Sacris Erudiri 21

Gustav Leonhardt, one of the stalwarts of the "early music movement" has just passed a significant birthday and Sony has pulled together a representative 15 titles from his time with the label and put them in a clam-shell box.

PENTATONE presents Telemann’s rarely-performed opera Miriways (1728) with a stellar cast and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin conducted by Bernard Labadie. Star vocalists such as André Morsch (Miriways), Robin Johannsen (Sophi), Sophie Karthäuser (Bemira), Lydia Teuscher (Nisibis) and Michael Nagy (Murzah) offer a string of beautiful baroque arias and scenes in this Germanlanguage opera. Miriways is a piece about love, duty and truthfulness, and was based on political events from that time in Afghanistan and Persia that actually made headlines in European newspapers, demonstrating the eighteenth-century fascination for the Orient. The opera was recorded live during the Telemann Festival Hamburg in 2017.

The U.K.'s Now series features timely selections of pop hits and provides a convenient way for casual pop fans to stay on top of the most popular singles. The sets are almost always naturally well-rounded, encompassing dance music, R&B, hip-hop, teen pop, and rock. And though they might expire, in a sense, since they're based on trends in pop music, they work as more than adequate snapshots of specific points in time. The 21st volume, released in 1991, includes the KLF's "Justified and Ancient," Mr. Big's "To Be with You," Shanice's "I Love Your Smile," the Jesus & Mary Chain's "Far Gone and Out," Ce Ce Peniston's "We Got a Love Thang," Paula Abdul's "Vibeology," the Cure's "High," and Everything But the Girl's "Love Is Strange."