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It's great to see the music of Nino Rota getting so much attention. He was a wonderful composer, and the ballet suite from La strada may be his orchestral masterpiece (just a quick note: the French language title identifies this as a suite from the eponymous film; it is in fact the more familiar arrangement of the later ballet). There are now four competitive recordings of this piece, the least interesting of which is on Chandos with the Teatro Massimo orchestra: not bad, but not as well played or recorded as either Muti's slightly stiff version with the excellent La Scala forces, or Atma's brilliant recent release featuring the Greater Montréal Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. All of the couplings differ in various ways, though Muti also has the dances from Il gattopardo (The Leopard).

Patricia Petibon's album Melancolía: Spanish Arias and Songs is a result of the soprano's lifelong fascination with the music and culture of Spain, with a special interest in the ways Spanish and French influences have cross-pollinated. She has put together an exceptionally attractive selection of songs and arias from zarzuelas, most of them likely to be unfamiliar to general audiences. Petibon is known for her light, silvery coloratura, and her gift for inhabiting her roles, both dramatic and comic, with great spirit and penetrating insight.

This staging of Nabucco, the first since 1960 at the MET, featuring the Russian soprano Maria Guleghina was given in the centenary year of Verdi’s death. The production by MET regular Elijah Moshinsky and the sheer power of Verdi’s score drives this opera and brings the drama and its characters to life. James Levine leads the MET Orchestra and the cast is rounded out by two familiar Verdi specialists Juan Pons and Samuel Ramey.

A year after the two hundredth anniversary of Gaetano Donizetti's birth (1797) and 150 years after his death (1848), the Teatro de la Maestranza de Sevilla chose to open its 1998-9 operatic season with four per­formances of Alahor in Granata, an almost for­gotten opera by the composer. This is an event al a huge historical importance since it marks the first time that the opera has been performed in the XXth century. Alahor in Granata was first performed in the Teatro Carolino in Palermo on the 7th of January 1826 but, alt­hough the opera was again staged in the same city in 1830, it later passed into oblivion and has never been performed ever since. Up until now, as was the case with many of Donizetti's works, a hundred and seventy two years after its pre­miére, we had very little news about this beauti­full masterpiece's original fate.

Two of the works on this CD follow the 4 movement Classical era format while the other two show the decided influence of the Italian overture. The Spanish royal court and wealthy noblemen imported a generation of Italian musicians including Domenico Scalatti, Gaetano Brunetti and Luigi Bocherini. These composers inspired the local talent, and this disc highlights the results.

Through his life, Piazzolla’s passion was the music of Argentina, which meant the tango, and through his development of tango nuevo he made “respectable” what originally was urban dance music of the working classes in Buenos Aires. Of course, he did this by taking the very elements that gave this music its earthy appeal–excited, swirling, sensuous melody, pulsing ostinato, syncopation–and recast them in more sophisticated forms, particularly regarding rhythm (including polyrhythmic structures and irregular divisions) and harmonies derived from jazz and classical styles.

Enrique Granados' famous opera 'Goyescas', first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1916, derives from the piano suite premiered in Paris two years previously. At the head of a BBCSO in top form and a handpicked cast, Josep Pons clearly much enjoyed conducting this sparkling new production in London. Many scenes in the opera draw their inspiration directly from paintings by Goya, which listeners will also have the pleasure of discovering in the booklet of this rare and precious album.

As if in a mirror, this recording juxtaposes the original piano versions of two of Ravel's masterpieces ('Le Tombeau de Couperin' and 'Alborada del gracioso') with their respective orchestrations. The 'Concerto in G Major' combines the two facets, both when the piano is integrated into the overall sound and when it plays its role as a soloist. The subtle playing of Javier Perianes and the refined sonorities of the Orchestre de Paris, conducted by Josep Pons, also remind us that Spain was the most significant source of inspiration in Ravel's output.