Little Snich 6

Raphael Wressnig was 28 at the time of this recording but is already considered one of Europe's top jazz organists. On this CD, Wressnig plays the usual assortment of blues and soul-jazz grooves but also stretches his instrument by playing some music that borders on the avant-garde, some funk, a second-line New Orleans parade rhythm groove, a soulful country ballad, and even hints of hip-hop. Two songs are performed solely by Wressnig's Organic Trio, a unit that had been together for six years by 2008, featuring the fine guitarist Georg Jantscher and drummer Lukas Knofler. Three numbers add either tenor saxophonist Craig Handy or Christian Bachner, two others have the team of trumpeter Eric Bloom and tenorman Sax Gordon, and the remaining two find percussionist Luis Ribeiro making the group a quartet.

This is the second recording which the Academy of St Martin in the Fields has made of Handel's 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6. The first was directed by Neville Marriner whereas the new one is directed by Iona Brown. handel assembled his twelve ''grand concertos'', as he called them, during the autumn of 1739 and they were published by subscription in the following year. Their stylistic terms of reference are marvellously diverse and, in this respect they represent an apotheosis of what had become, by the 1730s, an old-fashioned form of concerto writing on the continent. Variety in form, ingenuity of thought and Handel's own unmistakeable personality ensure that in no other sense can these satisfying concertos be regarded as archaic.

For vigorous interpretation, orchestral clarity, and emotional impact, this set of Tchaikovsky's six symphonies is hard to discount: even though the recordings are ADD and the acoustics vary noticeably, these readings by Antal Dorati and the London Symphony Orchestra are full-blooded and viscerally exciting; and though they were recorded between 1960 and 1965…