Blues master Doug MacLeod and audiophiles have had a love affair for several decades. A damn good one. Blues, for musical and/or acoustic reasons, lends itself to quality recordings. Muddy Waters, Philadelphia Jerry Ricks, and a host of others, are blessed both sides of the microphone. We audiophiles and blues fans are the richer for it. And we expect a lot from our ‘own’ Doug MacLeod.  

MacLeod was producing legendary audiophile blues records before receiving the fairly recent Reference Recordings benediction. Come To Find on AudioQuest (my copy is on the magnificent LP) and You Can't Take My Blues also on AudioQuest  (mine is on a superb JVC XRCD Reissue) are but two recorded in the 90s that will stand the test of time. Both, like this fabulous new Reference Recording, highlight MacLeod’s ‘storytelling’ singing style, with his penchant for toe tapping, up tempo rhythms interspersed with soulful songs. 

Break the Chain does not do musically what the title implies. We have brilliant consistency. Here, you’ll find eleven songs and a ‘holler’ (story). Audiophiles will especially like the spoken voice track as they are so difficult to get right on recordings.

Brahms’ glorious Fourth Symphony is the crowning achievement of a well nigh perfect collection that set the standard for the symphony as a form since those of Beethoven. 

In the four movements, Brahms moves from a flawlessly executed Sonata Form opening movement, to a gloriously elegiac Andante to a rollicking third movement, culminating in the famous, granitic Passacaglia serving as the finale. 

As befits one of the great masterpieces of Western Music, recordings are legion, many of them very good. And to be honest, you can never have enough great Brahms recordings in your library.

We will focus on my two favourites, the great Chesky/Reiner/RPO and this incredible performance by the magician of conductors, Carlos Kleiber.  

More magic music making from this team. You’ll find my first DG reissue review of Brahms Fourth Symphony above. This superb Schubert release from Carlos Kleiber and the Wiener Philharmoniker is the second, and I’m scheduled to review the other two DG released of the great conductor on vinyl, Beethoven 5 & 7. 

This is the tale of two worlds, one the bright, happy Schubert of the coffee houses and Saturday morning gossip. The other, the dour, brooding Schubert, musically ominous, yet featuring incredible imagination producing an unfinished masterpiece.  

Whether sunny or cloudy, Kleiber brings great energy and imagination to both performances. You won’t hear better playing anywhere — even the vaunted Sinopoli DG Philharmonia can’t compete. The balance of the sections, the articulation of the unique Puchner oboes and Viennese Horns (single F horns with piston valves), and the sound of the wonderful clarinets and trombones (Kleiber’s direction of them in the Unfinished’s syncopations is marvellous) is echt Vienna/Schubert. Hard to replicate echt anything on rainy winter morning session in a London studio! 

Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic continue to be top of the classical music pile. They boast a full complement of recordings that sell extremely well and the orchestra’s own benchmark digital delivery system, the Digital Concert Hall. The ‘Hall’ is sponsored big time by Deustche Bank and is state of the art in HD, production and direction. That it has the world’s greatest orchestra and finest conductors doesn’t hurt, either.

Rattle can (and does) conduct and record whatever he likes — a testament to his incredible musicianship, the love the players have for him and the esteem in which he is held by recording companies. Everyone wants Rattle.

The striking women on the cover is the London Philharmonic's new star principal flute, Juliette Bausor.

London and Paris trained, Bausor is but one of a long list of wonderful young players filling important posts worldwide. Bausor follows in the footsteps of some wonderful long retired LPO principals like Richard Adeney and Jonathan Snowden, both of whom recorded superb Mozart Concertos, much like the fabulous Mozart heard here on Bausor's new Signum Records release.

Coupled with the Mozart G Major Concerto (and his lesser known works for flute, the Andante in C and Rondo in D), is the problematic child of 'modern' flute concertos, the eccentric and enigmatic Flute Concerto (1926) of Carl Nielsen.

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.