The big musicians, most of them, blow through New York. And, usually, they come with records — CDs, recordings — sometimes signing them after the performance. We’ll examine five recent performances, and CDs, to boot.

Lang Lang, the young Chinese pianist, is a puzzle: sometimes great, sometimes appalling — sometimes great and appalling at the same time. He is loaded with talent, and owns a phenomenal technique. He never plays badly; it’s just that, sometimes, he thinks badly. Many people delight in sending me negative things that have been written about Lang Lang. Strangely, a high percentage of these people are pianists themselves. In any case, Lang Lang provokes strong emotions.

With the Vienna Philharmonic, under Maestro Zubin Mehta, Lang Lang played Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor. The concert took place in Carnegie Hall. Unsurprisingly, Lang Lang did some wondrous and imaginative things, and some screwy and hard-to-defend things — overimaginative things, you might say. Sometimes, he appears to be composing the piece on the spot. This can be fresh and persuasive. Alternatively, it can be merely willful.

What you always get is that phenomenal technique. After Lang Lang put on some liquid, lacy, subtle passagework in the second movement, a man said to his wife — in a husky whisper — “Wow.” “Wow” was right.

Not to channel the dead, but I believe Chopin would have been appalled at Lang Lang’s rendering of his concerto — and then intrigued, and finally appreciative. You can check out Lang Lang for yourself, for he has recorded this concerto, along with Chopin’s other one, on Deutsche Grammophon. His partners are again the Vienna Phil. and Mehta.

I’ll give you a little footnote about Lang Lang’s Carnegie performance: One of his teachers, the octogenarian sage Gary Graffman, was looking on with pleasure and pride — maybe a little amusement as well. Lang Lang creates a bit of a circus. And there is room for that in the music world — especially when the circus is occasioned by talent.

Hélène Grimaud, the French pianist, gave a recital in the 92nd St. Y (not just a place to swim, but an important concert venue). “La Belle Hélène,” as I have called her, played a recital of Bach — including Bach with hyphens. That is, she played some Bach transcribed by others, in addition to straight Bach, or pure Bach. For example, she played the famous Chaconne in D minor for violin, transcribed by Busoni. We label such a transcription “Bach-Busoni” — you see what I mean by hyphens.

Not unlike Lang Lang, Grimaud did some commendable things and some deplorable things. Some of her playing was highly musical, as in Bach’s C-sharp-minor fugue from The Well-Tempered Clavier (Book I). And some of her playing was too blunt, even offensive — as when she socked out the opening statement of another fugue (the one in A minor from Book II of the WTC). Could she not hear herself? Was she trying to clear the auditorium? That Busonified chaconne, she handled with genuine mastery: understanding the inner workings, but letting the work be a whole. She swept through it with the desired nobility.

Grimaud has an album, on Deutsche Grammophon, called Bach. It contains many of the pieces she played in New York. That Grimaud loves and reveres Bach says something very good about her. It also says something good about her that she has time for these transcriptions. Not long ago, they were considered gauche and hopelessly old-fashioned. But pianists of taste have always appreciated them.

Grimaud ends her album, as she ended her recital, with one of the most delightsome Bach transcriptions of all: the one that Rachmaninoff did of the E-major prelude for violin. Rachmaninoff played it splendidly, irresistibly. Grimaud is no Rachmaninoff. But then, who is? And she makes a contribution.

Marcelo Álvarez, the Argentinian tenor, appeared in Verdi’s Trovatore at the Metropolitan Opera. It is not a great time for Verdi tenors. It’s an excellent time for lyric tenors, considering Matthew Polenzani, Richard Croft, Michael Schade, and several others. But when it comes to the heavier tenor — someone who can give you a Manrico or an Otello — you’re not exactly spoiled for choice. It’s pretty much any port in a storm.

And Álvarez is a fair enough port. He has made an album called, straightforwardly, The Verdi Tenor (on Decca). It’s a compilation of arias. And Álvarez has a lot going for him — chiefly voice: a beautiful, gleaming, enviable voice.

