The imminent collapse of the classical recording industry has been confidently predicted for most of the current decade, but still the direst prognostications have come to nothing. If the number of discs released each month is a fair indicator, then there are more recordings, from more companies, appearing now than ever before. There is hardly a corner of music in the last 1000 years that has not now been exhaustively (and in some cases exhaustingly) covered on disc. Even new music, still regarded with suspicion by the big companies (Deutsche Grammophon's 20/21 series being the signal exception) is getting extensive coverage from the smaller independents.
Of course the emphasis in the release schedules shifts slightly year on year; the trend towards issuing "live" performances has continued, especially in the field of opera, while 1999's pre-millennium neurosis has provided a bumper crop of collections and retrospectives. Philips' Great Pianists of the 20th Century has been a particularly worthwhile project: one or two surprising inclusions and a few more notable omissions apart, the 100 volumes, all available separately, give a comprehensive view of the art of pianism in our time.
Many of the year's other highlights have been reissues too - Nonesuch's 10-disc box devoted to John Adams, EMI's remasterings of many of Herbert von Karajan's opera recordings, Decca's Legends series, Deutsche Grammophon's Originals. With the BBC at last making available some of their archive recordings as well - lots of Benjamin Britten as conductor and pianist, treasurable recitals by Svitaoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich - there seems no limit to finding ways in which the past can be revisited and celebrated all over again.
1. Zelenka: Trio Sonatas
Holliger/Bourgue/ Zehetmair/Thunemann/ Stoll/Rubin/Jacottet
(ECM New Series 462 542-2)
Twenty-seven years ago the oboeist Heinz Holliger began his crusade on behalf of the Czech-born composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) with a first recording of these six trio sonatas. Zelenka was then almost entirely unknown, consigned to reference-book obscurity. As that pioneering recording demonstrated, however, Zelenka was a bit special, and from that beginning more and more of his output has been explored, though none of the subsequent rediscoveries has quite equalled the freshness and daring of the sonatas, which were probably composed around 1721 and scored for a pair of oboes (one of them replaced by a violin in the third), bassoon and harpsichord continuo. With its aching chromaticisms and long, rapturously expressive melodies, Zelenka's music goes far beyond the utilitarian mould of the baroque trio sonata; the classical world of Haydn and Mozart is sometimes prefigured in an eerie way.
Holliger's new set - in which his peerless playing is matched by the sublime Maurice Bourgue and the remarkable bassoonist Klaus Thunemann, with Thomas Zehetmair recruited as violinist for the third sonata - is even more spellbinding and better recorded than its predecessor. The accounts are a model of musicianship and style; baroque music played on modern instruments with such finesse and elegance that all criticism, let alone thoughts of period performance, are totally dispelled.
2. Rimsky-Korsakov: The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh
Gorchakova/Galuzin/Putilin/Ohotnikov/Marusin/Kirov Opera/Gergiev
(Philips 462 225-2)
The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh is the crowning masterpiece among Rimsky's operas, and this live performance from the Kirov in 1994 captures all its splendour, vividly conveying its mixture of introverted mysticism and highly coloured exoticism. Galina Gorchakova is in glorious voice as Fevronia, the maiden whose innocence and selflessness saves the city of Kitezh, her command matched by the tenor Vladimir Galuzin and bass Nikolay Putilin; Valery Gergiev's conducting is typically electric, alert to every facet of the drama.
3. Berio: Complete Sequenzas
Castellani/ Cassone/Fisk/ Anzellotti/ Ensemble Intercontemporain
(Deutsche Grammophon 457 038-2)
There are now 13 in the series of instrumental solos that Luciano Berio began in 1957, and this wonderfully executed set brings them all together for the first time. The Sequenzas document Berio's development as a composer like a diary, showing how his instinctive feeling for the colour and the character of every instrument, whether it be accordion, saxophone, harp or a soprano voice, is crystallised in its own form and musical language. An adventure into unique musical territory.
