Wow, this is some disc! There are so few new major-label productions featuring today's "big" artists–and let's face it, so many of those turn out to be uninteresting–that it comes almost as a shock to note that there really can be a difference when everyone involved lives up to their reputations. Without a doubt, Esa-Pekka Salonen is a great conductor, particularly in contemporary music such as this. He recorded The Rite of Spring previously with the Philharmonia for Sony, and that was a very exciting performance, but this one has just that much more bite and savagery in the Sacrificial Dance, or at the conclusion of Part One. Indeed, the playing of the Los Angeles Philharmonic is pretty amazing throughout, with well-nigh unbelievable clarity in the polyrhythmic complexities of the Entry of the Sage, but also in the gentler washes of color that open Part Two.

I can’t help the feeling that Deutsche Grammophon have been keeping their young new signing Alice Sara Ott from us. For reasons best known to themselves, the label released this, her debut disc, in a number of countries in 2008, but held back in the UK until she had a second recording under her belt - of Chopin waltzes (DG 00289 477 8095). The double-whammy debut approach seems to have backfired a little, with many critics finding the Chopin too dry and emotionless and then projecting those criticisms, albeit in a milder form, onto the Liszt.

Despite the efforts of conductors such as Roger Norrington and John Eliot Gardiner from the 1980s onwards, period instrument performances of Berlioz in general and the Symphonie Fantastique in particular are relatively rare on disc; currently, the only rivals to Jos van Immerseel's new version with his Bruges-based orchestra seem to be those by Gardiner and Norrington themselves. Immerseel's approach, his choice of tempi and phrasing, are relatively conservative – the account of the exuberant Roman Carnival overture is positively staid – but the raw edge that the period instruments bring to Berlioz's soundworld is often ­viscerally exciting, with a pair of ophicleides adding a feral growl to the brass bass lines.

This is the best Boulez recording in quite a while. He offers the canonic 12 Wunderhorn songs, meaning no Urlicht and no Das himmlische Leben in the original orchestration before it became the finale of the Fourth Symphony. You won't miss them. None of the songs are done as duets, and you won't be bothered by that either. The singing is exceptional: Magdalena Kozená combines a sweet timbre with plenty of personality and attention to the words; Christian Gerhaher's light, somewhat grainy baritone may not be to all tastes, but his unfailing musicality and his gusto (singing but never shouting) in the big "military" songs carries the day.