The art and morality of the transcription was a hotly disputed question until very recent times; a climate of artificial purity in concert programming conveniently ignored the historical fact that virtually every Western composer since Pérotin has felt the necessity to use other men’s music, either to change the musical forces employed or to alter, embroider or vary the original material. Sense has prevailed, and even some of the more outrageous potboilers in the demi-monde of the virtuoso salon encore have gained perhaps even greater respectability in revival than they actually had as the Gebrauchsmusik of their day.

Volume 23 in the Hyperion Liszt series validates Liszt's phenomenal mastery of transcribing, and in the case of Berlioz's "Harold in Italy," translating an orchestral work with viola obbligato into a magnificent chamber work for piano and viola. The excellent content of Berlioz's work alone can easily earn five stars, but the other three substantial transcriptions of Gounod and Meyerbeer enhance the splendor of this recording even further.

In an age when even big-name soloists are trying their hands at historical-performance techniques, it's worthwhile to splash water on one's face from time to time and revisit the era when Bach's music served many performers simply as a stimulus to further creative activity. The piano transcriptions of Bach's music on this two-disc set are by Walter Rummel, a British-American pianist and composer of the interwar era whose mother was the daughter of Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph.

Max Reger just couldn't stop composing. With 131 published works, most of them compendiums of several pieces in the same genre, Reger was relentlessly, even recklessly prodigious as a composer. And apparently when he wasn't writing his own music, the fin de siècle Bavarian composer was arranging Bach's. In addition to arrangements of the Brandenburg Concertos and Orchestral Suites for four-hand piano, Reger also transcribed 22 works for solo piano, four organ pieces, and 18 choral preludes, and all of them are included in this two-disc Hyperion set.

The music of Hungarian composer Ernst von Dohnányi took a dive in concert program frequency after his death in the U.S. in 1960, when the fashion was for Bartók or still more progressive composers. It has been making a comeback, however, and this satisfying release by Britain's venerable Nash Ensemble, largely specialists in contemporary music, should only help it along. Dohnányi was classified as a conservative, and indeed there is a strong Brahmsian streak in his music.

The case for performing Mozart's horn music authentically on its original natural (valveless) horn is a bit tougher than for music in other genres; it's hard to imagine that Mozart or his audiences wouldn't have preferred the smooth scale of the modern horn to the reedy, clarinet-like tone that emerges on chromatic notes even on a fine recording like this one. Yet the four concertos, two of them incomplete or incompletely transmitted, and the Horn Quintet in E flat major, K. 407, have been recorded often enough on natural horns.

Hyperion’s Bach Transcriptions series shows Bach through the fascinating prism of the Romantic musical mind. This latest volume presents the complete transcriptions by Saint-Saëns, and the programme is interspersed with transcriptions by the elder composer’s friend and disciple, Isidore Philipp. Saint-Saëns was one of the many composers inspired by the continuing publications from the Bach-Gesellschaft, which made many of Bach’s works available in print for the first time, particularly the extraordinary church cantatas.

The Mozart is perhaps better known as the 2nd Flute Concerto. The oboe version was found by Bernhard Paumgartner in 1920 and doubts have been raised about its authenticity. Sarah Francis has taken the step of restoring the oboe part as closely as possible to the flute part, thereby ensuring that what we hear is at least Mozart. My feeling is that the nature of the oboe, plus the downward transposition (from D), introduces a certain heaviness to the attractively mercurial original.

Milhaud was an inveterate traveller who absorbed influences from many national styles.
The music here exudes infectious dance impulses, languid geniality, knockabout humour and joie de vivre. It may inhabit a limited expressive sphere, but providing you don't expect introspection or searching profundity you won't be disappointed. There's enjoyment at every turn, whether in the foot-tapping 'Brazileira', the Satie-esque simplicity of the 'Valse' from Lessonges, or the breezy music-hall atmosphere of Le boeuf sur le toit, with its wonderfully imaginative piano writing. The performances are exemplary.

On this 2007 Helios reissue, the Raphael Ensemble delivers a powerfully emotional reading of Franz Schubert's String Quintet in C major, D. 956, one that presents it as a fully fledged Romantic work with little Classical restraint. If this piece is regarded as a testament of the composer's anguished inner life, as it was written in 1828 and completed just weeks before Schubert died, then the stormy interpretation given here is perhaps appropriate and valid, insofar as it expresses sudden mood swings, restlessness, intense sorrow, and inconsolable rage.

Handel at his most jubilant here, hymning the glories of Georgian England in his half-official role as composer laureate: the four anthems written for George II's coronation in 1727 and the Music for the Royal Fireworks that celebrated his victories more than 20 years later. Robert King directs very capable performances using period instruments and, correctly, male voices. He does not use soloists; the requirement is ambiguous here and there is, I think, some justification for supposing that in Westminster Abbey Handel would have used choral forces or at least doubling (as indicated in the first movement of My heart is inditing) for the possible solo passages.