Whole CDs of the charming violin bon-bons thrown off in abundance by the great Fritz Kreisler are by no means unusual. (Nigel) Kennedy's new collection has many characteristics which set it apart. It ranges beyond the obvious to the full-scale String Quartet in A minor, and the smaller pieces were, as he puts it, "recorded real live - no cheating" (an obvious reference to the patching sessions used to tidy up so many "live" recordings). Both recording and playing, with John Lenehan at the piano, communicate with a feeling of unvarnished truthfulness. Kennedy's individuality in sweep and inwardness are as palpable as at a concert, and the playing makes no imitative concessions to the memory of Kreisler's uniquely glorious tone. The over-ripe romanticism of the String Quartet has been recorded with a rather more glamorous acoustic halo which seems entirely apt.

Bach: Cantatas 35, 54, 170/ Andreas Scholl (Harmonia Mundi)

Andreas Scholl has been turning up on a remarkable number of magazine covers in the last few months. You don't have to listen long to his new recording of Bach cantatas to understand why this 30-year-old German is the countertenor of the moment. His is a voice with nothing fey or forced about it. He gives the sense, rare among countertenors, of manoeuvering the voice precisely as he wishes rather than as it allows him - spry in the face of coloratura demands, supple in moments of delicate caress, and sensitive in the shading of the text. The partnership of Philippe Herreweghe and the Orchestre du Collegium Vocale is first rate, with the numerous prominent organ solos finely taken by Markus Markl.

Schumann: Complete Symphonies and other orchestral works. Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique/John Eliot Gardiner (DG, 3 CD set)

Few great composers have had their orchestral skills so widely criticised as Schumann, and there have been a welter of stewily opaque performances (and recordings) to add weight to the conventional wisdom. John Eliot Gardiner's new survey is definitely not in their ranks. Indeed, such is his concern for transparency that he sometimes infuses fast movements with a briskly-pointed Mendelssohnian airiness, lilt and formality. It's an approach I find more curious than persuasive - as, also, is his major alternative of edgy nerviness. To borrow from Schumann's extrapolation of the duality of his character, the approach here is that of the extrovert Florestan; the absence or muting of the melancholic Eusebius is keenly felt, especially in the slow movements.