Haydn - Symphonies - AAM, Hogwood

Rating: 5/5

Review: 
A fabulous box

This is a fabulous box.  It isn't a complete cycle, sadly, but there is a wealth of great music here, superbly played.

The actual contents of the box are Symphonies Nos. 1-75, 94, 96, 100, 104, 107, and 108.  It is a great shame that the project was never finished, but the 81 symphonies that are here are quite marvellous.  Haydn was a truly great symphonic composer and in my view anyway his symphonies are at least the equal of those of Mozart.   There is beauty, passion, tranquillity…you name it, it will be beautifully evoked here somewhere.  And, of course, there is Haydn's wonderful wit and twinkle in the eye in abundance.

Hogwood and the AAM play brilliantly.  They are a period ensemble, of course, which to me brings a freshness and glow to these works which suits them perfectly.  Hogwood was a great conductor and his attention to detail and obvious love of these works produce something quite special, I think.  There is always a danger with a large  cycle of works that the artists slip into a slightly samey routine but I don't find any hint of that here.  This is partly due to the recordings being made over a long period, widely spaced out, but chiefly because the musicians so obviously care about every single movement they play.  As a result, I love this set.

The recorded sound is excellent.  The notes in this box are a bit sketchy, but full notes are available on-line at http://christermalmberg.se/files/pdf/musik/verkkommentarer/haydn_joseph_the_symphonies_volume_1-10.pdf

It is largely a matter of personal taste whether or not you will feel the same.  There are two excellent Complete cycles available, conducted by Dorati and Fischer, both of which I like very much indeed and I would be hard put to choose between this and either of them, but whenever I listen to Hogwood's recordings I get a lovely sense of enjoyment underpinned by top-class musicianship.  I couldn't ask for more than that.  Warmly recommended.

Mendelssohn - Piano Trios - Trio Dali

Rating: 5/5

Review: 
An excellent disc

 

The music is excellent, and is among the many chamber works which give the lie to those who maintain that Mendelssohn was somehow lightweight.  There is verve, beauty and passion in abundance here and it's a delight from beginning to end.

The playing of Trio Dali is as good as you would expect from three such excellent musicians.  They are technically brilliant, with superb precision and intonation, and also show a fine understanding of both the music and of each other. 

I have a couple of older recordings of these works by the Vienna Piano Trio and Trio Wanderer, both of which I like very much, but this somehow brings a new light and energy to the trios.  Beautifully recorded (as always) by Hyperion and with interesting notes, this is an excellent disc all round and warmly recommended.

Morales en Toledo - Ensemble Plus Ultra, Noone

Rating: 4/5

Review: 
Very good Morales

This is a very good disc of Morales's music by the excellent Christopher Noone and his Ensemble Plus Ultra. Morales wrote some very fine and extremely beautiful music while at Toledo and the performances here do it full justice. The singers are technically excellent with faultless intonation and minimal vibrato, so that the harmonies and dissonances really ring out. They have a good engagement with the text and lend real meaning to what they are singing and the balance and blend of voices produces a very lovely sound, including some fabulously deep and resonant basses in places.

I have a small reservation about the acoustic. Glossa, as ever, record the sound beautifully but it is set in a very resonant and "churchy" acoustic with the choir sounding slightly distant from the listener. This slightly diminishes the distinctness of the lines and, to my ear anyway, gives a slightly disembodied feel to the disc. It's a tiny, personal reservation which many people probably won't share, but I thought it worth mentioning.

Overall, though, this is a lovely, rewarding and well-presented disc and recommended to anyone with an interest in polyphony.

Schubert - Le Voyage Magnifique (Impromptus) - Pires

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Fabulous music, played to perfection

This wonderful set has been among my very favourites for many years now. I agree with the enthusiastic reviews here - this is fabulous music played to perfection.

Schubert's Impromptus are truly great, mature works. There is a lovely variety between them but they share a true, enduring beauty and often a marvellous serenity as in D899 No.3 or a shimmering loveliness as in D899 No.4. They are somewhat more accessible than the Piano Sonatas, but no less great as music and I love them dearly.

