Enjoy six of the best. . .

The Tchaikovsky Project: Symphonies & Piano Concertos (Decca 483 4942, seven CDs)

A DELECTABLE package for the Tchaikovsky lover: most of the composer’s great orchestral concert music, performed by Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic. They give us the six numbered symphonies plus Manfred, Romeo And Juliet, the Serenade For Strings and the three Piano Concertos with Kirill Gerstein as soloist. It is especially rewarding to have the original versions of the First and Second Concertos. Beautifully played, charismatically interpreted.

Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas (Sony 19075843182, nine CDs)

THE Russian-German pianist Igor Levit made a splash with his 2013 debut album for Sony, of Beethoven’s last five Sonatas. Here they are again, with the previous 27 Sonatas added to make one of the best sets of these masterpieces ever recorded. Beethoven put some of his most original thoughts into his Sonatas and Levit has a hotline to them.

Handel: Samson (Linn CKD 599, three CDs)

THIS is the best we have yet had from John Butt and his Dunedin Consort of Edinburgh. Apart from Messiah, Samson is the Handel oratorio with the most elevated text: librettist Newburgh Hamilton used John Milton’s Samson Agonistes as its basis. Handel rose to the challenge and composed a string of incomparable choruses and arias, the finest being Let The Bright Seraphim for soprano and Honour and Arms for bass. Butt increases the chorus slightly over what Handel had, and both singing and playing are first-rate.

Schubert: Die Schöne Müllerin (Chandos CHAN 20113)

OUR greatest singer of today, Welshman Roderick Williams, is finally getting to grips with Schubert’s Lieder, assisted by pianist Iain Burnside. Normally one might like a tenor for this, but Schubert’s favourite singer was Johann Michael Vogl, a baritone like Williams, who takes a leaf out of Vogl’s book by introducing modest decorations. Williams’s beautiful tone and Burnside’s sensitive pianism shine.

Britten: Complete String Quartets (Chandos CHAN 20124(2), two CDs)

THIS is a splendid way for the Doric Quartet to enter their third decade. We get all three of Benjamin Britten’s numbered String Quartets, plus the Three Divertimenti from the early 1930s, published after his death. They also offer a group of Purcell Fantasias, reflecting Britten’s love of this composer.

Fabio Biondi: The 1690 ‘Tuscan’ Stradivari (Glossa GCD 923412)

HAD Fabio Biondi made no other record, we would know from this one that he was a great violinist. Ostensibly he is demonstrating the 1690 ‘Tuscan’ Strad. Supported by harpsichordist Paola Poncet and two other colleagues, he gives glowing performances of old Italian music by Veracini, Tartini, Corelli, Geminiani, Locatelli and Vivaldi. His bronze tone, impeccable legato and lively rhythm are captured in the Auditorium at the Parco della Musica in Rome — the violin’s overtones really ring out.