As if the flood of compilations called Best of Bowie in 2002 weren't confusing enough – there was a different track listing for each territory around the world, all bearing the same name and album cover – in 2004, a double-disc version of Best of Bowie was released in U.S., which was different than the "bonus CD" edition released in North America in 2002. It's not too different – a slightly different sequencing, it's a track longer, it has a couple different songs (and there's an edition with a bonus CD containing remixes) – but even if the details are slightly different, the overall gist remains: this is an excellent double-disc overview of Bowie's '70s and '80s peak.

Although they certainly had an experimental and exploratory side, at least for a garage band, the Electric Prunes were always considered first and foremost a singles band by Reprise Records, and the group's singles were carefully mixed to sound perfect coming through a mono car radio, while the LP versions of the same songs would be mixed for a home-based stereo system, which means the radio mixes were much punchier. This 24-track set collects all of the Prunes' singles for Reprise during the heady psychedelic period of 1966 through 1969, including the classic hit "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)," the Bo Diddley-rhythmed "Get Me to the World on Time," and other oddities that didn't get much or any radio time like "Wind-Up Toys," which rides an intriguing, staggered beat and shows that this band could have done just fine if left alone to develop.

Stile Antico's 2015 release on Harmonia Mundi, A Wondrous Mystery, is a sublime collection of Renaissance choral music for Christmas, presented in a pleasant mix of familiar German carols and a mass, with tracks interspersed for the sake of variety. This makes sense in consideration of the group's broad audience, which may know such popular hymns as Michael Praetorius' Ein Kind geborn in Bethlehem and Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, or Johannes Eccard's Übers Gebirg Maria geht and Vom Himmel hoch, yet be somewhat at a loss with the motet and Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis by Jacobus Clemens non Papa, a composer beloved by early music specialists but not exactly a household name for lay listeners. However, the a cappella performances are consistently beautiful and soothing throughout, and the quietly joyous mood of the music fits the album's title perfectly. The 12-voice choir's blend is well-balanced and transparent, and the ambience of All Hallow's Church, Gospel Oak, London gives an ideal resonance for the group's small size and close miking.

An admirer of Mozart and a great reformer of music education at the recently opened Paris Conservatoire (1795), Charles-Simon Catel composed in 1810 Les Bayadères, an operatic masterpiece set in India, which competed successfully with Spontini’s La Vestale, which was then at the height of its popularity. Tinged with orientalism, it turns the page on Classicism and uses new musical and dramatic structures to create emotion. In a work full of action and excitement, the heroine of the opera, the bayadère Laméa – a ‘star’ role (then a new concept) – shows remarkable presence. On his arrival in Paris in the 1820s, the young and very discerning Hector Berlioz was filled with enthusiasm by this work.

Boccherini wrote two versions of his much admired Stabat mater. The original dates from 1781 and is for solo voice; then, 20 years later, he revised it, on a larger scale, using three voices, in order (he said) to avoid the monotony of the single voice and the fatigue to the singer, and also adding a symphony movement to it. This 1801 version was published during his lifetime and in several later editions and seems to have eclipsed the earlier one altogether (which survives only in the autograph manuscript). Yet on hearing this new recording of the original I feel that it conveys the message of the work much more potently than does the more elaborate later version.

The Kodaly Quartet are fully worthy of the composer's inexhaustible invention and make a splendid bargain recommendation. Their playing brings joyful pleasure in Haydn's inspiration and there is not the slightest suspicion of over-rehearsal or of routine: every bar of the music springs to life spontaneously, and these musicians' insights bring an ideal combination of authority and warmth, emotional balance and structural awareness.