As Anneleen Lenaerts proves, Nino Rota brought the same gifts to his music for harp as he did to such unforgettable film scores as The Godfather, La dolce vita and Romeo and Juliet. “What could be better than to sweep an audience away and give them a moment of pure joy?” she asks. “For me, that is Nino Rota’s most important musical message.

This ten-track compilation appeared at a time when Jennifer Warnes had released only two albums on Arista, resulting in five pop singles chart entries, including the Top Ten hit "Right Time of the Night" and the Top 40 hit "I Know a Heartache When I See One." This album contained four of the five, plus "Could It Be Love" and "Come to Me," which subsequently charted, a third newly recorded song, "Run to Her," two LP tracks composed by Warnes, and "It Goes Like It Goes," the theme from the movie Norma Rae, which had won an Academy Award. It is easy for consumers to pick it up assuming it contains later Warnes hits like "Up Where We Belong" and "(I've Had) The Time of My Life." In fact, since Warnes has been on many labels and several of her hits are one-off movie themes, there is no reliable compilation of her work; this works more as an overview of part of her career, not the whole thing.

Following 2004's Rancho Texicano: The Very Best of ZZ Top by a decade, The Very Baddest of ZZ Top comes in two different styles: a single-disc compilation with 20 tracks and a set that doubles it. The single disc is good, racking up most of the MTV-era hits – "Gimme All Your Lovin," "Sharp Dressed Man," "Legs," "Got Me Under Pressure," "Rough Boy," "Velcro Fly" – while doubling back for "La Grange, "Tush," "I Thank You," "Waitin' for the Bus," "Jesus Just Left Chicago," "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide," and "Cheap Sunglasses." It's enough to satisfy the very casual fan, but even a quick glance at the track listing reveals plenty of missing favorites: no "Pearl Necklace," "I Heard It on the X," "It's Only Love," "Francine," "Just Got Paid," and "Sleeping Bag."

Twenty-five tracks round up an extremely haphazard but nevertheless intriguing "best of" Marc Bolan's last five years, drawing equally from the regular albums and familiar boogies, and the wealth of archival material excavated by the Unchained and Alternate series. Certainly not compiled with the hit hunter in mind (only "The Groover" and "Dreamy Lady" truly fall into that category), Very Best of, Vol. 2 is instead devoted to illustrating as many facets of Bolan's career as it could, from the pensive introspection of "Spaceball Ricochet," to the grinding self-aggrandizement of "The Groover," and onto the sharp autobiography of "Over the Flats" and "Funky London Childhood." As such, and especially when viewed in tandem with Very Best of, Vol. 1, it serves up a delightful portrait of Bolan's '70s, at a price that is difficult to squabble with.

Jan Ladislav Dussek was an important composer of music for the modern piano, bridging the Classical and Romantic eras, yet most of his music is hard to find, both in performance and in print. This disc by Adrienne Soós and Ivo Haag is the first recording of four of his works for piano, four hands, and it demonstrates Dussek's thorough understanding of the piano. In the three sonatas and set of three fugues, one can hear just why his writing is often compared to that of later composers Beethoven and Schubert. In general, Dussek's writing is richer in texture and feeling than most Classical keyboard music, and it sounds completely idiomatic to the instrument. He was one of the first composers to use pedal markings, and he carefully used modulation, relating specific keys to moods. All of this is here. These sonatas have melodies that are almost Schubertian and developments that are Beethoven-like.

Andy Sheppard’s quartet extends the musical explorations begun on the 2015 release Surrounded By Sea, an album praised by Télérama for its “poignant serenity.” In this new programme of compositions by Sheppard (plus the title track by Brazilian singer-songwriter Ranato Teixeira), the drones and washes of Eivind Aarset’s guitar and electronics aided by the generous acoustics of Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI help to establish a climate in which improvisation can take place. There’s a highly atmospheric, ambient drift to the music which Sheppard clearly finds liberating, as do Michel Benita and Seb Rochford, free to move in and out of conventional rhythm section roles and to make impassioned statements of their own. Romaria was recorded in April 2017 and produced by Manfred Eicher.

