Handel: "Samson" The Sixteen, The Symphony of Harmony and Invention/Harry Christophers. Collins Classics (three discs) Less than a year after the premiere of Messiah in Dublin, Handel completed his next oratorio, Samson, which was first heard at Covent Garden Theatre in February 1743. Even with the major destruction of Act III taking place offstage, the text, adapted from Milton's Samson Agonistes, gave the composer ample scope for a wide range of finely-drawn dramatic writing. Harry Christophers' approach is, like the fine singing of his choir, The Sixteen, straight and true, unobtrusive and to the point. Sparks fly between his Samson (Thomas Randle) and Dalila (Lynda Russell) and the rest of the characters are strongly characterised, too. Michael Dervan

Diabelli's Variations. Rudolf Buchbinder (piano). Teldec (two mid-price discs) In 1819 the shrewd Austrian composer and music publisher, Anton Diabelli, devised a unique project. He invited "all patriotic composers of note and all fortepiano virtuosos alive today", 50 individuals in all, to write a variation each on a waltz theme he supplied. Beethoven responded with his celebrated set of 33 variations, and Diabelli also managed to rope in figures as diverse as the 11-year-old Liszt, the mature Schubert, the music-loving Archduke Rudolf, Mozart's son Franz Xaver Wolfgang, and a host of minor luminaries. With good documentation, Rudolf Buchbinder's complete recording of 1973 illuminates this extraordinary cross-section of 1820s Austrian musical life. Michael Dervan

Prokofiev: Piano Music Vol 1. Eteri Andjaparidze. (Naxos) The early miniatures on this CD (the 79-minute disc runs to no less than 40 separate movements) represent Prokofiev in a wide range of moods. Best-known are the motoric and ironic: the spectacular Toccata, the self-explanatory Suggestion diabolique and the set of Sarcasms. Pages of the still under-rated Visions fugitives border on impressionism, and the 10 pieces of Op 12 find the composer dancing in his neo-classical clothes. New York-based Andjaparidze, a well-resourced Georgian player who shared fourth prize at the 1974 Tchaikovsky Competition with Andras Schiff, has the technique to deal with the music's aggression; she's sensitive, too, to its colourful whimsy. Michael Dervan