Maria Joao Pires Plays them simply perfectly to my ears. Her technical brilliance means that she can let the pieces glide and shimmer without ever losing the sense of their real weight and quality, and she seems to invite the listener to share her obvious love of the music. I find listening to her play these pieces a truly transporting experience. There have been many great recordings but this stands out for me as my favourite (possibly rivalled by Mitsuko Uchida).

I have to say that the notes are the most silly and pretentious that I have ever read (with the possible exception of those for Yo Yo Ma's Inspired By Bach) but, as with the Ma set, the music is sublime and makes them irrelevant. I cannot recommend this set too highly - it's a gem.

Bach - Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin - Zehetmair

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Technically superb but emotionally unengaging

This isn't one of my favourite recordings of these magnificent works.  The music is sublime, of course, and Zehetmair is a superb violinist, but his interpretation doesn't speak to me in quite the same way as some others.

Bach's music here is astonishing.  It is rich, varied and full of expression with that distinctive pulse running through each movement - but Bach's music scarcely needs a review from me.  Zehetmair is technically quite miraculously good in places; these are very demanding works and he shows complete mastery of even the most difficult passages.  However, his interpretation seems extremely detached and cerebral to me, with little of the human feeling which I want in this music.  He has plainly thought deeply about every movement, but I have a sense of him being in a world by himself, immersed in his thinking about the music and for me he doesn't quite allow the listener into his world with him.

The sense of detachment is exacerbated by quite a dry acoustic, with little resonance or warmth, so my overall sense having listened to the great Chaconne, for example, is of being left rather wrung out and exhausted with the effort but with little emotional reward.

I don't want to be too critical – these are personal responses, after all.  Zehetmair produces a technical tour de force here, others may well engage much better with this than I do and at this price you've very little to lose.  Personally, though, I'll be sticking to my dearly loved recordings by Rachel Podger, Viktoria Mullova and Isabelle Faust. All of them engage and move me deeply in their different ways, which I'm afraid Zehetmair's recording simply doesn't.

Carver - Complete Sacred Music - Capella Nova, Tavener

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Slightly unengaging performances

It is very good to have the whole of Carver's surviving music available.  He was a fine composer who is best known for his stunning 19-part motet O Bone Jesu but who produced some very good mass settings and other music, too.  Alan Tavener and Capella Nova deserve great credit for having recorded this 3-CD series, but I have never been wholly convinced by their performances.

Technically, the singing is good and in the larger choral passages the impact can be very moving in places, but especially in quieter passages there is a slight thinness and fragmentation of sound, exacerbated by some slight vibrato and poor balance on occasion which can prevent the polyphony really gelling as it should.  I first bought the three-disc set in the mid-90s and, while I'm glad to have it, I haven't played it all that often since – certainly nothing like as much as my discs by The Tallis Scholars, The Cardinall's Musick and others.

These certainly aren't bad recordings, but there's something which doesn't quite engage me in the music or engender a sense of spirituality in the way I think it should. If you're interested in polyphony or early Scottish music then you may well be glad of this series, but personally I can only give it a rather qualified recommendation.

Beethoven - Complete Piano Concertos - Uchida/Sanderling

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent cycle

This is an outstanding complete cycle of Beethoven's Piano Concertos. I ordered it after being very disappointed with the Brendel/Rattle set (from which I expected great things being a great admirer of both) and this Uchida/Sanderling set was a revelation. Uchida's more recent recordings of the late Piano Sonatas have proved her to be a very fine interpreter of Beethoven, winning almost universal praise, and this re-issue of her earlier ventures into Beethoven shows that she is very, very good in the concertos as well.

As with her excellent Mozart concertos, one of Uchida's great strengths is her restraint and refusal to resort to the sort of techniques which are intended to draw attention to the brilliance of the soloist and which (in my view, anyway) distract from the brilliance of the music. It isn't that she is cold or uninvolved - very far from it - but she uses her virtuosity to the service of Beethoven, not to the service of Uchida, and the result is magnificent music-making. She (as always) has a lovely tone and her technique is impeccable which makes the slower movements truly affecting and really memorable (the Adagio of the Emperor Concerto is stunning), and she has the power to give it some real welly when needed without it ever feeling forced or harsh.

