Parmi les nombreuses versions disponibles du Carnaval des animaux, celle-ci fait partie des toutes meilleures. Notons que cette œuvre, aidée ici par la transparence et la précision d'une excellente prise de son, nous permettent de découvrir, d'une façon ludique, l'étendue et les particularités spectrales des instruments concernés. C'est à l'âge de vingt ans que Saint-Saëns composa le Quintette op.14. La qualité de cette œuvre annonce déjà l’énorme potentiel du jeune compositeur dans la musique de chambre.

The appetite for evolving performance practices in Bach’s St Matthew Passion appears undiminished as we have gradually shifted, over the generations, from larger to smaller ensembles and also towards a greater dramatic understanding of the implications of Bach’s ambitious ‘stereophonic’ double choir and orchestra choreography.

Dominique Visse and his group Ensemble Clément Janequin have been involved in many outstanding projects over the years, but this 2002 Harmonia Mundi recording has to be one of the most spectacular; the Missa "Et ecce terrae motus" (aka, "The Earthquake Mass") of Antoine Brumel. Brumel is one of many mid-renaissance composers whose reputations are so far overshadowed by Josquin Desprez that – like Rodney Dangerfield – they "just don't get no respect." In Brumel's own time, however, he was considered one of Josquin's equals and his death in 1512 was widely observed in a number of "déplorations." Although the mass itself survives in only a single manuscript copy, it bears the signatures of singers who revived the work in Munich in 1570 – probably close to a century after it was first given – and among them is a bass named Orlandus Lassus.

In nearly every respect this is outstanding. The Rondo brillant and the Fantasie, both written for the virtuoso duo of Karl von Bocklet and Josef Slawik, can sound as if Schubert were striving for a brilliant, flashy style, foreign to his nature. Both are in places uncomfortable to play (when first published, the Fantasie’s violin part was simplified), but you would never guess this from Faust’s and Melnikov’s performance; they both nonchalantly toss off any problem passages as though child’s play. The Fantasie’s finale and the Rondo brillant are irresistibly lively and spirited, and this duo’s technical finesse extends to more poetic episodes – Melnikov’s tremolo at the start of the Fantasie shimmers delicately, while the filigree passagework in the last of the variations that form the Fantasie’s centrepiece have a delightful poise and sense of ease.

During his all-too-brief life, the Andalusian composer Manuel Blasco de Nebra (1750-1784) left behind a handful of keyboard works that evoke Scarlatti's concise forms and extraordinary powers of invention. Each of the sonatas consists of two movements: an adagio followed by a fast finale. The adagios are stark and full of gut-wrenching, slowly resolving dissonant moments, while unpredictable twists and turns characterize the almost Haydn-esque Allegros and Prestos, as well as the E minor Pastorela Minuet's discursive melodic trajectory. At times Blasco de Nebra foreshadows future soulmates; you might mistake the Op. 1 C minor sonata finale's persistent dotted rhythms for Schumann's. Javier Perianes understands what makes de Nebra tick, borne out by his varied articulations, wide dynamic spectrum, and shapely embellishments.

Arguably Pachelbel's masterpiece, "Apollo's Lyre" is a series of six arias, each of which consists of a set of highly contrasted variations on the initial theme. As a composer, Pachelbel was perhaps most interested in the variation principal, in direct contrast to his great successor, Bach, who used the form only rarely (but then typically wrote the greatest variation work ever–the "Goldberg Variations"). The musical argument is easy to follow, and the tunes themselves simple and memorable. John Butt frames the work with two mighty chaconnes. A chaconne is basically the same thing as a passacaglia, namely a series of variations over a constantly repeating bass line. Try this disc. You're in for a pleasant surprise.

The Belgian composer Guillaume Lekeu, who lived only from 1870 to 1894, studied with Franck and d'lndy, and before his untimely death from typhoid made enough of an impression for d'lndy to complete the Piano Quartet which he left unfinished. This intensely emotional young man, who was ''knocked out'' by his discovery of Beethoven and fainted on hearing Tristan, declared his aim to be that of ''putting all my soul into my music'' and seems to have achieved it. Thus, his Molto adagio of 1886–7 was inspired by Christ's words in the Garden of Gethsemane, ''My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death''.

Franz Joseph Haydn's Die Schöpfung (The Creation) is one of the greatest oratorios, beloved for its moving religious content and admired for its abundant melodies, stirring choruses, imaginative scene-painting, and colorful orchestration. An argument can be made that period instrumentation and historically informed performance practices give a real boost to Haydn's scoring and effects, in ways conventional modern ensembles can't, and experts in early music make it especially striking by employing the sonorities the composer would have known and wanted.