Christopher Breunig

Go back 60 years and look at the LP catalogue and you'll only find a single version of Richard Strauss's 1898 tone poem Op.40, Ein Heldenleben ['A Hero's Life'], with the Vienna Philharmonic, no less, under Clemens Krauss. He was a conductor largely associated with that composer [Decca 478 6493 has all his orchestral recordings and includes the opera Salome] as well as the 'other' Strausses.

I guess the Fifth Symphony is the work that makes listeners sit up and begin to explore the music of Beethoven. Its opening dot-dot-dot-dash motif was used by the Allies as a Victory emblem for broadcasts to occupied Europe.

Six years ago no-one would have dreamt that the most recommendable recordings of the two Elgar Symphonies would come from Stockholm and Berlin. The second pair, with the Staatskapelle under Daniel Barenboim, reflected a renewed interest in music introduced to the aspiring young musician by Sir John Barbirolli back in the early 1970s.

Anyone who has seen the 1945 British film classic Brief Encounter will remember the music that enhanced the performances by the two principal stars, Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard – Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto. (The pianist for the soundtrack was Eileen Joyce.)