4. Carter: Symphonia; Clarinet Concerto
Collins/BBC Symphony/ London Sinfonietta/Knussen
(Deutsche Grammophon 459 660-2)
A wonderfully commanding performance of the masterpiece of Elliott Carter's old age, and one of the landmark orchestral scores of the last 50 years. The three-movement Symphonia was assembled piecemeal through the 1990s, yet when heard complete it makes a totally compelling organic whole, authentically symphonic in its control of pacing, harmony and structure, kaleidoscopic in its use of instrumental colour. Coupled with an equally deft account of the protean Clarinet Concerto, it's a superb tribute to a great composer, 91 next week.
5. Busoni: Doktor Faust
Henschel/Begley/Hollop/ Jenis/Kerl/Fischer-Dieskau/Lyon Opera/Nagano
(Erato 3984-25501-2)
Busoni's self-designated magnum opus was unfinished when he died, and this Lyons recording offers the choice of two scholarly completions, along with a totally uncut edition of the score. For once this problematic work attains its true stature, with vivid, sharply characterised orchestral playing (crucial in the important symphonic interludes). The well-honed cast, led by Dietrich Henschel's Faust and Kim Begley's Mephistopheles, put credible flesh on the bones of characters who can sometimes seem overintellectualised.
6. Messiaen: Saint Francois d'Assise
Van Dam/Upshaw/ Arnold Schoenberg Choir/ Halle Orchestra/Nagano
(Deutsche Grammophon 445 176-2)
Messiaen avoided the word opera, calling his only stage work "Franciscan scenes", but whatever the terminology it is an immense and fascinating musical experience, the definitive expression of the composer, which sums up and extends his musical development over nearly 50 years. At four hours long, progress is sometimes slow, yet as this recording from the Salzburg festival demonstrates that the rewards are there, and the performances, led by José van Dam's peerlessly elqouent St Francis, and Dawn Upshaw's seraphic Angel, are outstanding.
7. Chopin: Piano Sonata No 3; 3 Mazurkas Op 59; Nocturne Op 15 no 1; C sharp minor Scherzo; A flat Polonaise
Martha Argerich
(EMI 5 56805 2)
Recorded in 1965 but not released until this year for contractual reasons, Argerich's studio recital immediately takes its place as one of the most extraordinary displays of keyboard command in the catalogue, with music-making of breathtaking virtuosity and electrifying power. Her genius is to make every bar of the most familiar music seem newly invented, and to give every detail its own colour and inflection; the sweep and range of her vision are huge. Chopin has rarely sounded so revolutionary, on disc or in the concert hall.
8. Schumann: Piano Trios in D minor and F major
Florestan Trio
(Hyperion CDA 67063)
Chamber-music playing of the highest quality from all three players, who took the name of their group from one of Schumann's own alter egos, and performances that truly measure up to the emotional range (especially turbulent in the D minor trio) and technical challenges the music presents. This is very much a partnership of equals, with everyone contributing to the shaping and direction of the music, even though it's inevitably the wonderfully varied pianism of Susan Tomes that usually takes the spotlight in these keyboard-centred works.
9. Bax: Symphony No 2; November Woods
Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Lloyd-Jones
(Naxos 8.554093)
David Lloyd-Jones's scrupulously prepared cycle of the symphonies may not be enough to spark a full-scale Bax revival - the music is too diffuse, and not consistently successful enough for that - but it will restore some of the major orchestral works to circulation, which, as this powerful account of the second symphony demonstrates, will be well worthwhile. The Naxos recording captures the dark-hued allure of Bax's orchestration; Lloyd-Jones never wavers in his tracking of the music's emotional roller-coaster.
10. Handel: Three Cantatas
Gens/ Les Basses Réunies
(Virgin Classics 545283 2)
French soprano Véronique Gens has lately emerged as one of the finest artists of her generation, as persuasive now in the classical and romantic repertories as in the baroque works that made her name. This clutch of Handel solo cantatas, all composed in Rome in the early 1700s, shows how complete her understanding of period style can be; her singing is by turns crisply dramatic and sweetly seductive, her phrasing and ornamentation entirely unforced and never self- conscious.
To hear the tracks on Zelenka: Trio Sonatas, call 09068 626 828 and use code 3000. To buy any of these CDs, call the Guardian CultureShop on 0500 600 102
