Pandolfi: Complete Violin Sonatas. Andrew Manze (violin), Richard Egarr (harpsichord) (Harmonia Mundi)

Not much is known about Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli, who flourished in the 1660s, and very little of his music survives. His entry in The New Grove mentions "virtuoso violin writing over a simple and rather static harmonic plan". On CD in 1999 this translates into an opportunity, nay, an invitation to Andrew Manze to go into a freewheeling display of his full panoply of violinistic accomplishments. It's a daring and dazzling show, and, with the influence of jazz and of Eastern European folk-fiddling, more evocative to my ears of the 20th century than the 17th. If Nigel Kennedy did this, he'd be rapped on the knuckles. But make no mistake, it's such a vividly imaginative approach, there's not a dull moment on the disc.

Michael Dervan

Scriabin: Symphonies 2 & 3; Poem of Ecstasy; Piano Concerto (Melodiya, 2 CDs for the price of one)

This set includes all but two of Scriabin's major works with orchestra. The earliest work here from the USSRSO under Evgeny Svetlanov is the Piano Concerto (with Alexei Nasedkin), clearly indebted to Chopin. The Second Symphony is altogether more characteristic and upset many listeners at its 1902 premiere. With the Third Symphony (Divine Poem) he launched his mystical concerns in orchestral form. In the Poem of Ecstasy, written when he had moved on from Nietzsche to Madame Blavatsky, he imagined a global ecstasy in which the human race would be superseded by higher beings. The 1960s and 1970s recordings don't sound of the first rank, but Svetlanov is keenly attuned to the music's febrile mood shifts.

Michael Dervan