The 1990 collection The Very Best of Elton John is an excellent 30-track summary of his peak years, running from "Your Song" to "You Gotta Love Someone." In a sense, it's the concise counterpart to the box set To Be Continued, released that same year but spanning four discs and filled with rarities. Although that set has several great songs that aren't here, this set has nothing extraneous – just the biggest hits from a time when John was hitting the U.S. and U.K. Top 40 every single year. There are no American collections that perform the same task, which is a shame because there isn't a better Elton John hits collection than this; if you're looking for all the biggest hits on one album, it's certainly worth the import prices.

Parry’s 1888 oratorio on the Apocryphal tale of an avenging Jewish widow emerges as a worthy successor to Mendelssohn’s Elijah in this gripping world premiere recording with Sarah Fox, Kathryn Rudge and Toby Spence.

This album is likely to make you catch your breath on first hearing. Here is a harpsichord player in full virtuosic flight, just as we imagine Handel to have been (who was after all one of the great performers of his day and prevailed in a contest with Domenico Scarlatti).

Was sophisticated music-making possible at the court of a minor German prince in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries? Yes, indeed! It happened in the Thuringian city of Rudolstadt where Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, the Kappellmeister to the High Count of Schwarzburg and Hohnstein, incorporated mainstream European music in his works even though he rarely travelled beyond his relatively small area in all those 35 years and never once did he venture beyond the German- speaking world. Come and learn and listen to this little known yet amazing composer who learned his craft from travelling musicians.

It wasn't all over but the shouting, but the Faces sure weren't thriving when they released their last album, Ooh La La, in 1973. The problem, of course, was Rod Stewart, who had turned into a superstar, causing innumerable tensions within the band. He had yet to decamp to America, had yet to turn to pop instead of rock & roll, but he was on the cusp of that sea change. Nevertheless, on the record at least, it didn't seem like being with the Faces was a strain on him; it still seemed that he enjoyed a good night out with the boys, and Ooh La La is precisely that: a good night out, one that's blessed with some very memorable moments.