Latest CD releases reviewed

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (mezzo soprano), Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Harry Bicket Avie AV 0030

There's really not much to be said about this disc. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson presents Handel with a rare combination of musical and dramatic truth. She has a sure grasp of the fact that, at the right moment, a whole world can be suggested by something as simple as the nature of the transition from one note to the next -joy or despair can be revealed, the sky can open up, or the heavens threaten vengeance. If you've yet to savour fully the dramatic potential of Handel's vocal writing, this selection of five arias from Theodora, two from Serse (with the OAE under Harry Bicket) and the early cantata La Lucrezia (with the exemplary continuo quartet of Bicket, Stephen Stubbs, Phoebe Carrai and Margriet Tinemans) is as good a starting point as any.  www.avierecords.com Michael Dervan

Concerto Köln/Werner Ehrhardt Archiv Produktion 474 408-2

The German-born composer Johann Wilhelm Wilms (1772-1847) spent most of his life in Amsterdam, where he played many important roles in the city's musical life. He found his models in the classical era, but the textures of his instrumentation are fuller than those of the 18th-century. Coupled with the romantic turns that creep into his melodies, they provide what to modern ears sounds like a blend of 18th- and 19th-century practices. At least that's how the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies (ca 1820 and 1830) come across in Concerto Köln's enthusiastically detailed performances directed by Werner Ehrhardt. They may well represent a natural progression for the classical symphony that has long been devalued by the towering achievements of Beethoven. www.dgclassics.com Michael Dervan

Herbert von Karajan EMI Classics 562 8692 (2 CDs)

EMI is rounding off its Great Conductors series (at 40 rather than the originally announced 60 titles) with some of the most famous names. This Karajan set contains nothing from his work for Deutsche Grammophon or Decca, only seven minutes recorded after 1960, and no Beethoven, Brahms or Bruckner. Never mind. It does include a Sibelius Fourth Symphony that the composer approved of; a Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition with luscious playing of the Philharmonia beautifully caught in an early stereo recording; a live Walton First Symphony from 1953 (with a radio orchestra in Rome!); a smidgin of Wagner (the only Berlin Philharmonic recording here); and a clutch of lighter pieces (by Johann Strauss, Waldteufel, Liszt, Weinberger, Chabrier, and Offenbach), done with a finesse calculated to charm even the most serious of listeners. www.emiclassics.com Michael Dervan

Sergiu Celibidache EMI Classics 562 8722

For a man who shunned the recording studio for most of his life, Sergiu Celibidache (1912- 96) is now well represented on disc, mostly in family authorised issues of concert performances. The offerings here include three studio recordings from 1948, excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, Mozart's Symphony No 25, and Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. The rest are live, including music by his composition teacher Heinz Tiessen; performances of Nordic music (Berwald's Sinfonie singulière and Rosenberg's Marionetter Overture with the Swedish RSO, Nielsen's Maskarade Overture with the Danish NSO); some thoroughly unhackneyed Danish performances of the two Johann Strausses; and his celebrated 1953 Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic, here appearing in its first official release. The slow tempos of the later years are barely hinted at in this set, but the sense of interior illumination that was Celibidache's hallmark is well in evidence, and is very special indeed in the Nielsen, Berwald and Strauss. www.emiclassics.com Michael Dervan