After feeling somewhat bored recently listening to four short violin & piano pieces by Medtner, it made a pleasant change to be thoroughly entertained listening to a whole CD of violin & piano pieces by Antonio Bazzini. The music is light, tuneful and holds the attention; almost Handelian, in fact.

The CD was very ably played by Chloe Hanslip, who had all the necessary virtuosity for this technically challenging music, as well as a lightness of touch that suits Bazzini well; a change from Power Violinists such as Alexander Markov. Miss Hanslip is doing well (and is also, commendably, avoiding the hackneyed bye-ways of everlasting Beethoven, Kreisler, Ravel and Brahms). The only silly feature was an annoying outer sleeve (why, Naxos?) with a colour photo of Miss Hanslip staring at the camera, a bit like a rabbit caught in car headlamps. However, the outer sleeve is easily jettisoned and all the information, minus the photo, is on the jewel case. Presumably someone thought young men would queue up to buy a Bazzini CD if a pretty girl were on the cover. Some classical recording promotion personnnel have even less intellectual acumen than derivative investment bankers. I'll keep this Bazzini CD handy; a good disc to put on when one wants to be dazzled and entertained. Her Ronde des lutins is, however, too rushed for my taste (comes in under 5 minutes). Fast playing can be exhilarating; but we do need to hear the notes and the music cleanly and clearly, and speed for speed's sake is not a good idea.

The Prom performance this summer of Vaughan Williams' Lark Ascending by Akiko Suwanai (with the Philharmonia under Susanna Mälkki) is pretty well ideal in terms of balance, recording quality and performance. One of those rare occasions when everything comes together.

Earlier, I plunged into Handel's Athalia. I am usually a bit wary of Handel's oratorios, with all those Old Testament Israelites. But the music of Athalia (written for and first performed in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford) is completely and utterly first class. The Drabinghaus & Grimm recording (directed by Peter Neumann) is also excellent, although I do have doubts about Simone Kermes here; when drama or emotions run high, any concept of bel canto appears to fly out of the window with Ms Kermes.

Sunday, and another three and a half hours of George Frideric Handel, this time the 1725 opera Rodelinda. Over three  hours of exquisite music, and Handel at his best. Il Complesso Barocco was directed by Alan Curtis -- a reliable Handelian -- and Simone Kermes headed the caste.  Along with Schubert and Mozart, Handel was the greatest consistent melody writer of all time.

I have never come across the Norwegian Henning Kraggerud before, but his new CD of the six solo sonatas by Eugène Ysaÿe is most impressive. Kraggerud does not differentiate the individual works quite as remarkably as did Fanny Clamargirand in her recent traversal, but his Guarneri del Gesù makes a lovely gritty sound and his playing is spot-on accurate and quite up to Ysaÿe's severe violinistic demands.

It's attractive music and has been lucky on CD. At around 67 minutes it is tailor-made for CD, of course, and record companies also love the fact they only have one artist to pay. Apart from Kraggerud and Clamargirand, there are Shumsky and Kavakos, plus a number of other excellent recordings. I like all six sonatas ... as long as I am not required to play them.

Recently, I listened with enjoyment to Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos played by members of the Philharmonia orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer. Going back even more years, I now really liked the six concerti as played in 1935 by Adolf Busch and the Busch Chamber Players. What Bach needs to be convincing is love, a sense of rhythm, a sense of style, and musical intelligence. Harpsichords v pianos, flutes v recorders, baroque violins v modern violins really do not matter, since Johann Sebastian rarely wrote with precise sounds in mind (unlike, say, Debussy or Mahler). Busch is great and fully  deserves his high reputation over 70 years on. EMI has done well to reissue the Brandenburgs (plus the four Suites) in new transfers in its Great Recordings of the Century series. Three classic CDs for all time and all ages ... pace the Baroque Brigade.

Back from France, well full of various shellfish. L'Ecailler in Boulogne-sur-Mer is truly terrific: not just a great selection of all sorts of ocean fodder, but all fresh, fresh, fresh and at very reasonable prices. I returned to England with a magnificent 1 kg crab (just €6.18). With deep regrets I turned aside from the 1 kg plaice (carrelet). Almost opposite L'Ecailler is an excellent boucherie with a vast range of first-class pâtés, terrines and rillettes; I bought a couple of specimens, including a truly excellent frommage de tête. And, of course, I was accompanied home by 48 bottles of Le Chevalier Collier (2005 St. Emilion).

