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!)

Back from my trip to Senigallia (Le Marche). Al Cuoco di Bordo was as good as remembered; the raw seafood -- including langoustines -- is quite amazing. I also have fond memories of I Cappuccini in Arcevia, and of Al Contuccio in Urbino.

Feasted today on squid (butter, garlic, parsley and white wine) plus this evening a big dish of moules marinières enhanced with clams. Excellent. Wines were a cheap Côtes du Rhône, plus a cheap white Rioja (both good, and both from Tesco Online).

Then, in the evening, to what is becoming my musical Bible: Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues played by Edwin Fischer. When listening to Fischer's playing of this inexhaustible music, one is very conscious of Bach's introductory inscription: "... to execute the same well, but above all, to achieve cantabile style in playing ... " Bach would have approved of Edwin Fischer. I have a feeling that these three CDs of the "48" will never be shelved and filed away by me.

In the Elgar violin concerto, Albert Sammons (1929) has always held first place in my esteem. Yesterday evening I listened to a performance that replaced it as my Number One (based, so far, on just one hearing). The violinist, incredibly enough, was Nigel Kennedy, back at the Proms on Saturday 19th July for the first time in 21 years; he was given a two minute ovation when he appeared, and there was a great sense of occasion.

As a person, Kennedy is off-putting, with his jazzy, mockney way of speaking and his desire to stand out by looking bizarre. But with a violin under his chin, the Elgar violin concerto, and a sense of a great event in the air, he can certainly play the fiddle! The Elgar basic tempi were swift, and Kennedy's playing mirrored every twist and turn of Elgar's complex personality; he seemed to be playing from inside the music and showed complete empathy with the music. When the violin was allowed to let rip, Kennedy was off like a rocket, revealing a technique that was quite astonishing. And his Guarneri del Gesù gave Kennedy everything he needed for this virtuoso performance. This performance also firmly underlined the ability of "special" live performances to be vastly superior to even the best studio recordings.

Well, so far I've only heard the off-air performance once, but I was quite bowled over. Only negative note was what sounds like periodic attacks by Taliban guerrillas firing rifles at key moments during the performance. Quite distracting. But maybe it wasn't Taliban guerrillas; maybe it was Kennedy leaping in the air, or stamping his hoof, during exciting moments and landing on the Royal Albert Hall stage with a distinct thud. Taliban apart, I don't think I have ever enjoyed a performance of the Elgar concerto so much -- and I do have 15 different recordings of it, most of them either good or very good.

Birthday Celebration

Good birthday today; another year older. In the office until 3 (lunch at Chef's Table) then home to listen to five piano trios. But the piano trios were all played by Gilels, Kogan and Rostropovich, so the time passed very agreeably. For string quartets, you need a permanently constituted group; for piano trios, well-rehearsed star soloists are highly desirable (cf. also Cortot, Thibaud and Casals).

Listened to i) Haydn D major, ii) Schumann D minor Op 63, iii) Shostakovich second trio in E minor Op 68, iv) Tchaikovsky trio Op 50 and v) Saint-Saëns F major Op 18. Transfers were by Jakob Harnoy (DoReMi) and his technique has improved immeasureably since the over-filtered, glassy sound of just a few year ago. These transfers are excellent.

Whisky was 12-year old Caol Ila. Wine was white and red Rioja (latter 2001). San Daniele ham was from Quayle's. One kilo of mussels was from Chef's Kitchen. Fresh apricot compote was by me. Welcome phone calls from the G, and from Flavia (e suo papa). Roll on 23 July 2009!

The 20th century boasted a plethora of great pianists -- even more than great violinists. Of them all, however, I find that Alfred Cortot, Artur Schnabel and Edwin Fischer have the greatest universal staying power. All three were at their peak in the 1920s and 30s, and it is interesting to imagine Abbey Road in the 1930s where Schnabel was recording the complete Beethoven piano sonatas and Fischer was at work on the complete 48 Preludes and Fugues of Bach -- to which I have just begun to listen with very great enjoyment. One wonders at the sheer courage of EMI/HMV in those days -- four hours of Bach; on 78 rpm discs!

One characteristic of all three pianists, I sense, it that one feels listening to their recordings that they were essentially playing for themselves; not for a microphone, posterity, a jury, the gallery. There is an entrancing feeling of communion when Fischer plays Bach. To be continued ...

At last: I was able to do some "back-list" listening! Handel's Tolomeo (Alan Curtis) as well as Vilmos Szabadi in Leo Weiner's two violin concertos, plus Joachim's Variations for Violin & Orchestra. If you put 20 music connoisseurs in a room and played them Leo Weiner's music, not one would be able to identify the music's time or place; it sounds like "post 1850" and a mixture of Bizet, Berlioz, Vaughan Williams and Mahler. Enjoyable, however.

