Classical preorders

Review: In 1960, the music of Finnish Romantic music composer Jean Sibelius heard a re-rendering by The London Symphony Orchestra, this time led by prominent conductor Alexander Gibson. Outside of Sibelius' core seven symphonies, two live-performed studies of Sibelius' best known secondary works are heard here: his Fifth Symphony and the Karelia Suite. Alongside Thomas Beecham, Gibson was one of two of Britain's two most esteemed conductors, and this newly reissued set of six is true example of his idiosyncratic and voluptuous bandleading, which leads the Symphony down an entirely new path.

Review: In late 19th to early 20th Century Paris, operettas were the order of the day. Cologne-born composer-cellist Jacques Offenbach and Boston conductor Arthur Fielder were chief conceivers of this terse micro-musical form, defined in the loosest sense as a "light opera". Like novellas, operettas are shorter, lighter-hearted commedia, featuring the occasional satirical jibe. Offenbach came first; he and Fielder began their diachronic dialogue in earnest in 1954, when the latter's 1954 rendition of Gaîte Parisienne - a 1938 ballet featuring many an Offenbach operetta - became a beloved reinterpretation. This loyal commemoration by the Boston Pops Orchestra at the Boston Symphony Hall eulogises Offenbach's superb orchestrations once more, in what has been described as one of the best RCA recordings of all time.