Jerome Hines, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and Franco Corelli star in this recording from La Scala of Handel’s “Eracle” (Hercules) recorded live on the 29th December 1958.

The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin are – together with the earlier opera Bluebeard’s Castle – the only stage works by Béla Bartók. They stand apart from the more abstract and often more explicitly folk-related character of the music that we primarily associate with the composer. They are nevertheless major achievements that in different ways highlight Bartók’s imaginative use of the modern orchestra. Set in an enchanted forest, The Wooden Prince is based on a fairytale-like libretto featuring a prince and princess.

Like each of its two predecessors in Naive's bizarrely costumed, irresistible Vivaldi bassoon concertos series, Sergio Azzolini and his back to the future original instrument crew find beauties in the music written for the bassoon that defy gravity. Interleaved with the haunting minor key songs and harmonies are courtly B flat expressions of affection and pleasure. The recordings, made at the Church of the Madonna della Formigola, Cortifella Pieve, Brescia, are audiophile as always. The great notes by Sergio Azzolini are titled Mystery of the Bassoon. The bassoon is in fact the instrument assigned the largest number of solo concertos after those written for the violin, the composer's own instrument.

Teaming with Greg Kurstin – a producer best-known for helming Adele's Grammy-winning 25, but also a musician in his own right, collaborating with Inara George in the savvy retro duo the Bird and the Bee – is a signal from Paul McCartney that he intends Egypt Station, his 18th solo album, to be a thoroughly modern affair. It is, but not in the way that the glitzy 2013 album New, with its fair share of Mark Ronson productions, was. Kurstin doesn't specialize in gaudiness, he coaxes his collaborators to act like a bright, colorful version of their best selves, which is what he achieves with McCartney here. Apart from "Fuh You" – a vulgar throwaway novelty recorded with Ryan Tedder – Egypt Station is a handsome and clever collection where McCartney hits many familiar marks but the difference is, he gets there in a different fashion than before.