The producers of Compact Discs are ever more inventive and innovative in the commissioning of new recordings and compilations. The market is replete with recordings of the same works. In a recent BBC interview broadcast to mark his 75th birthday, Sir Neville Martinet was frank enough to say that

his new recording - a surprising choice certainly of a collection of German operetta overtures - the title was false as several of the composers were Austrian - was chosen by the marketing men. The recording industry, said Sir Neville - and he dared to add the BBC itself - was now run by the accountants. This fact only encourages endless repetition of the standard classics. Last month saw yet another complete collection of the Beethoven Piano Concertos with Alfred Brendel for one of the biggest recording labels.

Far better to turn to some of the productions of the smaller companies, whose selection and standards often show much greater originality and concern for the music itself. Take for instance OLYMPIA'S two CD recordings of Haydn's unfortunate opera Orfeo and Euridice (OCD 658 A+B). It was composed during his visit to London in 1791, but its first rehearsal was interrupted by an order from King George III forbidding any further performance. Haydn had been caught up in a feud between two rival theatres, each backed by a combative royal patron: Haydn's theatre was supported by the Prince of Wales in his struggle against the theatre backed by the King. 'Papa' Haydn was the unwitting victim of the interminable feud between royal father and son and his opera was never heard until 1951.

Orfeo and Euridice is not a great work and it will not lift Haydn into the ranks of the greatest opera composers. Yet it is a pleasant composition, full of the sprightly joy and serenity of his mature genius. It takes for its plot that perennial story of Orfeo and Euridice, currently being revived and travestied in yet another cumbersome and long-winded novel by Salman Rushdie. The music is well performed by a new Russian orchestra called, somewhat absurdly, Ensemble XXI Moscow, in honour of the approaching century.

The orchestra is elegantly directed by Richard Bonynge, a conductor whose great talents and services to neglected music have often been overshadowed by the fame of his wife, Dame Joan Sutherland. Richard Bonynge has assembled an all Russian cast with Ludmilla Shilova as Euridice and Nikolai Doroshkin as Orfeo. One must also single out the superb baritone of Yuri Sarafanov as King Creonte. (Mr Sarafanov is a graduate of a Moscow school designed to train blind performers - one of the few genuine achievements of the late unlamented Soviet Union.) This recording, far better in my view than the much 'hyped' disc with Cecilia Bartoli, is a notable addition to the CD catalogue and should delight all lovers of Haydn's music.

One of the great achievements of the CD recording revolution is the production of huge collections of the complete works of composers, whose work has, in the past, been regarded with polite condescension especially by the devotees of those curious and 'challenging' screeches and yelps that are called modern 'music'. Perhaps the two most notable examples are collections of two of the most popular (and therefore suspect) composers of the last century: Johann Strauss and Franz Liszt. Each has mounted to well over fifty discs. That innovative British company, HYPERION, has done a splendid service both for the ordinary listener and for the musicologist, with their ongoing compilation of all Liszt's works for solo piano. All the performances have been by Leslie Howard who also provides exemplary and scholarly notes about each work. Mr Howard is a perfect pianist for Liszt: he excels in the bombastic Romanticism with which Liszt liked to excite his enraptured audiences, but he also has a beguiling delicacy of touch for the more lyrical passages. If you like Liszt, you'll like Leslie Howard.

Two of the recent releases, in particular, are well worth noting. One of Liszt's greatest services to music was his transcriptions of popular operas which - in the age before recorded music - brought the latest works of Verdi, Wagner or Donizetti to the concert hall and drawing room. For us these are now, in many ways, only historical curiosities rendered virtually obsolete by the progress of technology. Yet these piano transcriptions do bring the modern listener the essence of the music, which can be all too easily missed in recordings of opera with the emphasis on the modern superstar singers and conductors. Liszt at the Opera VI (CDA 67406/7) is a two-CD set with transcriptions from such hearty favourites as Ernani, La Sonnambula, Der Freischutz and the Overture to Tannhauser.

Liszt was a restless composer, not only constantly travelling about Europe but also continually revising his works. Volume 55 of the HYPERION Liszt is devoted to this restlessness with a three-CD set, Grande Fantaisie sur La Clochette (CDA 67408/10). La Clochette is by Paganini, a composer who fascinated Liszt and this is amply shown in this collection. Leslie Howard's mastery of technique and delicacy of touch is nowhere better heard than in his effervescent performance of Variations sur Le Carnaval de Venise, yet another work from Paganini. The performer's full notes are nowhere more important than in explaining the complicated history of these drafts and revisions. Several of these versions have never been recorded previously.

The Austrian composer and pianist, Ignaz Brull was a friend of Liszt and of Brahms but is now virtually unknown. Brahms always asked him to premiere piano versions of his four symphonies to a select group. Yet even the Nazi ban on his compositions - he was Jewish - has not drawn attention to his music. HYPERION however has fortunately included him in another notable series that they have been bringing out: The Romantic Piano Concerto: 20. Brull (CDA 67069). This generous recording by the pianist, Martin Roscoe, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra gives us not only the two youthful Piano Concertos but the more mature and wistful 'Andante and Allegro' for Piano and Orchestra. Brull, like Beethoven, wandered in the beguiling woods of Baden bei Wien and one can almost hear the whisperings of its fabled pines in the slower passages of his music. This is a welcome discovery or recovery for lovers of Romantic music.

