The compact collection

Rob Cowan's best Christmas CDs

"We had hoped that our beloved friend Ralph Vaughan Williams would have been with us in the studio while we were recording this symphony, but his death took place seven hours before we began our work on it." The words are those of Sir Adrian Boult, solemnly spoken as a recorded preface to his Everest premiere LP of "VW9", long out-of-print locally and now reinstated as a welcome supplement to Boult's legendary Vaughan Williams symphony cycle for Decca (Decca "The British Music Collection" 473 241-2, five discs). Though taped mostly in mono (only Symphonies Nos 8 and 9 are stereo) these are by general consent the finest of Boult's VW symphony recordings, more urgent than his EMI re-makes, though equally atmospheric. The Sea and Pastoral symphonies feature the soprano Margaret Ritchie, as does the epic Sinfonia Antartica, where the eloquent speaker is John Gielgud.

The parallel case of Bruckner symphonies conducted by Eugen Jochum finds the first of two available cycles (DG 469 810-2, nine discs) better focused and more fastidiously prepared than its equally spontaneous Dresden Staatskapelle successor for EMI – though here the balance of critical opinion is less certain. This was the first-ever integral recording of Bruckner's numbered symphonies, recorded between 1958 and 1968 using the Berlin Philharmonic and Bavarian Radio Symphony orchestras, both bands fine-tuned to Jochum's lean, springy style, his fluctuating tempos and dynamic extremes. Furtwängler was an obvious influence, though Jochum's approach, at once excitable and ethereal, is more akin to Schubert than to Furtwängler's point of Brucknerian reference, which was more likely Wagner.

It's one of the safest recommendations for a bargain Bruckner cycle, whereas in the case of Mahler's symphonies the field is more crowded. Available choices are legion: nature-loving Kubelik, emotive Bernstein, individualistic Sinopoli, clear-sighted Abbado (all for DG), impetuous Solti (Decca), generous-hearted Tennstedt (EMI) and now Seiji Ozawa (below) (Philips 470 871-2, 14 discs), half of it live and impeccably played by the Boston Symphony. Past encounters with Ozawa's Mahler have suggested a generalised approach, all surface refinement but short on "soul". Not so, it would seem. A superb Seventh Symphony proves the point. So do the Fourth's exquisite slow movement, the Sixth's cogently stated finale and the gut-wrenching penultimate climax of the Ninth's first movement. Ozawa is more the compassionate overseer than the proselytiser, standing aside so that Mahler can protest his own case unaided.

OK, I wouldn't necessarily want this as my only Mahler cycle, but as a textual blueprint, free of excessive mannerism and for the most part beautifully recorded, it works extremely well. As to Haydn, I'd be quite happy to call it a day with Frans Brüggen (Orchestras of the Eighteenth Century and the Age of Enlightenment, Philips 473 015-2, 13 discs). The lion's share of this benchmark authentic-instrument collection covers the 19 Sturm und Drang symphonies and the 18 works that make up the Paris and London sets. Add symphonies Nos 88-92 and the delectable Sinfonia Concertante, all of them played (as indeed is everything else in the set) with an acute responsiveness to Haydn's profundity, wit and innovative textures, and you have the basis of a truly indispensable collection. As modern Haydn recordings go, they don't come any better.