CD OF THE WEEK

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART COMPLETE WORKS Various performers Brilliant Classics 92540 (170 CDs) ****

What can you say? End to end, these 170 discs (with programme notes on a separate CD-ROM) would take over four working weeks to listen to. And at Dutch label Brilliant Classics' asking price of under €100 this has to be in the running for musical bargain of the century. What do you get? Well, everything, from confident and chirpy-sounding pieces by a six-year-old and a suave First Symphony written two years later, through the delicacy and wisdom of the vast body of familiar work, down to the downright unfamiliar and obscure. There's six discs of dances for chamber ensemble, nearly a whole disc of sometimes obscene vocal canons, a divertimento for five trumpets and four timpani.

The performances, split between period and modern instruments, vary greatly in freshness of approach and quality of delivery. The operas, for instance, fare better than the masses and religious pieces, and the wind music is most attractively done. Many of the performers are well-known: Colin Davis, Ton Koopman, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, Sigiswald Kuijken, Charles Mackerras, Barbara Hendricks, Helen Donath, Ann Murray, Christiane Oelze, Sandrine Piau, Nicolai Gedda, Peter Schreier, Christoph Prégardien, the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, La Petite Bande, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra among them. Listen and sit back in wonder. www.brilliantclassics.com

Michael Dervan