Nina

Unlike the many two-fer compilations that include pairings based on a common theme or close release dates, this British Camden Deluxe package - comprising 1969's Nina Simone and Piano! and 1967's Silk & Soul - oddly does neither. Both sprinkle covers of contemporary pop among fiery originals, but Nina Simone and Piano! is a brash, difficult work, while Silk & Soul is a more straight-ahead crossover date. There are a few intriguing nuggets, however, like her versions of "Nobody's Fault but Mine" and "Another Spring" on the first, and "It Be's That Way Sometimes" on the second. Definitely one for the collectors.

The friendship between Mátyás Seiber and Antal Doráti dates back to their youth, when they were the two youngest students in Zoltán Kodály's composition class in Budapest in the 1920s. Doráti was one year younger than Seiber and held him in high esteem from the beginning. In the memoirs, Így láttuk Kodályt [‘Thus We Saw Kodály’], he writes the following: "The two 'best' were Mátyás Seiber and Lajos Bárdos. Matyi [Mátyás] wrote a great string quartet at the time, which has survived. One of our tasks was to write variations on a Handel theme. In response to one of Seiber's slow-tempo variations, Mr Kodály said: 'That's nice'. In our eyes - at least in my eyes - that was the canonization of Matyi".