We'll give Supercuts the best Heldenleben sound award but also laziest, poorly designed cover. How long did it take to cobble that together? A last minute afterthought, surely? Each original EMI cover is much better and reissues from Biddulph and Testament. 

Enough of that nonsense, let's get to the glories of this reissue, the performance and sound.  

I'm ashamed to say I did not know this recording. I've played the piece so many times, the middle 'war' section, which goes on far too long, put me off buying many recordings. 

I've known the work since I was a baby. My father, a Strauss expert, had a recording with what I felt was a very scary cover with a scary man on it. Turns out it was von Karajan, who, it turns out became my own Strauss hero. 

There's no in between with the recorder. It's either a toy in a child's hands or you're an international virtuoso like Marion Verbruggen or Michala Petri. Yet in Lucie Horsch, we have that rarity. Both. At 17, the Dutch girl already has an enviable reputation as soloist on her instrument. And what other recorder player gets a Decca recording contract while still at school?

Presently, Horsch is a student at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam. She has an assured technique paired with outstanding musicianship and musicality. Her playing is so good, it invites comparison with the best recorder players such as the two ladies mentioned above. Horsch matches both for technique and musicality. 

This magnificent box set came after the somewhat ill advised 2012 Stereo Box Set. Those LPs were remastered from digital masters and have received mixed reviews. For most, the stereo records would be perfectly satisfactory. But for many Beatles enthusiasts and completists, back to the originals are the recordings they lust after.

Reflection informs most of the performances on the latest CD release from the great Italian pianist, Maurizio Pollini. He recently celebrated his 75th birthday, maybe the perfect time for reflection, especially with the autumnal works chosen here. But let's not forget, 'autumnal' in Chopin years is 30 to 35, young by any other standard. He died at 39 of tuberculosis. And it seems a lot of worldly stress was informing his life. A break up with George Sand, fights with her kids, money troubles and lingering illness. All affected his inspiration.

Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont’s CD of Beethoven Sonatas on Resonus Classics brings a fresh approach and a superb recording to these often recorded works. The Parisian born and Brussels based French pianist has a fluent technique and produces a lovely tone, but it’s his musicality that wins here.

One can never have enough Mozart or Brahms Clarinet Quintet recordings in a collection. With both composers in mind, I wish Jörg Widmann would have added the Brahms to the Mozart rather than the accompanying Mozart String Quartet K421. His playing is that good. A revelation, actually.

Not that you’ll be slumming with the superb Arcanto Quartet (founded in 2002). They perform Mozart as well as any and you’ll love their performance of the second of the so called ‘Haydn Quartets’ (No. 15 in D minor K.421). Dedicated to ‘To my dear friend Haydn’, the performance by the Arcantos will have you wishing for a complete set.

German clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld (1856 – 1907) must have been one hell of a player. His artistry nudged a semi retired Brahms to write the seminal chamber work for the instrument, the Clarinet Quintet (1891), a fine trio and the two most famous sonatas for the instrument.

The same could be said for Austrian clarinettist Anton Stadler (1753 – 1812). His playing inspired Mozart to write an equally wonderful Clarinet Quintet (1789) and the instrument’s greatest Concerto (1791).

Andreas Staier, the German-born, Hanover and Amsterdam-trained pianist/harpsichordist is fast becoming the harmonia mundi go to man for recordings of modern instruments and the fortepiano.

For this recording of Schubert Trios, Staier is joined by Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie concertmaster, Daniel Sepec and Roel Dieltiens, cello. All three play period instruments. Happily, Staier's fortepiano, a copy of an 1827 Graf, sounds nothing like others I've heard -- poor tone and sounding hideously out of tune. Staier's piano sounds wonderful. And, in tune.