Stephen Biggins

It is surprising, given the popularity of the repertoire, that all the recordings of Saint-Saëns' complete concertos currently before the public pre-date the CD era and none of them are fully digital. In addition it has never before been possible to obtain all the composer's output for piano and orchestra on only two CDs. For these reasons alone this latest addition to the 'Romantic Piano Concerto' series is likely to become one of the most successful of all. The Gramophone 'Record of the Year' winning team of Stephen Hough and the CBSO are joined by their new principle conductor Sakari Oramo in performances which combine all the elegance required for the Frenchman's music with the utmost bravura. Saint-Saëns himself was a formidable pianist and his rare 1904 (!) 78rpm recording of Africa has until now been matchless; finally in Stephen Hough's performance he has a rival.

For Volume 50, a stellar cast has been assembled for a two-disc set that includes, unusually, one of the most famous concertos in the repertoire. Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1 has certainly achieved warhorse status—but in the expert hands of Stephen Hough it is a new creature. With the rest of this fascinating two-disc set we are in more usual RPC territory, with music which is actually not widely known. This is a complete survey of Tchaikovsky’s music for piano and orchestra and includes alternative versions of the second movement of Piano Concerto No 2 as well as some delicious extras.

A cluster of choral miniatures culminating in one of Finzi’s most intense, visionary masterpieces: this is some of the most exquisite English choral writing of the last century.

The Masses in C, K317 and 337, which date from 1779 and 1780 respectively, are the last of Mozart's 15 Salzburg Masses, ten of which are in this key. Both are short (26 minutes and 23 minutes, respectively), in compliance with the Archbishop of Salzburg's rule that no Mass, including the Epistle Sonata and the Offertory or Motet, should last longer than three quarters of an hour. The earlier of the two, K317, is well known (perhaps because it has a convenient nickname, probably referring to its use at an annual service held since 1751 in commemoration of the miraculous crowning of an image of the Virgin in the pilgrimage church of Maria-Plain near Salzburg) and has been recorded many times, whereas K337 is virtually unknown, though musically no less interesting.