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‘No Wagner tenor sings with such musicianship, colour and sensitivity… he sets a standard for our time’ [Sunday Times]. It was Kaufmann who gave the Abbado/DG Fidelio distinction [HFN Nov ’11]; and the German singer’s artistry at times reminds me of the young Fischer-Dieskau. Here we have excerpts from the Ring cycle (don’t be alarmed at Siegfried’s painful attempts to play the reed: track 2, 7m 44s!), Rienzi, Tannhäuser, Meistersinger and Lohengrin. Then, unusually for a man (as he explains in the booklet foreword), we have the lovely Wesendonck-Lieder, with its Tristan references in ‘Im Treibhaus’.

96kHz/24-bit FLAC, Chandos CHAN 10763 (supplied by www. theclassicalshop. com) Recorded using a Yamaha CFX pianoforte at Potton Hall, Suffolk, last year, Vol. 5 in Bavouzet’s series offers six sonatas: Hob.

Check your levels before launching Morph – the opening kick-drum/bass note is pushed up to knock you down! The surround mix of this 2006 inter-Dan album from the funky-fingered Fagen won a Grammy, and the 24/96 stereo version remains a production showcase, laying fruity layers of backing vocals across crisp and cruisy grooves even when the matter under consideration is considerably grave – even the eponymous giant cat turns out to represent a growing brainwashed malaise hanging over America. This disquiet perhaps infuses a particularly pedestrian plod into several pieces, the groove pinched so anal tight as to squeeze out its swing. Elsewhere this could be Aja Dan: ‘Security Joan’, ‘Brite Nightgown’ and ‘H Gang’ are friction-free, while the hi-hat opening to ‘Mary Shut The Garden Door’ is breathtaking in both performance and portrayal. A semi-classic, in fine form.

96kHz/24-bit FLAC, BIS-SACD-1996 (supplied by www. eclassical. com) With Vol. 1 in this new cycle [HFN May ’12] I concluded that Vänskä’s earlier BIS versions of Symphonies 2 and 5 were by no means superseded.