Recordings
18 weird and wonderful Christmas album covers: our pick of the best
Christmas over the years has inspired a glorious array of quirky covers from record company designers. We present our favourites…
Essential Christmas albums: 10 timeless recordings to get you in the Christmas spirit
What is the perfect music to get oneself into the festive spirit? We ask ten of our writers to name the albums they couldn’t imagine Yuletide without
Gaspard de la nuit: inside Ravel’s famously haunting piano cycle
Rebecca Franks explores the twilight world of Ravel’s haunting and nightmarish cycle, Gaspard de la nuit, and finds the best recording of this virtuosic work
Mozart Sinfonia Concertante: lively, sorrowful, utterly beautiful. A guide to this extraordinary work and its best recordings
A guide to Mozart's lively, sorrowful and beautiful work for violin, viola and orchestra, and some of the best recorded versions available
Best Beethoven recordings of all time: 20 great moments in Beethoven recording history
We name the best albums and recordings every Beethoven lover needs to add to their collection
These are the 50 greatest recordings of all time. How many are in your collection?
Our round-up of the best must-have performances of classical music. Update your collection with the great symphonies, choral works, operas, chamber and instrumental works
Vivaldi Four Seasons: five of the greatest recordings of all time (and, just for fun, three wild cards)
These four revolutionary violin concertos remain Vivaldi's most-loved works. Lucy Chaudhuri rounds up the best recordings of The Four Seasons to date, and adds in three wild cards for good measure
Appalachian Spring: Aaron Copland's masterful evocation of America's wide open spaces
The 1940s ballet Appalachian Spring has become one of Copland’s most popular works. And its true American spirit has inspired many great recordings, finds Anthony Burton
Ludovico Einaudi, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Max Richter: 18 definitive ambient classical albums you should hear
The best post-classical albums and modern masterpieces to inspire and move you
Bruckner's Fifth Symphony: a work almost destroyed by well-meaning but misguided acolytes
Devout yet unconventional, Bruckner’s Fifth has long been misjudged, says Terry Williams, who finds which recordings reveal its greatness
Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic: seven of the best recordings
The British conductor spent 16 years at the helm of the Berlin Philharmonic. Together, they created landmark recordings of some of classical music's best loved works
Pictures at an Exhibition: a guide to Mussorgsky's original piano masterpiece and its best recordings
Jessica Duchen chooses three of the best recordings of Musorgsky's evocative masterpiece - in its original piano version
The best recording of each Beethoven symphony to add to your collection
No composer changed the symphony more radically than Beethoven... Here is a guide to all nine of his symphonies and their best recordings
Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances: four great recordings of this masterpiece - and one to avoid
The greatest recordings on disc of the Russian composer Rachmaninov's final orchestral masterpiece, the Symphonic Dances, full of vibrant colour and driving rhythms
Brahms Symphony No. 3: a guide to his most enigmatic symphony and its best recordings
Terry Williams finds the best recordings of Brahms’s Third, one of the composer’s greatest triumphs yet one of his most paradoxical pieces
Bach Mass in B minor: a guide to this monumental sacred masterpiece and its best recordings
The sheer variety and craftsmanship of JS Bach’s final choral masterpiece, Mass in B minor, enthral Paul Riley as he chooses the finest recordings
The Planets by Holst: a guide to this truly cosmic work and its best recordings
We bring you the best recordings of each movement of Holst's The Planets
Mozart's violin concertos: the best recordings
Julian Haylock sends a couple of false pretenders packing as he searches out the best recordings of Mozart’s violin concertos
Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor: a guide to a great chamber work and its best recordings
Jo Talbot celebrates the ‘Mozart of the 19th century’ as she searches out the finest recordings of this masterful work for piano, violin and cello
Ryuichi Sakamoto: the best recordings
We rank the essential albums of Ryuichi Sakamoto, the pioneering film composer, electronic artist and solo performer
Six of the best landmark jazz recordings
Jazz has undergone many changes of style over the last century, not least with the arrival of rock music. Neil McKim picks out some pivotal concerts
Five of the best albums by jazz pianist Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck's rhythmic and tonal free-wheeling helped him become the epitome of 1950s and ’60s cool. We name his best recordings on disc
The best jazz albums released in 2021 so far
A list of the greatest jazz albums released in 2021, as chosen by BBC Music Magazine critics Garry Booth, Barry Witherden and Roger Thomas
The best recordings of all Beethoven's Symphonies
From the light, lively opening of the First to the famous 'Ode to Joy' of the Ninth, we choose the best sets of Beethoven Symphonies