#NowSpinning Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra with Mariss Jansons in Bavaria. The box claims ‘Great Recordings’. Well, we will be the judge of that! Jansons is often Mr Reliable rather than Mr Inspired.

#NowSpinning Earl Wild and Jascha Horenstein with Rachmaninoff’s Fourth Piano Concerto. Well this has started amazingly well. Wild was clearly an absolute keyboard dynamo.

#NowSpinning Richard Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra, with Mehta in Los Angeles. Honestly, I could listen to that opening 100 times in a day and not get bored.

New team member. Well Klaus Tennstedt, complete Warner recordings on 41 discs. Well not mention that I already had 25 of the discs…

#NowSpinning Arensky’s Piano Concerto in F minor. I always knew I was missing out on these discs when they came out, but I am sort of glad I held off because this box has already been a revelation. And I’m only a few discs in. The Arensky is splendidly dramatic.

#NowSpinning a dramatic and incendiary Rachmaninoff First Piano Concerto with Wild and Horenstein. I have many favourite versions of this cycle, but for some reason have paid little attention to this one. I was clearly wrong to do so!

#NowSpinning Giulini’s Vienna Brahms 1. I enjoyed it but would never place this high on my personal preference list. I just feel it starts to buckle under its own weight in the outer movements. Giulini is always musically impressive, but here I want something more airborne.

#NowSpinning Zoltán Kocsis with Beethoven’s 8th Piano Sonata, the Pathétique. Kocsis drives this work forward where others weight it down with tragedy. All valid approaches, I’m sure, but I rather like the zippiness here.

#NowSpinning Pappano's recent Holst Planets. Mars certainly packs a massive punch! And how nice to hear Barbican sound with some proper perspectives and a sense of space.

#NowSpinning Horatio Parker’s Organ Concerto. The composer lived from 1863 - 1919 and the idiom seems Romantic rather than Modernist in any way.

#NowSpinning Sir Alexander Gibson and the LSO with Tchaikovsky’s Hamlet. There are so many gems on Collins Classics, though many are currently languishing in the vaults. I do hope Naxos continues to issue them.

#NowSpinning Respighi Fountains of Rome with Francesco La Vecchia and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma. There are many spectacular performances of this, but I thought it would be nice to hear it from home turf.

#NowSpinning Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, with Angela Hewitt. Here we have a pianist with a reputation built more on Bach than Ravel. She is a great proponent of clarity and line, which is remarkably refreshing in a work that is normally a truck for showy virtuosity.

#NowSpinning Weiner’s Hungarian Nursery Rhymes. This Naxos series is full of works we just don’t see anywhere else. If you enjoy Kodály this is likely to appeal. And there is a strong sense that the performers have really lived this music. Of course they have!

#NowSpinning Lutosławski’s Symphonic Variations with the ever-intrepid Edward Gardner. This is, I think, early in the composer’s output. One for Stravinsky lovers, I would say. And the orchestration is so very clever.

#NowSpinning David Diamond’s Symphony No.3. The Diamond series is a very appealing corner of the Naxos American Classics series. Immediately bracing and approachable, this work demands to be heard.

#NowSpinning Two absolute giants takes n Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. Rubinstein and Reiner are surely a match for one another.

#NowSpinning Dvořák Symphony No.6 with Libor Pešek and the Czech Philharmonic. Such a heartwarming work, of course, but this actual performance is unfamiliar to me. I’ve rated 1 - 5 from the Pešek set highly and expect much the same here.

#NowSpinning Honegger’s Symphony No.5 with Charles Munch in Boston….in October 1952 mono. Munch has an amazing ability to make relatively new music sound as though he’s lived with it forever. Such a passionate yet intellectually powerful musician.

#NowSpinning Mahler 4 with Mariss Jansons in Bavaria. One of those conductor who never really does anything I find bad, but he also rarely seems to scale the truest heights. It’s always just ‘almost there’.

#NowSpinning Next in the big Abbado box is his LSO recording of Berg’s Lulu Suite. And a curious surprise came when I looked at the recording data. 1970, Anvil Studios in Denham, just outside London. You’ll all remember what else was recorded there. Same orchestra 7 years later.

#NowSpinning a moment I have been dreading. I am returning to Karajan Nielsen Inextinguishable.I have never liked it and don’t intend to like it now. But I will hear it. Even if it actually harms me.

#NowSpinning Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, which is next up in the 1980s section of this big beast box. I love both this and the earlier version and it’s great to hear it again now. Certainly one for those who think Karajan over-beautifies everything to hear and consider.

Hi everyone. Do any of you still consider this to be a classic, or is the feeling it’s now just one of the crowd?

#NowSpinning Anne-Sophie Mutter with Karajan, Mendelssohn and a terrible jumper. Mind you if cover art were like this these days people might actually buy it for the music!

