Jubilee is a compilation of many of Ennio Morricone’s most memorable contributions to film and television music. The themes found on the album have been transposed for flute, piano and strings, and are brought to life in arrangements conducted by the great man himself. The combination of instruments is electrifying. On these pieces, Paolo Zampini plays flute; Luca Pincini Cello; Fausto Aselmo voila and Gilda Butta piano. They work in perfect harmony, and the end result is a stunning album that reminds us what an extraordinary artist Morricone is.

Alongside their British Isles Overtures series, the BBC NOW and the conductor Rumon Gamba launch a project to bring often neglected symphonic poems by British composers to wider attention and fame. This first volume presents some of the most individual, yet rarely heard, British tone poems written in the early twentieth century, by composers ranging from the long-established Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Alwyn to Balfour Gardiner and Granville Bantock, giants in their time.

What seemed to have been fanciful exaggeration has since been transformed into spectacular reality. Diahann Carroll has made the entertainment world her personal province. A highly combustible diversification of her talent is deceptively packaged in this slim, dark-eyed, stunning young woman. Since her notable debut, at 19, in the Harold Arlen - Truman Capote musical "House Of Flowers", this regal young lady has become not only a singer of refreshing originality, but at the same time she has matured into a persuasive stage personality and a convincing motion picture actress. Here, in Nobody Sees Me Cry, she makes her record album debut.

It follows performances that The Guardian described as ‘a thrilling show of ferocity and feistiness’, given by the same forces in January at the Barbican. After widely acclaimed recordings of Walton’s and Lutosławski’s violin concertos, Tasmin Little again joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner, in intensely expressive interpretations of the concertos by the Polish composers Karłowicz and Szymanowski.

This recording of orchestral works by Karol Szymanowski form part of the Polish Music series on Chandos, and is performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Edward Gardner. These performers have impressed in their Lutoslawski survey, which is part of the same series; in a review of volume 1, Gramophone described them as a veritable ‘dream team’.

On the eve of his centenary in 2018, Sony Classical releases the most important collection, Leonard Bernstein’s classic American Columbia recordings, remastered from their original 2- and multi-track analogue tapes. This has allowed for the creation of a natural balance (for example, between the orchestra and solo instruments) that brings the quality of these half-century-old recordings, excellent for their time, up to the standards of today’s audiophiles. In addition, there has been a meticulous restoration of some earlier masterings in which LP surface noise was too rigorously eliminated at the expense of the original brilliance.

In the seven albums (eight, counting a 1989 best-of package) that he has released in the last decade, Luther Vandross has established himself as Smokey Robinson's successor in building a personalized pop-soul loveland around beautiful singing. Because his extraordinarily rich voice, which straddles the line between tenor and baritone, is much more operatic than Robinson's, the environment he creates around himself is more luxurious. It is a lavishly appointed, secular cathedral of soft lights and sweet music in which he presides as a high priest of romance while his ever-present female backup singers serve as ceremonial acolytes.

John Davidson was a vocalist who could sell a lot of albums without the benefit of hit singles. He put several songs on the adult contemporary chart, but never once graced the pop chart despite making some very successful albums. My Best to You was a commercial disappointment after Davidson's first album, The Time of My Life!, but again shows that he is a confident and dynamic vocalist, unlike many of the "golden throats" celebrity vocalists with whom he is often lumped. At times he sounds startlingly similar to Pat Boone, but asserts his own identity on songs like "That's Life" and "Sunny." Davidson's music is a perfect example of how traditional and teen idol pop turned into easy listening in the late '60s without suffering much of a change at all.

A towering figure in postwar American music, for over 40 years James Brown has written, produced, and performed some of the most compelling R&B ever recorded. 20 All Time Greatest Hits! distills Startime!, itself a four-album set that barely scratched the surface of Brown's prodigious output. As such, this collection concentrates on Brown's best-known records: 'I Feel Good,' 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag,' and 'Cold Sweat.'

Cecilia Bartoli’s exploration of the music of Steffani continues on from her best-selling recording 'Mission' with an album of the celebrated Stabat Mater alongside Steffani’s greatest sacred works for chorus, orchestra and soloists, constituting the most comprehensive collection of Steffani’s sacred choral music. Bartoli leads an array of internationally celebrated singers including countertenor Franco Fagioli, the bass Salvo Vitale and the two young German tenors Daniel Behle and Julian Prégardien.

Released to celebrate his 70th birthday, Nelson Freire presents three landmark albums on the Decca label – the first in a brand new Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle begins with Piano Concerto No. 5, universally known as the “Emperor.”

This spectacular release from GRAMMY® award winning choral ensemble Conspirare features a vibrant tribute to the revered Chilean poet and statesman Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). The recording's uniquely colorful and sensual program was originally featured as part of Conspirare's concert series entitled The Poet Sings. Neruda had a gift as a poetic story teller of deep human experience, whether he wrote of love or of common things.

A 19th-century ‘trio sonata’. Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov have already given us an acclaimed version Brahms’s First Violin Sonata, in 2007. They now complete the cycle with the other two sonatas of 1886 and 1888, and add a fascinating rarity dating from 35 years earlier: the ‘F-A-E’ Sonata, a collaborative effort by three composers in honour of the great violinist Joachim, who had to guess who had written which movement! He did so with ease, for the Scherzo is as eminently Brahmsian as the Intermezzo and Finale are Schumannesque. Alexander Melnikov will be contributing his take on a score his mother gave him that belonged to Sviatoslav Richter in September BBC Music Magazine.

Richie's fourth album, originally released in 1992, was his first compilation album containing 14 tracks, four of them recorded with the Commodores. Also included in the track listing is Endless Love, his duet with Diana Ross. On his own and as part of the Commodores, by 1992 Lionel Richie amassed more than enough singles for a greatest-hits collection. Unfortunately, this is one of those compilations that, good intentions aside, falls so flat there's not much point in buying it. By trying to cover his solo material, while touching base with his Commodores fans, and adding some new cuts, no part of his career is well represented.

After more than two decades as the most celebrated soul balladeer in American soul, Luther Vandross isn't about to change a winning formula, and Dance With My Father is another faultless, high-gloss collection of love songs to follow his 2001 Luther Vandross release. 'I must admit I get so emotional', he sings early on, and proceeds to demonstrate the fact over a dozen tracks that contain no surprises, but will keep his considerable following more than satisfied.