Sanderling and the two orchestras he conducts on the set are also outstanding, with a real feel for both the music and for Uchida's playing; the partnership is a joy. The whole thing is a real tour de force from start to finish and I'm surprised that this cycle isn't better known - I think it knocks spots off several more celebrated sets. Furthermore it's an amazing bargain: as I write you can get the three-disc set for well under a tenner.

Experienced Beethoven listeners will all have their individual favourites playing each of the concertos, of course, and not everyone will like every concerto here as much as I do, but if you're looking for a really good complete cycle you have very little to lose and a wonderful musical experience to gain with this set and I recommend it very warmly indeed.

Bach - Art Of Fugue - Hewitt

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Outstanding Bach

I think this is quite magnificent. I have loved Angela Hewitt's Bach interpretations for many years and, like many of her admirers, have been waiting a long time for her to bring us the Art Of Fugue. It has been worth the wait.

As Hewitt herself says, this can be a forbidding work. It is dense, complex and unrelieved by anything in the way of tunes or dances; it is intellectual and, I think, deeply spiritual. In a recent article Hewitt quotes Wilfrid Mellers as saying that in The Art of Fugue, Bach "plays to God and himself in an empty church". That sounds about right to me, and it means that it needs something pretty special in the playing to realise its full depth and to make it accessible to those of us who want to sit in the church and listen.

To me, Hewitt manages both. She is technically excellent and the fugal lines have a wonderful clarity and fluency. She uses rubato sparingly but sensitively to shape each piece, and the depth of her scholarship and engagement with the music shine through every bar. It's impeccable Bach playing which comes out of years of immersion in and love for his music.

I also wholeheartedly approve of Hewitt's decision to leave the final canon unfinished as it was on Bach's death, rather than include any of the completions by others. However fine these may be, the poignant impact of that sudden, uncompleted end followed after a long pause by the chorale Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein 'Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit' is almost physical and makes a very fitting close to this wonderful work.

Hewitt's scholarship is also evident in her typically detailed, thoughtful and readable notes which give a fine insight into the work. The recorded sound by Hyperion is (of course) excellent and the presentation very attractive. I think this is an outstanding disc all round, and I recommend it very, very warmly.

Neusidler - Lute Works - O'Dette

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another very good disc from Paul O'Dette

I like this disc very much. I absolutely loved O'Dette's disc of Kapsberger and bought this on the strength of it. Neusidler is of the preceding generation (1531-1594) and his music is more in the style of Dowland than the early baroque of Kapsberger. Although it is perhaps less intense and musically inventive than Dowland, there is beauty, charm and interest here in abundance and Neusidler certainly deserves a disc of his own music.

O'Dette, of course, plays beautifully. He is a quite superlative lutenist, making the music speak and producing the most lovely sound from his lute, excellently recorded by Harmonia Mundi. The setting of Joseph lieber, Joseph mein is simply exquisite and to my ears there's not a duff track on this very well-filled 78-minute-plus disc. Another reviewer found it a bit lacking in interest, but I have to say that I get a lot from this disc every time I play it. I do love the lute, so take that into account when assessing this review, but I recommend this disc very warmly.

Brahms - The Piano Quartets - Leopold Trio, Hamelin

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Excellent recordings

These are excellent recordings.  I make no pretence at being any sort of an expert on Brahms – indeed, I find a good deal of his orchestral music quite a struggle.  However, there are chamber works which I think are excellent, and these piano quartets are among them.  They are extremely well constructed, expressive and very beautiful at times.

The performances here are superb, I think.  The Leopolds are invariably excellent - seeing them at Wigmore Hall was a highlight of my musical life and I have been half in love with Kate Gould ever since :o) - and Marc-André Hamelin is now firmly established as one of the world's great pianists.  Together they produce something very special: technically, of course, they are all brilliant so this demanding music sounds quite natural and their interpretation and sense of communication is exceptionally good.  They really seems to get to the heart of this music and bring out its varying moods beautifully, with some of the more intense passages, for example, sounding genuinely passionate and almost as rich in sound as a small orchestra while there is a limpid beauty in other places.  It's exemplary playing.

Hyperion capture the sound beautifully as ever.  This is a really good set all round and I can recommend it very warmly.

O Magnum Mysterium - Schola Cantorum Stuttgart

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Poor performances

I'm afraid I didn't get on with this set at all. Brilliant Classics have produced some really top-quality boxes of music but sadly this isn't one of them.

