These readings are sensitive and beautifully, thoughtfully paced. The phrasing is totally idiomatic, too. There is a tenedency to bend phrases like taffy in Borodin. Gergiev, however, has a deep understanding of the structure of these works, which he conveys with a wonderful feeling for dynamics (typically Russian in the brass) and light and shade. This was an early Gergiev/Rotterdam Philharmonic collaboration, but the orchestra already seems totally attuned to the conductor's artistry.

This sounds more like an anthology of Mexican orchestral music than the work of one composer. Sensemayá is the best-known music here, and it fulfills our expectation of Revueltas as a kind of Mexican Stravinsky, with a folk-influenced base supporting tangy dissonances and exciting rhythms. Some of the music in the two other scores is similarly adventurous, while other sections are almost pops-concert material. The Night of the Mayas is film music, uncommonly interesting for such work. The Girl Colonel is an unfinished ballet, completed by two other Mexican composers with sections from other Revueltas film scores. It's all thoroughly involving and worthwhile music, well played by an obscure, recently formed (1989) Mexican orchestra and vividly recorded.

The Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble is – as the name implies – based in Stockholm, and consists of five of the city's leading musicians. Project-based and often inviting guest performers, the SSE is known for its imaginative programmes built around a particular event or concept and bringing together music from various genres and eras. For its first album on BIS the ensemble has taken Brett Dean’s Voices of Angels as their point of departure, a work scored for the same forces as Schubert’s ‘Trout quintet’ and inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s first two Duino Elegies: ‘Angels (it’s said) are often unable to tell whether they move amongst the living or the dead.’

In the 1970s, when prominent movie stars started to become the driving forces behind films, the jazz musician Dave Grusin was a favorite choice for film composer by several above-the-title male actors, notably Robert Redford, Paul Newman, and Warren Beatty. Redford starred in director Sydney Pollack's spy thriller 3 Days of the Condor, and Grusin got the scoring nod. The film was set in the New York City of the present day, the present day being 1975, and Grusin turned in music imbued with familiar elements of jazz fusion and R&B-funk. His "Condor! (Theme From 3 Days of the Condor)" could have been the instrumental track for a Steely Dan song of the time, and "Yellow Panic" was one of several tracks to employ wah-wah guitar à la Shaft.

Guitarist Chuck Loeb ends up with an enjoyable yet very typical collection on this outing. Typical, meaning easy to swallow and occasionally remarkable but for the most part the kind of music radio eats up and listeners have been saturated with. We've heard this kind of thing before. Loeb's tender and breezy acoustic work dominates, but the electric fire he sets on go for broke zoomers like "Mr. Z" and "Carbo Fuel" are far more distinctive and better worth the price of admission. As a composer, Loeb is more than able, but his blistering contributions to Nelson Rangell's projects far surpass the mellow fare he presents here. Rangell, fellow saxman Bill Evans and keyboardist Mitch Forman add lots of spark and improvisational energy to a disc that simply needs a little less cool breeze and more electric gale.

On its third ECM album Vallon again leads the group not with virtuosic solo display but by patient outlining of melody and establishing of frameworks in which layered group improvising can take place. With this group, gentle but insistent rhythms can trigger seismic musical events. Although Vallon (recently nominated for the Swiss Music Prize) is the author of nine of the pieces here, the band members share equal responsibilities for the music's unfolding. The gravitational pull of Patrice Moret's bass and the intense detail supplied by Julian Sartorius's drums and cymbals are crucial to the success of Vallon's artistic concept and the range of emotions the music can convey.

One of the most talented and successful R&B groups of the '70s featured future solo star Lionel Richie. This Collection includes the albums: Machine Gun (1974), Caught In The Act (1975), Movin' On (1975), Hot On The Tracks (1976), Commodores (1977), Natural High (1978), Midnight Magic (1979), Heroes (1980), In The Pocket (1981), Commodores 13 (1983), Nightdshift (1985), United (1986).

Recorded live in 1983, Alfred Brendel's third go-round with these works drastically improves on his previous Beethoven concerto cycles. He finds a calmer, more direct route to the Emperor Concerto, although the Fourth's first movement is still pock-marked with finicky phrase adjustments that pull focus from the music's poetic arcs. Levine provides sympathetic and alert support, yet is much more than a mere deferential accompanist.

Producing a darker tone from the Maybeck Yamaha piano than do some other participants in the series, Kenny Barron gets a chance to flaunt a wider range of his influences than he usually does in a group format. Barron opens with a stride-ish "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," which sports a few minor fluffs (this is live, folks), and then explores a number of diverse styles under the bop umbrella. Barron's "Bud-Like" has reminiscences of "Un Poco Loco," built on an ostinato bass pattern most of the way, with a witty "Bemsha Swing." As usual with Maybeck, the sound of the hall's bright, brittle Yamaha piano is brilliantly captured.