The Book of Secrets, the follow-up to 1994's The Mask and Mirror – there was a Christmas EP, A Winter Garden, released in 1995) – finds Loreena McKennitt in the same musical vein, mixing Celtic, Spanish, Italian, and new age to create her own distinct sound. The only problem is that she did not seem to progress much during the time between releases. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since she still knows how to write incredible melodies and layer instruments to produce peaceful images. "Night Ride Across the Caucasus" and "Dante's Prayer" are just two prime examples of this. And she continues her practice of setting classic poetry to music (Alfred Noyes' "The Highwayman").

Dirty Work is the Rolling Stones' 18th British and 20th American studio album. It was released on 24 March 1986 on the Rolling Stones label by CBS Records. Produced by Steve Lillywhite, the album was recorded during a period when relations between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards soured considerably, according to Richards' autobiography Life. The album produced a US Top 5 hit for the Rolling Stones, the cover of "Harlem Shuffle," and featured a number of guest appearances, including contributions by Tom Waits, Marku Ribas, Patti Scialfa, Bobby Womack, and Jimmy Page on "One Hit (To the Body)".

Frantic manages to touch upon virtually every musical style of Bryan Ferry's career. Ferry has proved to be as interested in covering other artists' material as penning original songs, and he straddles a smart mix of originals and covers here. Two brilliant Bob Dylan songs appear among the opening tracks: "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" sees a return to the eclectic, energetic experimentation of Ferry's early albums with Roxy Music as a lush modern swirl of instruments mingles with the singer's stylized vocals and throwback harmonica; "Don't Think Twice It's Alright" completes the Dylan pair, as Ferry intones with confidence and again takes up harmonica over Colin Good's rolling piano.

Here are two comic operas by Paisiello, taped live in July, 2002 at the Martina Franca Festival. In Le due contesse, when the Countess and her suitor Leandro leave for vacation, and a widower–Cavaliere–comes to the door looking for the Countess, the servants Livietta and Prospero tell the Cavaliere that she, Livietta, is the Countess. Cavaliere begins to court her. Guess what? Yup–the real Countess and Leandro come back and Livietta tells the Cavaliere that she’s allowing her servant, really the Countess, to act like a Countess. Prospero tries to convince the real Countess to pay attention to the Cavaliere (who, by now, is confused), and this makes Leandro jealous. Anger/mirth ensues; a duel is suggested but is averted. The real Countess, in fact, falls for the Cavaliere, and somehow Livietta gets together with Leandro.

"Giulio Cesare" is the most famous and popular of Handel's many operas. In fact, for a long time it was the only one surviving in the repertoire, and brilliant productions of it in the 1960s were responsible for inciting interest in other Handel operas. Giulio Cesare contains perhaps a greater variety of beautiful arias and choruses than any other Handel opera, and has one of the best plots. This 1989 recording stars contralto Martine Dupuy, very famous in France but little known in the Western hemisphere. She made a sterling reputation in Baroque opera as well as the opere serie of Rossini, in which she has been adjudged incomparable.

For many acts, the casino circuit is the kiss of death creatively, but in the case of Tom Jones the exact opposite is true – amidst the neon lights, craps tables, and slot machines, he's at the top of his game, feeding on the energy and excitement to command the stage with a power and eroticism that are virtually unmatched. Recorded in Las Vegas in the spring of 1971, Live at Caesar's Palace – his tenth and final gold record – captures Jones at his bawdy best, offering a compelling mix of hits and covers while still managing to make time with the ladies between songs; riding high on the recent success of "She's a Lady," he also samples smashes like "It's Not Unusual" and "Delilah" in addition to a vast range of material spanning from "Soul Man" to "Bridge Over Troubled Water" to "My Way." The between-song stage patter is priceless as well – for fans, this is an essential set.