Purcell Arthur

The program for this release by French soprano Patricia Petibon is insanely ambitious, but she pulls it off brilliantly. The "nouveau monde" of the title refers not only to the Americas but to other overseas (from Europe) lands and even, Petibon says in the interview-style booklet, to the new world '"revealed to me by [early music pioneers] William Christie, Jordi Savall, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt when they revolutionized the approach to style and sound." But, Petibon goes on, this new world "is one that always has to be expanded with new explorations and new conquests."

Byrd's third and last album for Orrin Keepnews' Landmark label – Part Three of his mainstream comeback – is another mostly straightahead affair with a sextet, sounding a few high-minded themes and taking a few unusual twists. Twice, Art Blakey is memorialized with drummer Carl Allen's sturdy application of the Blakey shuffle ("King Arthur," "Byrd Song"), but his drumming also salutes the M-Base brigade on the concluding "Not Necessarily the Blues." "A City Called Heaven," the spiritual-turned-title track with an nearly operatic vocal by mezzo-soprano Lorice Stevens, gets a moving extended modal treatment where Byrd has some rapid flurries that usually, but not always, hit their mark.

Sir Neville Marriner founded the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in 1958, and led the ensemble for over half a century. He became the face of recorded classical music for millions of listeners, as Toscanini, Bernstein and Karajan had been before. In later years, Capriccio stepped in when other labels showed no interest in recording the Academy in larger-scale, romantic repertoire, exemplified by the set of Tchaikovsky symphonies that are the focal point of this 14-CD collection. 'The members of the Academy, trained on quite different repertory, let their hair down in playing that is both crisp and alert, obviously enjoying their outing into this pop repertory' Edward Greenfield, Gramophone.