Kavakos played like a dream eliciting an almost physical pleasure from the trueness of his intonation and the way in which certain phrases, certain chords landed. ~ Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin / Ingo Metzmacher, BBC Proms, The Independent, August 2010

He is without doubt one of the greatest conductors of our time, and Volume 1 of his recordings from Brilliant Classics allows the listener to experience the extraordinary genius of Rozhdestvensky over a characteristically wide and varied range of repertoire.

On this double CD you can find compositions performing by great violinists.

This collection is an absolute steal. Three of the concerto recordings are unsurpassed. The Haskil Chopin is legendary, Richter's Liszt is colossal and Janis's Rachmaninoff is absolutely formidable. Brendel's recordings of Mozart and Beethoven are on a lesser level of achievement, but never less than good.

The sound of these Philips remasterings is very good for being almost fifty years old, and though the recording, true to its origins in the early 60's, is fairly closely mic'ed it is never too much. The various instrument sections are remarkably well defined.

Haitink leads the Concertgebouw Orchestra in these distinguished recordings of Ravel's major orchestral scores that probably remain among the best available. Most noteworthy are his interpretations of Bolero, Alborada del Gracioso and La Valse on the first CD; La Mere d'Oye and Daphnis et Chloe on the second.

This performance of the piano concerto is cherishable. It was not a work I knew when I bought this record but I fell in love with it quickly. It is by no means a second rank work - it belongs next to the wonderful Schumann piano concerto. At least that must be the conclusion of anyone listening to this magical performance.

The complete Schumann chamber music? On just seven discs? Is that really possible?

Esa-Pekka Salonen emerged as one of the most exciting and fast-rising major conductors of the last two decades of the twentieth century. He entered the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki 1973, studying horn with Holgar Fransman. Having graduated in 1977, Salonen remained to take composition with Einojuhani Rautavaara and conducting with Jorma Panula.

This is a logical and artistically rewarding collection. At its heart are the substantial sonata-format chamber works of Fauré. These are fleshed out with La Bonne Chanson which if it needs claim to belong here is passported in through the presence of a chamber ensemble. There is also the little Elégie for cello and piano.

These live recordings from 1985 are fantastic treasures. The Moscow Studio Archives release may now be unavailable – perhaps this Regis version is now easier to obtain. Oleg Kagan plays the Violin Sonata (1968) and Yuri Bashmet plays the Viola Sonata (1975), which was Shostakovich's last work, both accompanied by the great Sviatoslav Richter on piano…

Grigory Ginsburg is another of those obscure Russian pianists whose LPs are highly sought by collectors. He was a major league virtuoso with an outgoing temperament, although he could give intelligent performances of mainstream classical music as well…

These musicians, glorious all, bring to Faure a warmth, freshness, depth, clarity and affection I've never heard in any other interpretation.

In my own compositions, no conscious effort has been made to be original, or Romantic or Nationalistic, or anything else. I write down on paper the music I hear within me, as naturally as possible…

Yo-Yo Ma is considered the world's greatest living cello player, a professional musician since the age of 5 whose celebrity transcends the world of classical music.