This set features most of Davis' earliest albums for Columbia (some still recorded when he was with Prestige, but with their permission.) The sound quality is very good, and the albums selected for inclusion are nearly all essential in my opinion.

Old Socks, New Shoes… New Socks, Old Shoes was the final album by the Jazz Crusaders. Immediately thereafter they dropped the word "jazz" from their name, leaving them the Crusaders and most of the rest is history. This killer set was released on the Chisa label in 1970 and distributed by Motown. While the Jazz Crusaders had long made then-current popular songs part of their repertoire, and had moved from their hard bop origins into the soul-jazz groove years before, this disc was a shock, and sounded like a different band - almost. For starters, pianist Joe Sample moved over the Rhodes for the majority for this date (he is still one of the greatest voices on this strange, imprecise instrument), and along with drummer Stix Hooper, saxophonist Wilton Felder, and trombonist Wayne Henderson, guitarists Arthur Adams and Freddie Robinson helped out on bass and guitar, respectively…

Alexander Ivashkin’s bold, confident cello-playing is the thread running through these works; he partners the organist Malcolm Hicks in the 1979 In croce, plays the Ten Preludes for the solo instrument from 1979, and leads a quartet of cellos in the remarkable Quaternion. Though many of Sofia Gubaidulina’s works have a religious dimension, In croce does not, despite its title; ‘On the cross’ refers to the way in which the two instruments exchange roles during the work, the cello beginning with microtones in the lowest register and gradually rising to a high diatonic end, while the organ starts off high in a pure A major and descends to the depths to a cluster that gradually collapses when the instrument’s blower is turned off. Though the Ten Preludes stretch the player’s capabilities to the maximum, they remain more or less within the conventional resources of the instrument. But Quaternion creates a whole new, ethereal, sound-world in which the cellos are tuned in pairs a quarter-tone apart, the players wear thimbles on their fingers in one section, and the music is persistently coloured by harmonics.

With only two albums and a handful of singles released before they broke up, the '80s synth pop duo Yazoo - or Yaz if you're outside the United States - are in the "all or nothing" category when it comes to box sets. Save a couple remixes, Mute's 2008 set In Your Room is everything the duo - instrumentalist and former Depeche Mode member Vince Clarke along with the as yet unheard of vocalist Alison Moyet - released in its short career, and then some. Disc one of this set features their debut 1982 album, Upstairs at Eric's, while disc two features the follow-up, You and Me Both, from a year later. Both are remastered splendidly - giving the albums more depth and punch in the bass - as are the remixes and B-sides that occupy disc three. The non-album tracks "State Farm" and "The Other Side of Love" both get a proper home on the third disc and sit next to a wealth of desirable extended mixes of club hits like "Situation" and "Don't Go."

Handel's opera recorded live at the Semperoper, Dresden, in June 2000. Equal parts comedy, tragedy and romance, the story revolves around the love both Xerses, King of the Persians, and his brother Arsamenes have for Romilda. Christophe Rousset conducts Les Talens Lyriques, with performances by Paula Rasmussen, Ann Hallenberg, Patricia Bardon, Isabel Bayrakdarian and Matteo Peirone.

The 22 year-old winner and Dame Fanny Waterman Gold Medallist at the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition 2018 begins his Warner Classics exclusive contract with an exquisite new recital featuring Chopin's '24 Préludes', Schumann's 'Ghost Variations', and Brahms' 'Intermezzo No. 1, Op. 117'.

A programme of exquisite miniatures, alternative versions and a wonderful quasi-operatic scena: this is a tantalizing Lisztian recital to showcase the artistry of Julia Kleiter.