Osmo's greatest hits

Osmo Vänskä's discography makes Mick Jagger look like a hobby musician. He has recorded more than 100 albums with the Lahti, BBC Scottish and Iceland symphony orchestras and the Minnesota Orchestra. Here are a few of Osmo's greatest hits, all available on the BIS label: 1 BEETHOVEN'S NINTH SYMPHONY with the Minnesota Orchestra.

Honor: 2008 Grammy nominee for best orchestral performance.

Review: "A most impressive effort," wrote Star Tribune critic Michael Anthony, with "a clarity of detail that makes most performances of this work seem vague and imprecise."

2 BEETHOVEN SYMPHONIES NO. 2 & 7 with Minnesota Orchestra.

Honor: 2009 nominee for Classic FM Gramophone Award.

Review: "Both symphonies are played with great care and affection, while Vänskä's conducting is consistently and admirably lucid," wrote Tim Ashley in the Guardian.

3 SIBELIUS VIOLIN CONCERTO with Leonidas Kavakos and Lahti Symphony Orchestra.

Honor: Gramophone Award in 1991 for best concerto recording.

Review: "This disc offers an invaluable insight into the workings of Sibelius' mind," opined Gramophone magazine, which lauded the musicians' "great virtuosity and excellent taste."

4 SIBELIUS SYMPHONY NO. 5 with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra.

Honors: Record of the Year 1997, Sunday Times; Gramophone Award for best engineered disc.

Review: "One of the most important and above all interesting records to have appeared for many years," said Gramophone magazine.

5 JÓN LEIFS: GEYSIR AND OTHER ORCHESTRA WORKS with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

Honor: Cannes Classical Award in 1998 for best orchestral CD.

Review: "Leifs' characteristic thudding brass and percussion chords rise higher and higher out of slowly shifting harmonic strata, boiling and churning from an inert, inchoate darkness and back into it again," wrote the BBC Music Magazine.

GRAYDON ROYCE