The repertoire is wonderful, with great mass settings by giants of polyphony: Dufay, Ockeghem, Josquin, Gombert, Brumel and Isaac. These are all works of immense depth and consummate compositional skill which have been wonderfully recorded by some of the world's very finest ensembles over the last 20 years or so. These recordings date from between 1971 and 1988 and they have not aged well.

For polyphony to really shine a choir needs to be well balanced with at least a modicum of blend between the voices, and vibrato has to be kept to an absolute minimum to allow the intricate harmonies and resonant sonorities to ring out and sound true. Neither is the case here: the voices don't gel together well at all and vibrato (sometimes to the point of excessive wobbling) often obscures tuning. The effect is muddy and uninspiring, and for me completely robs some of the world's greatest and loveliest music of all its beauty and passion.

I am sorry to be so critical, but performances like these simply won't do any more and, although this is a very cheap box, I can't recommend it. There are great recordings by The Tallis Scholars, The Clerk's Group and Henry's Eight among others of works by these composers and it's well worth spending a little more on them - they are what polyphony is all about. This isn't.

(If you are looking for a place to start with these composers, I'd recommend The Tallis Scholars' Flemish Masters discs - a fantastic budget-price 2CD set including masses by Ockeghem, Isaac and Brumel.

And for a really fine and ridiculously cheap Brilliant Classics box of polyphony you can't go wrong with Tallis's complete works sung by Chapelle du Roi.)

Mozart - Coronation Mass K317, Vesperae K339 - Kirkby, AAM, Hogwood

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A wonderful disc

This is a terrific re-release of two of my favourite Mozart recordings. The "Coronation Mass" and the Vespers date from 1779 and 1780 respectively and are among his true masterpieces of this period, with rich scoring, amazing harmonic invention, fabulous choral writing and some astonishingly beautiful aria-like movements. Laudate Dominum from the Vespers is among my very favourite movements in all of Mozart's work, which is really saying something.

These performances do full justice to such wonderful music. The Academy of Ancient Music under Christopher Hogwood have been uniformly excellent for decades and this is well up to their customary level of brilliance. Hogwood uses quite large forces here and they play wonderfully, while the outstanding cast of singers are technically excellent and, to my ear, perfect in their interpretations of the text and sheer beauty of the sound they make. (I have been half in love with Emma Kirkby for years and this disc is one of the reasons why.) It's a lovely, uplifting and inspiring disc of truly great music which has given me huge pleasure for many years. Now that it is available at budget price it's an unmissable bargain too, and I recommend it in the warmest terms.

Mozart - The Piano Sonatas - Uchida

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Great Mozart playing

I love Mitsuko Uchida's Mozart sonatas. She is to me, with the possible exception of Murray Perahia, the greatest Mozart pianist of our age.

Some people claim to have found Uchida's playing lacking in emotion, but this is music from the Classical era, between the contrapuntal complexities of the Baroque and the sweeping emotion of the Romantic, and one of its defining characteristics is its form or structure. There is plenty of feeling throughout the set - simple joy in the opening Allegro of K545, or lambent beauty in the Adagio cantabile of K333, for example - but it is expressed through carefully crafted form as well as inspired melodic themes and wonderful harmonic creativity and these shine through under Uchida's fingers. There are no sweeping gestures or great gushing outbursts, but for me Mozart's fabulous music comes straight from her heart and goes straight to mine.

Often in a dramatic performance by an actor restraint and control are far more effective in conveying deep feeling than a lot of roaring and gesticulating. Similarly here, where Uchida respects the music's inner structures and lets it speak for itself while obviously loving and feeling it. Consider her playing in the opening Allegro moderato of K330; no flashy tricks or overblown look-how-intensely-I'm-feeling-this techniques, but a lovely, lovely tone, immaculate technique and a wholly involving, beautiful delicacy which brings it completely alive. I couldn't ask for more.

This is the definitive Mozart set for me, and I don't say that lightly given the quality of the competition. I cannot commend this set too highly. Pure treasure.

