Kenneth Edge (saxophone), Irish Chamber Orchestra/Fionnuala Hunt (violin): "Strings A-Stray" (Black Box)

collection of ICO commissions, with works by Raymond Deane (the obsessional Dekatriad with a twist in its tail), Fergus Johnston (Je goute le jeu . . ., a set of ethereally dissolving variations), John Buckley (the restlessly demonstrative Concerto for Alto Saxophone), Gerald Barry (the giddy, wild, ticklish, skittery, careering roller-coaster that is La Jalousie Taciturne), Frank Corcoran (Mikrokosmoi (Scenes from My Receding Past . . . ), scooping the lines of traditional tunes with melancholy wit), and Elaine Agnew (the crisply dancing minimalism of Strings A-Stray). Stylish and vital performances, as you would expect from the ICO.

Michael Dervan

Saverio Mercadante: "Elena Da Feltre" (Marco Polo)

The series of Marco Polo recordings of Wexford Festival Opera productions continues with last year's Elena Da Feltre, a torrid tale of lust, betrayal and death set in 13th-century Italy and sung by an all-Italian cast. Mercadante enjoyed considerable success during his lifetime (1795-1870) as a reformer and innovator, but music history has filed him under "the man who didn't go quite far enough"; this is immediately evident from the overture, which opens promisingly with a dark theme of startling intimacy played on the cellos, but ends in a whirl of Rossinian hyperbole. The opera as a whole is intense and dark-hued, with some marvellous solo moments from the NSO under Maurizio Benini.

Arminta Wallace

Various artists: "Originals" (DG)

1998 being the centenary of DG, it was probably inevitable the label would make a fuss about the 100th disc in its ongoing series of Originals reissues. They could hardly have made a better choice than Carlos Kleiber's 1980 Vienna Philharmonic recording of Brahms's Fourth Symphony. With the intimacy of chamber music writ large, Kleiber conveys equally the intellectual, the passionate and the songful in Brahms; the finely-detailed recording captures the VPO on top form. Also in the latest Originals batch are Maurizio Pollini's 1975 account of seven Chopin Polonaises, in which his playing combines nobility and simplicity of manner to stirring effect, and a generous selection of Bach organ works, delivered with profundity and clarity by Helmut Walcha on the historic Schnitger organ of the St Laurenskerk, Alkmaar in 1956.

Michael Dervan