Albert Sammons, Peers Coetmore, Bbc Symphony Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult Moeran: Symphony

Regarded as one of Europe’s leading horn players, Martin Owen appears as a soloist and chamber musician around the world. Currently principal horn at the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he has previously served as principal horn of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and as solo horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Weber’s Concertino was written for the old, valveless ‘natural horn’; its limited range of notes (tied to the harmonic series) was extended mechanically with additional tubing (‘crooks’) and, more artfully, by virtuoso players bending notes, and varied hand stopping. The technical demands of the Concertino are testament to the extraordinary facility of the hornists of the period.

This is not the classic 1965 Jacqueline du Pré / John Barbirolli / London Symphony Orchestra recording of Elgar's profoundly elegiac Cello Concerto. This is a previously unreleased live recording made by du Pré and Barbirolli in Prague two years later with the BBC Symphony. Is it as good? No, of course, not: the 1965 du Pré / Barbirolli recording has rightly been acknowledged to be the greatest recording of the work ever made – the most intense, the most passionate, the most compelling and far and away the most heart wrenching – and even in front of an audience of spellbound Czechs, Du Pré and Barbirolli cannot match that performance.

There is no shortage of the coupling of Grieg & Schumann's piano concertos, and this one surely is among the very best, along with Lipatti, Fleisher and Moravec. Kovacevich's Grieg is regarded by many as the best ever, though I have to give the nod to Lipatti/Galliera. The Schumann is equally compelling and ranks up there with those of Rubinstein/Leinsdorf, Lipatti/Karajan, Gieseking/Furtwangler, Fleisher/Szell and Argerich/Harnoncourt. So you have two top tier concertos on one disc which should be in every classical music library. Plus the sound on this one is better than any of the other above mentioned.

Stephen Kovacevich's survey of the 5 Beethoven concertos has been a staple item in the Philips catalogue for years. They are the sort of performance that is regularly referred back to as a benchmark issue. The following remarks apply to the four concertos included in this coupling. The two Romances for violin are attractive make-weights. All four performances have the same hallmarks as all are strongly presented with sharply underlined accents and with the most being made of the dynamics.

Among his contemporaries, Kalevi Aho stands as one of the most exciting composers, and foremost among his peers in revitalizing the Finnish symphonic tradition for the postmodern period. A student of Einojuhani Rautavaara, Aho has surpassed his teacher in orchestrational skill and daring. He has amply demonstrated that the symphony should not be treated as an academic exercise in imitation of past masters, and that it deserves the full resources of today's virtuoso orchestra and all the freedoms of the avant-garde's explorations. The Symphony No. 11 for six percussionists and orchestra consolidates the gains of modernism and spans innovations from Varèse to Xenakis.