But singing is another question. Álvarez does some sliding around, some swooning around, in the familiar Latin American style. Many of these guys have followed in the wake of the great Plácido. And sometimes — good as they may be — they’re more “Bésame Mucho” than “Celeste Aida.” Have I just engaged in hate speech? Quite possibly — check with the Justice Department. Also, Álvarez — like Domingo and the others — sings in a heavily Spanishized Italian. The closer the languages, the more the blurring of lines, naturally. Furthermore, Álvarez does some bellowing on this album, although it can be rather beautiful bellowing, if you know what I mean.

There are people who love Álvarez, and they are not to be scorned. Besides, the world — the opera world — hath need of him: He will be hired, by the Met and other big houses, till the cows come home. And we await a better day, for Verdi.

Was it really 25 years ago that Evgeny Kissin was a boy in the Soviet Union, wearing a red Young Pioneers scarf, amazing the world with his mature Chopin? It was. Now he is a 37-year-old touring virtuoso, a “superpianist” who plays to spillover audiences: This was the case in Carnegie Hall, where a portion of the audience was seated on the stage. Kissin started with Prokofiev — excerpts from Romeo and Juliet. And Kissin was sadly tight, possibly nervous, pounding and thudding, getting a little tangled up. Also, he is a head-nodder: someone who nods his head as he plays. Head-nodders are almost never any good. They are usually mechanical and unmusical. Kissin may be the best head-nodding pianist who ever lived.

He continued with more Prokofiev — the Sonata No. 8 in B flat, which is fearsomely difficult and, possibly for that reason, almost never played. Kissin was masterly in it: both logical and musical, rising to the reputation he enjoys worldwide. Not to detract from his achievement, but I might say that Kissin is habitually percussive: and Prokofiev, of course, bears percussiveness relatively well. Sometimes requires it.

He has recorded the complete Beethoven concertos with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra (EMI Classics). Frankly, I’m surprised that Sir Colin agreed to record the concertos with Kissin: They are quite different musicians. Kissin can be terribly harsh and blunt; Sir Colin is a model of taste. In any event, they must appreciate each other.

As the concertos unfold, Kissin does some hard, brittle, jarring playing. Unnatural and coarse accents abound. You will not likely turn to this pianist for grace and lyricism — but you may turn to him for other things: incisiveness, for example, and an interesting mind, and a certain fearlessness. As for Sir Colin — who is now 81, by the way — he is superb. And so is the LSO, which knows him so well.

Look, there is only one Cecilia Bartoli: for better or worse. And better to have her than not. This Italian mezzo-soprano does not come out of a cookie cutter; she is her own gal. And, like others we’ve discussed, she provokes strong emotions. Over the years, I have been in a hall with her and thought, “She’s the most vulgar woman alive.” Other times, I have thought, “Yeah, well: She is one of the most talented women alive.” La Bartoli is often over-the-top, cartoonish; but then she can be perfectly convincing, beyond criticism.

She gave a concert in Carnegie Hall, centered around her new album, Maria (Decca). Maria who? Callas? No, Maria Malibran, another legendary singer, but this one from an earlier period: 1808 to 1836 (brief span). And what did Bartoli sing? Music associated with Malibran — including pieces by the legend herself.

Bartoli was as good as I have ever heard her, absolutely at the top of her game. The technique was sovereign, homemade as it is. The expression was marvelous — hammy, at times, but marvelous. Bartoli’s is a big, big personality: so big that you can forget that her voice is rather small. And opera makes room for personalities, does it not? If opera doesn’t, what field does?

I will give you one detail, or rather, mention one piece: Bartoli did things to “Non più mesta” — Rossini’s showstopper from La Cenerentola — that I had never thought of. And, from the most dazzling mezzos, you hear practically every interpolation. Bartoli creates a circus, but it is a glorious circus, more than justified.

In the old days, when she first came on the scene, I liked to quote a pop song: “Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart, you’re shaking my confidence daily.” She does not really do that anymore. Who’s changed? Has she become more mature, musically, or am I more accepting of her? Both things are probably true. I will miss her when she’s gone, and so will music. Music does not suffer from that hotshot Chinese pianist, either.