#NowSpinning Strauss Metamorphosen. This is Karajan’s DG recording from September 1980. Not everyone will like it, but it’s one of those records that managed to become an instant classic on release. Hyper-emotional and powerfully wrought. Certainly floats my boat.

#NowSpinning Mozart’s K.361 Serenade in B-flat Major for 13 Winds, the ‘Gran Partita’. What a joy it is to follow Mozart’s music with the score; I would have loved to play this myself.

#NowSpinning Mozart’s K.361 Serenade in B-flat Major for 13 Winds, the ‘Gran Partita’. What a joy it is to follow Mozart’s music with the score; I would have loved to play this myself.

#NowSpinning in the strange soundworld of Prokofiev’s Third Symphony. Chailly’s Concertgebouw are holding nothing back here. It’s not a work we talk about very often, but there’s tons to enjoy in it.

#NowSpinning Vaughan Williams Symphony No.6 with Previn in London. I’ve always thought of this as one of the weak spots in Previn’s otherwise superb cycle, but let’s see how I feel today.

#NowSpinning Semyon Bychkov’s Mahler 3 from the recent Pentatone cycle. I didn’t like it first time but I am trying again and doing my best to keep an open mind. Both sound and playing *are* pretty stunning. But that’s not all there is to Mahler.

#NowSpinning Three Wunderhorn Songs with Jessye Norman and Irwin Gage. Such incredible technique. This lady had absolute control over every sound she made.

#NowSpinning Abbado’s Live Fidelio from the summer 2010 Lucerne Festival. I have actually only heard the Böhm version of this work and will also listen to the Rattle soon. So still a very fresh work for me.

#NowSpinning Sibelius Symphony No.5. This is the middle of Rattle’s three recordings and I have not heard it in ages. Rattle is one of those conductors aficionados love to hate, but I’m listening again to make up my own mind. Neither of his Firsts are great, but this starts well.

New acquisition. Again. Sorry. Daniel Barenboim Warner recordings from Chicago on 37 discs. I know a few of the Teldec recordings, but not many. Only the Mahler really, so lots to discover.

#NowSpinning the cascades of sound captured in Medtner’s magical Piano Concerto No.3. A melancholic, continuously-unfolding epic.

New acquisition. Herbert Von Karajan Live in Berlin, 1970 - 1979 on 20 discs. This is the second box in the series.

New addition to the box set clan. Daniel Barenboim Complete Warner Recordings with the Orchestre de Paris on 15 discs. I’ve hear none of these discs before.

#NowSpinning Tchaikovsky’s 1812 and some bon bons from Dvořák, Smetana, Weinberger and Liszt. Reiner immediately brings a windswept drama to 1812. He ain’t hanging round here.

#NowSpinning Beethoven's Eleventh String Quartet with the Emersons. This work often amazes me. The start of the Allegretto ma non troppo middle movement wanders right on the edges of tonality at times. And the Emersons really wallow in that almost-chromatic writing.

#NowSpinning Berg’s Chamber Concerto for Piano and Violin with 13 Wind Instruments. Berg’s writing is actually very approachable here.

#NowSpinning Schumann’s G minor Pianon Sonata, Op.22 with Martha Argerich. The is clearly high-voltage just like her Liszt B Minor.

#NowSpinning Fricsay’s 1953 recording of Bartók’s Music for Strings Percussion and Celeste. If ever a Hungarian could champion the music of a fellow countryman!

#NowSpinning Respighi's Roman Festivals from the Ormandy Columbia Legacy Box. Having now finished the RCA Philadelphia recordings, I have returned to the first of three huge Columbia boxes. Lots of treats in store.

So, here we have it. Jakub Hrůša’s Martinů Symphonies. Another Martinů set to tell the whole story. As with any integral set of works, it takes time to tune into the approach, so at first I received a set that improved as we moved through the works. But on listening again, I…

Oh go on then. Let’s hear the Sixth. Frankly it could turn out to be totally mediocre and I would still recommend this set extremely highly. But it’s not going to…….

#NowSpinning Martinů Symphony No.4. Honestly, these performance of Symphonies 1 - 4 are brilliant and this Fifth seems to have found the conductor and orchestra even more in their stride. Tight rhythms, punchy accents. Total purpose and super clear direction.

Unbelievably sad that the glorious Felicity Lott has passed. There have been many great sopranos, but few had the radiant intelligence of this extraordinary musical legend.

#NowSpinning Martinů Symphony No.4 with Jakob Hrůša in Bamberg. The First was excellent, but I found the Second and Third to be even finer. This Fourth has started very, very well indeed. Totally poised and mobile.

Well this set arrives today, but can’t wait for the physical discs. Fortunately it’s already landed on Apple Music, so here goes. #NowSpinning Martinů Symphony No.1.