Henze recordings don’t come my way very often, but when they do I’m reminded of just how versatile a composer he is. There are also fine DVDs of his best stage works; L’Upupa und der Triumph des Sohnesliebe (Euroarts) is a treat for the eye and ear, and there’s an unmissable Ondine from Covent Garden, with Miyako Yoshida in the name part.

The name of Charles Tournemire is a minor one, even in the history of French music, and you won’t find much about him in the standard reference books. Nor are you likely to get a great deal of opportunity to hear his music: only two of the works on this disc have been published in printed form, and Sagesse is the only one to have been recorded before. The disc would thus be valuable for that reason alone.

A first listen to the music of Gloria Coates is a breath of fresh air. Here is a genuinely contemporary sound, one that emerges naturally from our time and culture. Here are sounds to express our sense of time, space, movement and activity. There is no sense of is referentiallism. What a relief! There is no rehashing of someone else's style , whether from 10 or 500 years ago. There is no wilful difficulty to this music or the collaging of disparate influences.

Award-winning conductor and composer Johan de Meij's First Symphony 'The Lord of the Rings' is a spectacular evocation in five portraits and scenes based on Tolkien's tale of a grand quest and the struggle of good against evil. The Second Symphony is an ode to the symmetry of New York's streets and its massive architecture, as well as a tribute to the American styles of Copland and Bernstein, while the cinematic effects of the Third Symphony form an epic paean to the entire earth in all its miraculous beauty.

This disc, another in the Maggini Quartet's series of recordings of string quartets by twentieth century English composers for Naxos, brings together the three quartets of Lennox Berkeley. And as in the group's previous recordings of quartets by Bridge, Arnold, and Rawsthorne, the music proves as excellent as it is unexpected. Berkeley's quartets date from 1935, 1941, and 1970, and each sounds like a work of its time yet still characteristic of the composer.

This album of Handel vocal selections should delight the listener with its clear, bell-like soprano and its period orchestra, its Handelian melismas and reverential songs to God. Soprano Dorothea Craxton sings with such a beautiful, creamy sound and smooth technique that one does not hear her breaths. However, this album disappoints for the sole reason that the recording quality is off-balance, often relegating Craxton to sound like a member of the ensemble as opposed to soloist (or being overpowered by one of the ensemble).