies. Because she embraces such a wide range of material with affection and technical ease, she is able to move gracefully between the worlds of Viennese operetta, Broadway show tunes, and music from Disney films, with only the slightest indications from her well-supported vocal production and crisp diction that she is much better known for her performances of Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi, and Strauss.

Claudio Scimone once again conducts the extraordinary I Solisti Veneti enssemble, playing one of Vivaldi's more cheerful concertos for mandolin. When you listen to this recording you can dream of being walking through several small streets of Venice, feeling its characteristic humidity and the flavor of that fabulous historical city.

Marc Minkowski was one of the most promising conductors to emerge in the 1990s, having carved out a niche for himself (and his hand-picked ensemble, Les Musiciens du Louvre) in the lesser-known works of the French and Italian Baroque. In the competitive fields of early music and historical performance, he has garnered considerable critical acclaim and managed to bring works of relative obscurity to the attention of wider audiences.

These two discs contain Leclair's 12 sonatas for two unaccompanied violins en duo. He produced them in two sets of six, the earlier one, Op. 3, dating from 1730, the later one from 1747-9. Barely a handful have previously been recorded, so these new issues make an important addition to the baroque catalogue. Leclair more than any of his French contemporaries implemented the technical developments in violin playing which were taking place in Italy in the hands of the post-Corelli generation.

The pianist Alexei Lubimov has championed the music of those Soviet composers who explored an avant-garde style in the 1960s under the influence of the West, but then retreated from high modernism and sought a new style that could both offer a way forward and still allude to the sentimentality of the Classical and Romantic eras. The Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov is a famous example of such a career arc, and here Lubimov performs his first three sonatas for solo piano, followed by a sonata for cello and piano where Ivan Monighetti appears.

With ‘La Ronde’, Nicholas Angelich pays tribute to the relationships between three of Romanticism’s greatest composers for the piano. Schumann, Chopin and Liszt were born within 18 months of each other and knew each other personally. Schumann dedicated Kreisleriana to Chopin, who dedicated two of his Op.10 Etudes to Liszt, who, closing the circle, dedicated his B minor Piano Sonata to Schumann.

It was only a matter of time before William Christie got around to recording Mozart's delightful 1782 singspiel, and the results are very happy indeed. Period instruments are just right for the raucous "Turkish" music Mozart composed for Entführung, and they go very nicely with the light voices Christie has chosen as well. Most successful is the Belmonte of tenor Ian Bostridge, already famous for his lieder singing.