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When Nikolaus Harnoncourt founded the Concentus Musicus Wien in 1953, he can have had little inkling of what he had started. The period-instrument revolution effectively began right then; Harnoncourt and his colleagues painstakingly researched the performing practices of the baroque, and rehearsed for four years before giving their first concert.

It was another five years before their performances made it on to record. That first LP, of Purcell's music for viols, began the ensemble's relationship with Telefunken's Das Alte Werk label, and it was swiftly followed by other recordings that cemented their reputation - much-praised accounts of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos and orchestral Suites, and versions of the St Matthew and St John Passions and the B minor Mass.

In the early 1970s Harnoncourt joined forces with another baroque pioneer, Gustav Leonhardt, to begin the first ever survey on record of all of Bach cantatas, while on their own account he and the Concentus tackled the Monteverdi operas, as well as more neglected corners of the baroque, such as the works of Telemann and Fux.

Simultaneously, the ensemble's historical scope was gradually edging forward through the 18th century, and eventually took them into the first quarter of the 19th, stopping at Beethoven and Schubert. Though Harnoncourt's own explorations in the romantic repertory have persuaded him to collaborate increasingly with modern-instrument orchestras, he has continued to work regularly with the Concentus, and only last week they brought their performance of Haydn's Creation to London.

Theirs is a long and distinguished history, most of which has been faithfully documented on disc. In theory, the 10-disc compilation that Teldec has put together, from its own as well as the Das Alte Werk archives, should contain many treasures and offer a fascinating history of the development of period performance. Yet it is a real opportunity missed, for rather than concentrate on major landmarks in the Concentus chronology, these five pairs of discs, each more or less focusing on one 10-year period, are a hotch-potch of complete works and strangely chosen extracts.

The first two discs may cover the formative decade chronologically, but the result is irritatingly insubstantial: three choral numbers from Telemann's Der Tag des Gerichts are followed by a couple of isolated movements from the Bach Suites. The second disc begins with a section of Monteverdi's Orfeo and ends with the overture to Rameau's Castor et Pollux, including Erbarme Dich from the St Matthew Passion on the way.

The rest of the set is equally infuriating; the final two discs are supposed to include material from 1999 and 2000, but a recording of an early Mozart Missa Brevis, made in 1994, has crept in there too, after a complete account of Mozart's Oboe Concerto and a section of Haydn's Schopfungsmesse. The set ends with four arias and a trio from the complete recording of Haydn's Armida. There are no texts supplied, and no detailed notes on the music.

The labels under the Warner umbrella, such as Teldec, normally do these big projects exceptionally well, but this one is badly planned and shoddily executed, and is not worthy of the great ensemble and conductor it aims to celebrate.