By no means the first (or last) ever Slade hits collection, Wall of Hits is nevertheless the only one you truly need, a solid roundup of every British Top Ten smash the band ever scored, plus a smattering of lesser-rated (but equally deserving) Top 20 entries, and only one track – 1991's "Universe" – that really doesn't belong. Neither has time taken any toll on the quality of the music. Whether causing roaring traffic to grind to a halt or bearing their souls in a ballad, the members of Slade not only made great records, they also tapped emotions – wild and wacky, reflective and raw – that make fans never tire of singing their songs.

Most artists don't wait until they're nearly 62 to deliver their first official solo album, but Ray Davies has never been predictable. As a matter of fact, Davies is the quintessential rock contrarian, doggedly following his path, sometimes to the detriment of his own art or career. This obstinate nature extends to the very sound of his solo debut Other People's Lives, a shiny, simmered-in-the-studio album where each song creeps on just a little longer than necessary. This 2006 effort sounds roughly 16 years out of time – sonically, it could comfortably function as the follow-up to 1989's UK Jive – and its slickness may keep some listeners at a distance, particularly if they're craving a stripped-down, back-to-basics comeback along the lines of Dylan's Love and Theft or the Stones' A Bigger Bang.

Moniuszko is always bracketed with Smetana and Erkel, as the originator of a national style for Polish opera as they were for opera in Czech and Hungarian lands (the Glinka comparison, for Russia, has less validity). Halka, his most successful opera, makes a very occasional appearance in Western theatres: though it was written in the 1840s, it did not reach the Polish stage until 1854, and its British premiere came in 1961. Moniuszko's other operas are almost never to be found outside Poland. The overtures here selected do not include that to his other most successful opera, The haunted manor, which only has an Intrada, and, as can be seen above, choice differs only in CPO's inclusion of Jawnuta and Olympia's of two shorter pieces.

Dust & Bones finds Gary Hoey picking up where he left off on 2013's Deja Blues. Once again, he's in a heavy blues mode, cranking up his amp to the breaking point and indulging in some old-school theatrics, like working his wah-wah pedal so it sings like Hendrix. That's not the only guitar god whose work is apparent here. "Steamroller" is dedicated to Johnny Winter, and there are echoes of Billy Gibbons and Eric Clapton, all filtered through Hoey's dexterous chops. Now a veteran of 25 years – he nods toward his surfy beginnings on the album-closing "Soul Surfer" – Hoey certainly can tip his hat to his peers but he has his own style, one that's designed as an eternal homage to the glory days of classic rock guitar.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) remains best known as a composer of virtuosic instrumental music, particularly in the form of concertos like The Four Seasons. This CD, first released in 1991, demonstrates that Vivaldi’s large-scale sacred choral music is equally stunning.

In October 1967 in Baden-Baden, Germany, Krzysztof Komeda recorded the jazz and poetry project Meine Süsse Europäische Heimat – My Sweet European Homeland. It would soon prove Komeda’s final European creation - in a sense, the composer’s farewell to Europe.

With "Bucharest 1994", IN+OUT Records presents a very special live event by Eugen Cicero, who has created something unique in his mediation between classical music and jazz standards. This is the first concert with exceptional bassist Decebal Badila, which layed under lock and key for 28 years. The album contains both entertaining, technically demanding and documentarily indispensable material.

Performed by various soloists with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ryusuke Numajiri. Recorded both in analog and digital versions in the Japanese double-CD release. "Twill by Twilight" is a harmonically and timbrally lush work, which often evokes the tone painting breadth of Debussy and the crystalline delicacy of Webern, an outpouring of "pastel coloring…reminders of the transient nature of twilight, before the coming night and after the sunset" (Takemitsu). It is dedicated to "the memory of my dear friend Morton Feldman." Takemitsu described the work's sub-structure as developed "through strictly measured musical units, through what might be called musical principles before a melody is constituted or before a rhythm is formed." This is a very apt metaphor applicable to Morton Feldman's own compositional style. The small and broad cyclicism of the rhythm patterns in Takemitsu's work is however much more hidden – a kind of phased, elastic, non-clockwork repetition with imaginative variations.