Welcome to your ready-selected classical music collection, with a twist. Recommending the finest recordings is of course at the heart of what Gramophone is here for. And such lists are hardly new to these pages.

The 250 albums chosen for your enjoyment in this issue were, however, not named by our expert reviewers. Instead, I thought it might be interesting to jump the performer-critic fence and ask some of the world’s leading musicians what they think. Would performing artists think differently to professional reviewers? Would we see some surprising choices or would they fall back on some old favourites? Both turned out to be true.

The musicians we asked were delighted to be involved, excited to share the recordings that have shaped their own musical lives and ideals. As our cover says, we ended up with 35 distinguished volunteers (er, more or less, – a couple more jumped in at the very last minute with such interesting selections that we couldn’t refuse). And many mixed the tried and trusted with the little-known or truly innovative. Hilary Hahn ranked Leon Fleisher’s recording of the Grieg and Schumann piano concertos with Max Richter’s ringtones riff 24 Postcards in Full Colour. For Marc-André Hamelin, Sir Colin Davis conducting Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique won a place next to Pierre Henry’s electro-acoustic masterpiece Apocalypse de Jean. This is a list to fascinate, to provoke and, above all, to enjoy.

Contributing editor Rob Cowan has provided a most interesting essay, speculating on the ways he and his colleagues might often see things differently. You will, I hope, decide for yourself and will even now be preparing to phone your favoured CD shop or fire up a download store. To whet your appetite, we’ve made five of the recordings available to stream for free in the Gramophone Listening Room at www.gramophone.co.uk, thanks to our friends at Chandos, Melodiya, Supraphon, Brilliant and Gimell. You even have a chance to win 50 of the recordings in our competition. Good luck!

james.inverne@haymarket.com