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With stiff competition from Norrington on EMI and Östman on L’Oiseau-Lyre, Gardiner’s Magic Flute enters the period instrument stakes somewhat belatedly. It offers no major musicological revelations – no reinstated numbers or serious reorderings that often come with period Mozart these days. Its only textual novelties are the trumpets and drums at the start of Act I, where in accordance with Mozart’s original manuscript Tamino is pursued by a lion rather than a snake, and a selection of numbers, presented as an appendix, sung to the alternative texts given in the first printed score.

The CDs in See for Miles' The EP Collection series are odd hybrids that don't often quite function as either greatest-hits collections (though they usually have quite a few hits) or rarities anthologies (since they include too many hits). Billy J. Kramer's entry into the series is no exception. All 25 of the tracks were used on EP releases from the mid-'60s, and they do include all half-dozen of his major chart hits, as well as his Lennon-McCartney B-side covers of "I'll Be on My Way" and "I'll Call Your Name."…