Obrecht - Missa Sub Tuum Praesidium - The Clerk's Group

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent recording

This is a terrific recording of Obrecht's Missa Sub tuum praesidium and a selection of motets. Obrecht was active in the latter half of the 15th Century and was one of the most famous composers of his day - and it's easy to see why on this evidence. His music is beautifully structured, varied and sets the texts superbly. It has the slightly spare sound (to the modern ear) of the 15th Century rather than the richness which became evident in later polyphony, but is no less beautiful for that.

The Clerk's Group sing it wonderfully. This is at least as good as their seminal recordings of Ockeghem, I think. They have impeccable intonation and phrasing, and a genuine engagement with the text which really brings the music alive. The balance of voices is exemplary and they sing with a sort of unfussy directness which suits this music perfectly.

With excellent recorded sound, good notes and attractive presentation this is a first-rate disc all round and very warmly recommended.

Bach - Cello Suites - Watkin

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Something special

This is quite exceptional.  I confess that I only tried it because it won the 2015 Gramophone Award for Best Baroque Recording; I already had a lot of well-loved recordings of the Cello Suites and didn’t think I needed another.  I was completely wrong – this is superb, and a very welcome addition to my collection.

The Suites themselves, of course, are simply magnificent works.  They have all the spiritual depth, inventive musical genius and dancing pulse which characterises Bach's work and, well played, I think they get to the very soul of Bach.  They are extremely well played here.

David Watkin has been established as a very fine cellist for many years, with a string of excellent recordings to his name.  In my view this tops the lot.  He has brought something remarkable to these works; his superb technique allows him to get to the core of the music and to play even the most demanding of the movements as naturally as breathing.  It's not easy to characterise his approach simply, but it seems to me to have elements both of Fournier's beauty and warmth and also of Isserlis's passion and vigour.  Other listeners will make their own comparisons, but it seems to me that there is a sort of completeness here which makes this set so good.  As a couple of examples, he Prelude to the Third Suite flows and skips, but those fabulous wide arpeggios still have all their powerful, moving effect and I was absolutely spellbound by the Sarabande from the Fifth Suite.  It's a phenomenal movement and I realised that at the end of my first hearing I had been holding my breath for goodness knows how long.

In short, it is plain that Watkin really "gets" Bach and these Suites.  There is a combination of scholarship, insight, experience and personal involvement which shines throughout and really allows Bach to speak to us.

I could go on, but this review is probably too long already.  The great performances (on two period cellos, one an Amati five-string cello for the Sixth Suite) are beautifully captured in an excellent recording by Resonus Classics (a new label to me) and it's just an all-round brilliant set.  Even if, like me, you already have recordings of the Cello Suites which you love I would urge you to try this.  There is new beauty and insight here and I can recommend this in the strongest terms.  It really is something special.

Palestrina - Masses - Vartolo

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Not the best Palestrina recordings

Both the Palestrina discs recorded by Vartolo and his ensemble in the mid 1990s are quite decent interpretations in many ways, but for me they lack the real depth and musicality needed to really make Palestrina's music shine.

The music itself is lovely, of course.  Palestrina was one of the great masters of polyphony and these works are some of his finest.  These recordings do have their merits and some very beautiful moments, I think.  Technically the singers are very good, with generally excellent intonation and thoughtful phrasing.  The countertenor taking the top lines means a lower, more Flemish pitch which lends a lovely resonance to the sound, helped by some fine, firm basses.  However, I find the very resonant acoustic muddies the sound rather too much sometimes, balance of the voices is variable so that the polyphonic lines don't always interact as they should, and a little too much vibrato on occasions interferes with the clarity of the harmonies.  Palestrina does need genuine engagement with the text being sung to give it the depth and variation to maintain interest over a whole disc, and I don't really find that here so the whole thing begins to sound pleasant but a bit samey at times.

This isn't a bad recording by any means and I don't want to be too critical, but for me it doesn't quite succeed in bringing Palestrina's lovely music to life.  There are some quiet superb Palestrina recordings available now at very reasonable prices and I would recommend them well before this.  Two fine examples are Phillippe Herreweghe's  wonderful recording of Missa Viri Galilaei and The Tallis Scholars Sing Palestrina, which gives you four wonderful masses in outstanding performance.