Awaiting me were numerous CDs, including a two-CD pack of Frank Peter Zimmermann and Enrico Pace in the six Bach duo sonatas for violin and keyboard. Exemplary performances; tasteful, well recorded and well balanced. No "baroque" stuff from Zimmermann, thank the Lord, and no harpsichord as per Mullova's recent ill-judged sortie into these pieces. I know the sonatas well, both from playing them and from listening. The quality varies from movement to movement, but the works are never less than interesting, especially when played as well as they are here.

It is utterly incredible that I have had to wait until now to listen to the twelve Op 6 Concerti Grossi by Handel. They contain magnificent music! All completely new to me. I confess that I bought my current recording (Concentus Musicus Wien under Nikolaus Harnoncourt) because the 4-CD set was very cheap and thus a good way of investigating the works. But the 30 year old recordings are a bit musty and a bit "early baroque" in sound, so I must find good newer versions. The four Harnoncourt (not my favourite director) CDs also contain Handel's six Op 3 concerto grossi which still await investigation.

Also a very pleasant surprise is Devy Erlih's 1969 recordings of Bach's solo partitas and sonatas; the postman has so far only brought Volume 1. Volume 2 is on its way. Erlih zips through the works at Heifetz-like speed, and his technique is formidable. I enjoyed all three works on this first disc, not least the long first partita that, in most hands, seems to go on for ever with its doubles and repeats after each movement. In the hands of someone like Julia Fischer and even Lisa Batiashvili, the first partita just sends me to sleeep, since its somewhat routine melodic and thematic material really cannot hold the attention for over half an hour. But in Erlih's hands the work zings along, with many of the doubles in quadruple rather than double tempo ... no bad thing. Hard to imagine why a violinist of Erlih's stature was, and remains, completely under the radar. Or why I have had to wait over 67 years to hear Handel's twelve concerti grossi Op 6!

When the new CD of Lisa Batiashvili playing the Beethoven violin concerto arrived, I wondered why on earth I had ordered it, since I already have no less than three off-air recordings of Batiashvili in this concerto. But no regrets with the newcomer; for me, this is a version of the Beethoven concerto to shelve with those of Erich Röhn, Georg Kulenkampff and Adolf Busch.

As usual, Batiashvili avoids all showing off or reveling in the joys of her 1709 Strad. She just absorbs herself in the music; I have never heard a performance of this concerto with so much piano and pianissimo playing. She also directs the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Dresden herself; a daring task, but the performance is remarkable for the way the (small) orchestra and the soloist really listen to each other. The concerto, for once, sounds almost like large-scale chamber music and one is suddenly conscious that a piece of music written in 1806 just does not need a large symphony orchestra fresh from playing Brahms and Bruckner.

The absence of a conductor leads to a couple of fluffs (mainly concerned with balance between orchestra and soloist) but the pluses far outnumber the minuses. The recording, too, is exemplary and one of the best concerto recordings I know in terms of naturalness of sound and balance between orchestra and soloist. A triumph all round. And, not least, the "coupling" is highly enjoyable: six pieces by Sulkhan Tsintsadze (arranged for violin and orchestra by Daddy Batiashvili). Novel, interesting and so much better than yet another Mozart concerto as filler.

A Sunday morning catching up with old half-friends. Schumann is not really my cup of tea, but I make an exception for his A minor violin and piano sonata, and the 1968 recording by Roman Totenberg (thanks to Ronald) proved highly satisfactory. Then on to his opus 39 Liederkreis recorded by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore in 1954; I still have my original German 10 inch LP of this, much worn since the 1950s.

On to Mahler (thanks to a new Naxos CD), another half-friend. I am not much of a Mahler fan, but have always had a soft spot for his Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Fischer-Dieskau and Furtwängler) and the Kindertotenlieder (Fischer-Dieskau with Rudolf Kempe). All a bit morbid, but nice to listen to. I have always had mixed feelings about Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, but today I really enjoyed his exemplary diction and articulation; with too many singers it can take you 20 minutes to work out in what language they are singing .. but not DF-D (nor Callas, Pfiaf or Johnny Cash).

I have never been a great fan of choral music; for me, it is too often associated with churches (viz organs, as well). But I have to make an exception for Handel's choral anthem "The Ways of Zion do Mourn". Somehow Handel takes the religiosity out of religion. On the same CD is his "Utrecht" Te Deum; equally good, and equally a discovery thanks to Jonathan Keates' biography of Handel that I read recently. Many undiscovered gems around in the music of the past.