Philipp Scharwenka is another virtually forgotten composer rescued from obscurity by a adventuresome CD company. OLYMPIA have begun a collection of his Chamber Music and Volume One (OCD 655) consists of the Abendstimmugen, the Sonata in B Minor for Violin and Piano, the Piano Trio in C Sharp Minor and a particularly moving Elegie for Cello and Piano, which reminds one of some of Elgar's more intimate music of the same period. All these works come from the last few years of the nineteenth century and are strongly influenced by Brahms. They are well performed by the Romantic Chamber Group of London in which the cellist, Charles Medlam, is particularly outstanding. The notes include a short autobiography of this rediscovered German composer.

This column has frequently praised the achievements of Nicolas Harnoncourt and we shall do so again regarding his recording, with his Concentus Musicus Wien, of Mozart's Symphonies Number 10, 11, 42, 44-46 released by TELDEC (3984-25914-2). The two short, early symphonies are connected with the teenage Mozart's Italian tour and there is some dispute as to whether or not one of them is actually by his father, Leopold who certainly acted as his son's copyist. As always, Nicholas Harnoncourt brings his great feeling for tempi to his interpretation. By the final two symphonies, numbers 45 and 46 - probably written for the Prince Archbishop's Court at Salzburg, we are clearly hearing the awesome approach of the mature Mozart.

Another welcome Mozartian release from TELDEC is the Piano Concertos 10, 19 and 20 (4509-98407-2), concertos which transport us into the flowering of that maturity. Concerto No 20 is important not only in Mozart's own development but in the development of the Piano Concerto genre itself. It also points the way towards Beethoven's later achievements. It is therefore apt that the cadenzas used in this outstanding performance are those of Beethoven himself. Martha Argerich is the pianist with Alexandre Rabinovitch conducting the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, whereas in No 19, the Argentinean pianist takes a rest and Alexandre Rabinovitch both plays the piano and conducts. (Personally I would have preferred that the order of the performances had followed chronological sequence as one can more easily see the development between the two concertos. Happily a CD machine allows the listener to have it his own way.) The recording ends with the two pianists joining forces for the double keyboard concerto that Mozart first performed with his sister, Nannerl. This necessarily requires two pianists who blend well together; with Martha Argerich and Alexandre Rabinovitch, Teldec has found a formidable and pleasing combination.

In an earlier one of these columns (Contemporary Review, December, 1998, p.321) we reviewed another release from OLYMPIA, Franz Schubert: The Complete Original Piano Duets. This was a new series begun by the talented husband and wife duo of Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow. Volume Two has now appeared (OCD 672) and it more than fulfils the expectations raised by the first recording. Like it this concludes with a work, the Polonaise No. 2, by Schumann. This volume also includes one of the most beautiful and poignant pieces in the whole Schubertian canon, the Fantasie in F Minor which commemorates Schubert's love for his pupil, the Countess Caroline Esterhazy, yet another member of that aristocratic Hungarian family whose name resounds throughout musical history. This work pulsates with nostalgia and that 'theme of longing' which we find particularly in the first and fourth sections of this unforgettable work. Anyone anxious for the background to this 'idealised love' can find it in Brian Newbould's biography, Schubert: the Music and the Man. Schubert points to his meaning by having the second section make great use of the notes C and F, recalling the unrealisable love of Caroline and Franz.

Perhaps no composer has seen his reputation enhanced as much by the development of recorded music as Vivaldi. There are now dozens of recordings on black disc, tape and CD of his 'Four Seasons' and this enchanting work is close to being ruined by its ubiquity in commercials and now increasingly on that truly modern horror, the telephone answering machine. The freshness and vibrancy of Vivaldi's music is restored to our jaded ears by listening to lesser known works and for this there is nothing better than a superb new recording from HYPERION of Concert con Multi Istromenti (CDA 67073). Here we have virtuoso playing by The King's Consort under Robert King of seven of these somewhat clumsily named concertos. The titles may be clumsy and forgettable, but the music is just the opposite. The sound here is remarkably dynamic which is essential with such spirited performances. When you have performers of the quality of Crispian Steele-Perkins on the trumpet or Elizabeth Wallfisch on the violin, you wish to luxuriate in each note. This welcome release even features instruments such as the halumeau (the ancestor of the clarinet) and the theorbo. With this recording we are carried back to the 1720s when Vivaldi composed this music for the orchestra of young women who played behind a grille to shield them from the leering gazes of the Venetians and, even worse, the pleasure-seeking tourists. Because the players were hidden, they could exchange their instruments and spring sudden surprising sounds on the listener and this trick still works wonders today.

Finally we conclude with a recording featuring music by two of Vivaldi's contemporaries, Rameau and Charpentier. No-one has been more identified with this music than William Christie, founder and conductor of Les Arts Florissants. The American-born Mr Christie has so identified himself with French music that he has become a French citizen. This new compilation from ERATO (3984-26129-2) is a special production commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Les Arts Florissants. It features ballet music - that great favourite of the French Court under Louis XIV and Louis XV - mainly by Rameau and, to a lesser extent, Charpentier. These sparkling and exuberant performances - the sound of the percussion is awe inspiring - allows us to relive, to quote one of Charpentier's titles, Les Plaisirs de Versailles.