One of the most spectacular heroes of the Old Testament is Joshua, the successor to Moses, who caused the walls of Jericho to tumble down with that city's famous trombones. The Israelites' army conquered the promised land of Canaan under his leadership. This biblical story supplies the background to Handel's oratorio 'Joshua', premiered in 1748; it was supplemented by a love story involving the young captain, Othniel and Achsah, the daughter of an elder, by the presumed librettist, Thomas Morell. Thus the composer was able to include the entire spectrum of his musical expressivity: the magnificence of tympani and trumpets, joyful and jubilant choruses, virtuoso arias and moving love duets.

Callas fans prefer her "live" recordings to studio outings for their extra charge of intensity, whether the singer's on the operatic stage or in concert, as she is on this disc, which is part of a series of new reissues from EMI. The first four items derive from a 1956 Radio Italiana program; the final six from her first concert in Greece after an absence of 12 years. Of course, Callas fans will want every scrap of salvaged recorded material they can find, but this will hold interest for anyone interested in the Callas phenomenon and great singing. Not that she's in prime voice here, but she never fails to thrill and enlighten.

It was Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov's older brother, Voin, who first put ideas of travel, ships and the sea into the would-be composer's head. The young Nikolay had never set foot aboard a boat but Voin's evocative letters home from the Far East, where he was stationed in the Imperial Russian Navy, proved more than sufficient. In 1856, he enrolled as a naval cadet and completed six years of training. Barely a year into his studies at the naval academy, the young Nikolay saw his first opera. Soon he heard symphonies by Beethoven and Mendelssohn and encountered a piece by his senior Mikhail Glinka, Jota Aragonesa. Even before he embarked on a three-year voyage around the world aboard a clipper, Rimsky knew he wanted to be a composer, not a seaman.

The follow-up to the breakthrough Headhunters album was virtually as good as its wildly successful predecessor: an earthy, funky, yet often harmonically and rhythmically sophisticated tour de force. There is only one change in the Headhunters lineup – swapping drummer Harvey Mason for Mike Clark – and the switch results in grooves that are even more complex. Hancock continues to reach into the rapidly changing high-tech world for new sounds, most notably the metallic sheen of the then-new ARP string synthesizer which was already becoming a staple item on pop and jazz-rock records. Again, there are only four long tracks, three of which ("Palm Grease," "Actual Proof," "Spank-A-Lee") concentrate on the funk, with plenty of Hancock's wah-wah clavinet, synthesizer textures and effects, and electric piano ruminations that still venture beyond the outer limits of post-bop.

A finely balanced recording places the voices in ideal relationship with the orchestra which itself is given a well-aired, clean sound (although the Amsterdam sound of 13 years ago for Bernstein is no less truthful). It supports a performance that is predictably – given the BPO/Abbado partnership – shipshape in execution, nothing in Mahler’s highly original scoring overlooked. As is customary with this conductor’s Mahler, the approach tends to be objective and disciplined. In that respect it is at the opposite pole to the concept of Bernstein who, in my favourite version among many available, is more yielding and, to my ears, more idiomatically Mahlerian in mood and in subtlety of rubato, those little lingerings that mean so much in interpreting the composer – yet Bernstein is no slower as a whole.

Giovanni Battista Bononcini (1670-1747) and his younger brother, Antonio Maria (1677-1726) were considered by their contemporaries to be among the most outstanding cello virtuosi of their time; today, however, they are best known not only as composers of vocal music but also as two of the greatest representatives of the galant style. It is to their music, often unpublished, that Marco Ceccato and his Accademia introduce us here.

Principal flautist of the New York Philharmonic, Robert Langevin gives flawless performances of three staples of the flute repertory, the Sonatas of Fauré, Franck and Pierné. Avie continues its series of recordings featuring principal players of the New York Philharmonic with flautist Robert Langevin. Joined by fellow Philharmonic player pianist Jonathan Feldman, the Quebec-born Langevin gives flawless performances of three staples of the flute repertory. Though the Sonatas by Fauré, Franck and Pierné were all originally conceived for the violin, the composers sanctioned the adaptations for flute which fit the instrument perfectly naturally. Langevin studied in his native Quebec and in Europe.

Focus' debut album is gentler and more low-key and vocal-oriented than their subsequent efforts; fans of Jan Akkerman's pyrotechnics may be disappointed by his relatively restrained presence, but others may be pleasantly surprised to find a more economic group than they remember. A fair collection of progressive rock tunes without a clear focus, the material is dominated by Thijs Van Leer, often introducing classical sensibilities. But at least as often, it sticks with fairly conventional period folk-rock and blues influences, with occasional jazzy shadings. Akkerman's "House of the King" is the most accurate Jethro Tull imitation ever recorded.