Sunday was violin day, thanks to Michael in Germany. The fact that I could listen with pleasure to four hours of violin recitals pays great tribute to the skill of the (long-gone) violinists of other generations. Difficult to imagine inflicting four hours of the likes of Tasmin Little or Gil Shaham on my poor ears.

Jeanne Gautier (21 tracks including the Ravel sonata) and Devy Erlih (Ravel, including sonata, plus Kreisler) made me warm once again to the old French school, with its bon ton, fluidity, variety of tone and bowing and immaculate taste. All the pieces were played at the "old" tempi (ie, before things began to slow down in the 1950s in the name of soulful expressivity).

Christian Ferras and Pierre Barbizet, caught at their zenith in Germany on German radio in 1954, 56 and 57 underlined just how much we lost with Ferras's decline soon after. His playing was as natural as breathing, and he and Barbizet form a perfect team in this CD of Mozart, Kreisler and Schubert, with Ferras contributing a world-beating Bach third unaccompanied sonata (Frankfurt, 1956).

Then off to California. Frances Berkova, in acoustic recordings of nine short pieces, brings a breath of the old world. Her daughter, Saundra, plays six pieces in the 1940s when she was 14 and 15 (with S-S Havanaise from 1956). What an incredible child prodigy! Unlike the French players above, there is not much evidence of her enjoying the music, nor the violin. Her playing is much like that of a gifted chimpanzee -- all imitation. But what a chimpanzee! No one has ever played the violin with greater technical ease and perfection. As often, Los Angeles and its show-biz environment proved inimical to artistic development, and Saundra vanished from the visible scene after being caught in a drug bust in 1957.

Remaining on the waiting pile from Michael's haul are Henryk Szeryng in 17 short pieces from 1949, and Cecilia Hansen in the Frank sonata from 1953. It all makes a change from Bach and Handel, but three new Handel operas are on the for-listening pile at the moment ... As a p.s., it is really exciting that Europe' radio stations are unearthing good recordings of classical broadcasts from the past fifty years. Think of the treasures that must still be awaiting issue!

Listened with great pleasure to three hours of Handel in Radamisto (Joyce DiDonato, Patrizia Ciofi, Maite Beaumont, et al with Il Complesso Barocco directed by Alan Curtis). Handel knows how to keep his listeners' attention with a stream of contrasting airs and recitatives, with stunning and varied orchestration.

For a change, a stream of CDs going out, rather than in (though new ones keep arriving). So exeunt various recordings of Gil Shaham, Maxim Vengerov, Joshua Bell and Kyung-Wha Chung. Who knows: maybe in five years time I'll just be left with Heifetz, Handel, Bach and the late Beethoven string quartets.

Jonathan Keates' truly excellent biography of Handel is proving an extremely expensive read. As soon as Keates enthuses over something or other by Handel that I do not have, the temptation is too great not to speed to my computer and order the work online. He even has me ordering a CD of cantatas by Nicolò Porpora! Still, it makes a change from ordering Tchaikovsky's violin concerto.

On a different note, it was interesting to hear Jakob Shapiro in Brahms Op 40 Horn Trio (with Gilels and Kogan in 1951 -- excellent Doremi transfer). French horns do not usually blend at all satisfactorily with solo violins. But Shapiro's soft-toned Russian horn with typical Russian vibrato blends in extraordinarily well and makes one realise -- at last -- that Brahms knew what he was doing.

For some reason, I have never previously come across Borodin's D major piano trio. But I enjoyed it this afternoon played by Emil Gilels, Dmitry Tziganov and Sergei Shirinsky (Moscow, 1950). Followed it with Fauré's Op 15 quartet for piano and string trio (Gilels again, Kogan, Barshai and Rostropovich). Moscow, 1958.

The Soviet Union was a pretty grim place back in those days. But it did produce an astonishing crop of first-class musicians and musical performances. Compare it with Switzerland's contribution! The two transfers from Doremi are extremely good, and the company appears to have mended its glassy, over-filtering ways of the past.

Yesterday evening I was most impressed listening to Cornelia Vasile playing the Paganini 24 Capricci. Her bowing was an object lesson in violin technique, and even Paganini himself would have been amazed at Vasile's ability to overcome any hurdle, seemingly effortlessly.