Bach, Handel, Scarlatti - Gamba Sonatas - Isserlis/Egarr

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Terrific Bach

I think this is a terrific recording.  I was hoping for something special from Isserlis and Egarr, who are both magnificent musicians, and I got it. 

The combination of cello and harpsichord works extremely well.  n his typically thoughtful, scholarly and readable notes, Steven Isserlis comments on the unusual problem of balance between the two instruments with the cello being the louder instrument here instead of having to "make its presence felt with some difficulty over the rich sound of a modern piano."  For me, they get it just right nearly the whole time, with everything sounding as though it were written for just these two instruments.  I suspect that Bach, himself an incessant arranger and transcriber, would have approved.

Egarr and Isserlis bring real feeling and life to these works.  I have sometimes felt that Bach's gamba sonatas have been just a bit of a struggle to get through, even in recordings by great artists like Jordi Savall or Paolo Pandolfo.  I find this hard to explain, but it's true.  Here, however, the richness of the music and wide range of moods seem to shine throughout, and interspersing the Handel and Scarlatti sonatas is a brilliant idea.  It makes a programme which works exceptionally well and maintains interest from beginning to end of the disc.

Even if you are dubious about the idea of the cello/harpsichord combination in these works, I would recommend giving this disc a try.  I think it works extremely well and the sound is beautifully captured by Hyperion so the whole thing is an immense pleasure to listen to.   This is great music, superbly played by great musicians and I can recommend it extremely warmly.

Handel - Cleopatra - Dessay/Haim

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Fabulous stuff from Natalie Dessay

This is a lovely disc from Natalie Dessay. She is a marvellous singer with a truly beautiful voice and I think she uses it to excellent effect here. The disc is devoted to arias and duets by Cleopatra from Giulio Cesare, introduced by the overture and with two vigorous Sinfonias interspersed. It also includes some arias which Handel wrote and then discarded in favour of others for a different dramatic effect, but which are very well worth hearing.

Dessay sings with real emotion and feeling in every piece. She meets the huge technical challenges of Handel's music and the extraordinary ornamentation with an apparently effortless virtuosity and I found her range of powerful passion, tragic lament and sweet meditation all very convincing. Coupled with the very fine playing of Le Concert d'Astrée under Emannuelle Haim and excellent recorded sound the effect is consistently engaging and really magical in places.

I suspect your response to this programming will depend on your attitude to opera on disc. I understand and respect the view of many that operas should be heard in their entirety but personally, although I love to see full productions of operas, I often find them quite hard going on disc and very much enjoy programmes of selections like this. If you share my view, I am sure you will enjoy this disc as much as I do. Very warmly recommended.

Ockeghem - Missa Au Travail Suis/De Plus En Plus - Tallis Scholars

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Fabulous music, beautifully sung

This is a disc of two of Ockeghem's finest mass settings recorded to mark the 500th anniversary of his death in 1997. Ockeghem wrote some of the most beautiful music of the 15th Century; it is less sonorous than later polyphony and these are both four-voice settings which have passages for three and two voices. This gives it a spare but lovely feel, perhaps akin to the beauty of a plain stone church rather than that of a richly ornamented cathedral, and it is truly involving and rewarding.

All of Ockeghem's masses have been excellently recorded by The Clerk's Group and it is interesting to hear what The Tallis Scholars (acknowledged to be one of the truly great ensembles in Renaissance music) make of it. Before each mass they sing the chanson on which it is based. These performances have a slightly rough, rustic feel as befits a popular song of the day and sound similar to the way in which The Clerk's Group perform the masses themselves. The Tallis Scholars bring a more pure, full and rounded sound to the masses and which you prefer is largely a matter of personal taste. For me, much as I love the Clerk's Group's recordings, I prefer this one - it has a pure, limpid beauty about it which I find utterly seductive and, of course, the technical aspects are flawless: perfect intonation, wonderful fluency and balance of line and a true understanding of the relationship of music to text. It's a great disc, which also has Peter Phillips's excellent commentary to commend it.

(If you would prefer to try just one of these masses (Au travail suis) on a brilliant budget double CD with four other wonderful masses by other Flemish composers sung by The Tallis Scholars, I can wholeheartedly recommend their "Flemish Masters" discs Flemish Masters which is a fantastic double CD and a major bargain.)