Poèmes de L'amour (chausson, Ravel, Debussy) Susan Graham Yan Pascal Tortelier, Bbc SO

This six-CD set is sure to be of interest to fans of Susan Graham, the phenomenally successful American mezzo-soprano. The recordings, with the exception of just a few tracks from the 1990s, were made between 2000 and 2005, and they reveal Graham in her prime. Five of the discs had previously been released, but one is made up of selections from a variety of sources, including complete opera recordings. The set demonstrates Graham's versatility, both stylistically in the many types of music she sings and in the emotional spectrum that the songs and arias encompass. .

After winning the Prix de Rome for his cantata Fernand in 1839 and spending two years in Rome, Gounod should have gone on to study in Germany, but he managed in 1842 to persuade the authorities that he should remain in Rome to work on a symphony.

The Poulenc Violin Sonata is still a relative rarity on record. I'm baffled by this, as it is one of Poulenc's most unique and musically rewarding works. This performance by Lin and Crossley is excellent; indeed they nearly match the superlative recording made by Kolja Blacher and Eric Le Sage for RCA. The brighter, more lively RCA recording adds a little extra sparkle and energy to the latter. However, in both instances, each violinist has the benefit of being joined by pianists who have made a specialty of Poulenc.

A young couple is brutally killed, and the convicted murderer, Joseph De Rocher, sits on death row. Sister Helen Prejean agrees to be his spiritual adviser. As she meets his family, and the families of his victims, she begins questioning every attitude she has about how human beings treat each other. Based on real-life events, Jake Heggie’s music and Terrence McNally’s libretto explore the nature of friendship and forgiveness in the most profound ways. Hugely acclaimed in major houses internationally, Dead Man Walking is widely acknowledged as one of the most riveting operas of the 21st century. It simply demands to be seen.

The exclusive Chandos artist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is a master of this repertoire. This is his second concerto recording for the label, after his survey of the complete piano concertos by Bartók (CHAN10610) which was released in September to high acclaim and voted ‘Orchestral Choice of the Month’ by the magazine BBC Music. Bavouzet’s complete recording of the piano music by Debussy also scooped awards from BBC Music and Gramophone, which wrote: ‘This could well be the finest and most challenging of all Debussy piano cycles.’ On this new release, Bavouzet is accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Yan Pascal Tortelier, a conductor steeped in the French tradition and utterly at home in this repertoire. The result is a totally idiomatic performance of these French masterpieces for piano and orchestra.

Recorded at the end of Riccardo Muti's tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra, this 1993 disc of late nineteenth and early twentieth century French orchestral music on the subject of the sea is far better than Muti and the Philadelphia's earlier recordings together. After 12 years of sharing the same stage, Muti and the Philadelphia musicians had apparently reached a sort of understanding: he wouldn't ask them to do anything they didn't want to do and they'd do what little he did ask them to do.

Ernest Chausson is a most unusual figure in French music, positioned at the crossroads where the romanticism of Berlioz and Franck meet the language of Wagner and the symbolism of the young Debussy. His Poème de l amour et de la mer is a unique score for the period and certainly his greatest work; simultaneously a profane, naturistic cantata, a monologue, and a song cycle, it was composed between 1882 and 1892.

Nigel Kennedy’s repackaged 1986 recording of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is an adventure – free, rhapsodic, emphasising the constant flow of song which is the work’s main asset. Perhaps he’s a little over-keen to emphasise what melancholy there is here, nearly bringing the outer movements to a halt with the bitter-sweet dreams of second subjects, but the Canzonetta is a miracle of introspection. All this passes Gil Shaham by. While the young Israeli clearly has a fabulous palette, conjuring a bright, beautiful sheen at the top of the instrument (though unduly spotlit by DG), he rarely uses it discriminatingly enough, and the sense of flexible movement so vital for the Tchaikovsky is missing.

The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande is a Swiss symphony orchestra, based in Geneva at the Victoria Hall. In addition to symphony concerts, the OSR performs as the opera orchestra in productions at the Grand Théâtre de Genève.