The recording comes from Bucharest (1967) and makes you realise how many unknown superb instrumentalist there were (and still are) out there. Vasile's Capricci are so much better than Ricci's somewhat hit-and-miss playing; yet it is Ricci who gets the renown. Unfair!

Jonathan Keates' revised and updated biography of Handel is an excellent read, closely integrating life, history and music. A model of its kind. Spurred on by Keates' enthusiasm, I spent Sunday listening with great pleasure to Handel's Agrippina -- one advantage of having a vast library of CDs that have rarely been listened to more than once.

I thoroughly enjoyed the three and a half hours of Agrippina which is, of course, packed with Handel's "hits". The 1991 recording by John Eliot Gardiner and an almost entirely British caste is excellent (though I still deplore Eliot Gardiner's habit of autumatically adding "molto" whenever he comes across an allegro, vivace or presto).

Naxos is a pretty marvellous record company; along with Harmonia Mundi, the two companies seem to provide most of my purchases of new recordings (as opposed to re-issues of old recordings). With Naxos one can admire the price, the daring repertoire choices, the consideration for purchasers over 30 in having track details etc in large type, the absence of scantily-dressed bimbos on CD sleeves, the "no delete" policy, etc. I have just really enjoyed what is apparently Volume One of a complete two-volume set of the music for violin & piano of Nikolai Medtner. Talented violinist is Laurent Kayaleh (I have never heard of her, but she plays a lovely Guarneri violin of 1742 that used to belong to Carl Flesch). At this price, one can buy without too much hesitation. And the third violin and piano sonata of Medtner is well worth getting to know -- alongside such large and mainly unplayed sonatas as those by Alkan or Lekeu.

Naxos, Harmonia Mundi and Hyperion are all record companies founded and run by music-loving men who were more interested in repertoire and recording than they were in "stars" and profits. Imagine EMI, DGG, Sony, RCA or the old American Columbia bringing out a two-volume Medtner set!

Demand to know my "10 favourite CDs". This is a bit of a conundrum, since does Tristan & Isolde, for example, count as four, or one? Are we talking "works", or CDs? And what about a CD with three works on it? Whatever, here goes in purely random order, since to select My Ten Essential CDs and then put them in order of preference would be too much and quite haphazard.

1. Bach: 48 Preludes & Fugues. Edwin Fischer. Just timeless classic.
2. Beethoven: Late string quartets. Busch Quartet. Again, timeless classic.
3. Handel: Amadigi di Gaula. I have to have some Handel, and there are so many candidates. I like Amadigi and it contains some excellent Handel, so it will have to do. Probably choose the Minkowski version, since he underlines the contra-bassoon in the lovely Pena Tiranna aria.
4. Heifetz: The recently re-vamped CD of the Vieuxtemps fifth concerto, together with Bruch's Scottish Fantasia and G minor violin concerto.
5. Michael Rabin playing Wieniawski's first violin concerto. I'll cheat and add to this Leonid Kogan playing the first Paganini violin concerto since, after all, they would both fit easily on to one CD!
6. Bach: Mass in B minor. I have to include this; probably choose the Klemperer recording, despite the slow Kyrie. But I like Klemperer, and like the clarity of his (smallish) chorus.
7. Schubert's B flat major sonata D 960. One of those works you keep coming back to. Choice of version is a bit hard: Richter, Schnabel, Lewis or Andsnes? And there are others ... Curzon, for example. But I have to have the first movement repeat, so Andsnes.
8. Shostakovich: Violin concerto No.1. Needs to be in the list, since it is probably my favourite violin concerto. Big, big choice of versions. But I'll settle for Leila Josefowicz, since her CD also contains a definitive version of the elusive sonata for violin & piano.
9. Bruckner: Symphony No.9. The ninth spot must go to Bruckner and his ninth symphony. There is only the recording of the public performance on 7th October 1944 with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Furtwängler; no other performance comes within 10 miles of this one .. and the recording is astonishingly good through large loudspeakers.
9.99. Elgar: Sospiri conducted by John Barbirolli. Cheating a bit, but it can't be left out.

Well, Number 10 is going to need some reflection. There must be over 50 candidates for the one slot.

10. Josef Hassid: violin recital. Well, No.10 has been chosen. Not Wagner, not Sibelius. Just eight short encore pieces recorded by Josef Hassid between the ages of 16 and 17. If ever one wants to hear just what a violin can do, it is enough to listen to Hassid playing Sarasate's Playera. Leaves Heifetz on the starting line (and that is saying something!)