To end the weekend: David Nadien in short salon pieces. He really was the most extraordinary unknown violinist; in this kind of music, fully the equal of Heifetz and Kreisler (and better, technically, than Kreisler). Thank goodness he left some recordings, and more than his close rival, Josef Hassid.

Good that I did some back-list this weekend, because next week sees the arrival of 3-CDs of Bach's "48", plus 3-CDs of symphonies by Albéric Magnard, plus a couple of other CDs.

I am not normally a fan of the Mozart violin concertos. They are youthful works, and I have heard them too often (and played them often). Just too familiar for their own slender good. I made an exception this evening, however, for the 1954 recording by Theo Olof; old-fashioned violin playing (complete with a few tasteful portamenti!) that held my interest.

Which is more than can be said for John Ireland's E flat piano concerto, or Walton's viola concerto (Nabuko Imai). I can just about enjoy Walton's violin concerto from time to time -- in the right hands, and when I'm in the right mood. But the rest of his music always sounds very dated, in the derogatory sense of the word. This weekend I'll have to turn to more solid fare, and Ireland and Walton can go into storage.

Russian Bach evening. Tatiana Nikolayeva playing keyboard transcriptions, and Oleg Kagan playing the unaccompanied sonatas and partitas (1989, Amsterdam). How nice to hear romantic Bach away from the Richard Egarrs and Rachel Podgers of this world! Like sampling great Bordeaux wine after drinking vinegar. Bach would have been well pleased, I suspect.

I agree with my friend Carlos that Henri Vieuxtemps is a vastly under-rated composer, having just spent an enjoyable evening re-hearing his second and third string quartets (Maurice Raskin Quartet). Music that is well written, well conceived and with memorable themes. It was Vieuxtemps' misfortune never to write a Big Hit (unlike Bruch with his G minor violin concerto, or Holst with The Planets). He also suffers from not having written anything for piano players, unlike Schumann, Chopin, Debussy or Liszt whose music has been taken up over a century and a half by horde upon horde of piano players. For Vieuxtemps, you need a violin (or viola). This makes him a minority composer. However, I do like these two string quartets, plus the 4th and 5th violin concertos (including one other ... the second? I forget). His music for viola is highly memorable, especially on the CD played by Pierre Lénert. He also wrote many remarkable short pieces for the violin (though we could do without his American pot-boilers).

Second evening of my latest remarkable Thai Seafood Tom Yum. Benefited from a kilo of clams along with the mussels, the squid and the langoustines. Enough left for one evening's full meal. The Livarot cheese is, however, now finished. RIP.

Ended a good Sunday with Bruckner's eighth symphony (2 June 1957 with Otto Klemperer in Cologne with the Radio Symphony Orchestra). Excellent sound and transfer (Medici Masters). The Germans of the old school - Klemperer, Wand, Knappertsbusch, Walter, Furtwängler, Böhm, Jochum, Kabasta -- plus the non-German Horenstein -- understood Bruckner's ebb and flow, his internal structural logic and his internal pacing. The German orchestras of that era had the music in their bones. Not much advance in Bruckner (or Wagner) performances over the past 50 years; it seems to be music of a byegone era. We are lucky to have some excellent souvenir performances (including the present one, newly discovered and issued from radio archives).

Good food Sunday. The day started well with a breakfast of lambs' kidneys and bacon. Continued with an excellent lunch of fillets of John Dory (St Pierre) cooked to perfection with butter and chives, followed by a fully ripe Livarot cheese and a first-class bottle of Beaune Premier Cru 2000 (Bouchard). Ended with cherries. This evening will be devoted to langoustines (courtesy of Morrison's). All accompanied by the music of de Bériot.

Listened with great enjoyment to three violin concertos by Charles-Auguste de Bériot. It is a complete mystery to me why concertos such as these, plus the Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski concertos, are not played routinely. Some unplayed violin concertos (Godard, Milhaud) deserve their neglect. Concertos such as those by de Bériot certainly do not; they are well written and full of catchy tunes, themes and melodies. The second concerto, in particular, made a good impression on me at this first hearing.

The performances of concertos 2, 3 and 5 on the new CD (kindly supplied by Lee) are good (Philippe Quint) but the recording (2006) is a bit dim and the soloist struggles to stay in the forefront. This is a pity. It would be nice, but probably quite unrealistic, to imagine that this is the start of a de Bériot revival and that we can soon expect rival performances from Leonidas Kavakos, Alina Ibragimova, Sergey Khachatryan, Janine Jansen, Alexandra Soumm, Hilary Hahn, et al.