I remember reading a review, many years ago, of an LP recording of Chabrier’s music by the Suisse Romande Orchestra, under the (inevitable) baton of Ernst Ansermet, which was described the reviewer as “pure sunshine”.  Notwithstanding my instinct to associate this conductor and orchestra with antiseptic surfaces rather than Vitamin D, I know how he felt.

Delibes

The beguilingly gorgeous music on this CD put me in a good mood for days. Not only that, having marvelled at Sony’s cheek to offer Teodor Curentzis’s Beethoven Seventh on a CD lasting barely 40 minutes, Chandos, as is often their wont, managed to fit more than 80 on this release!

In the 1980s, Neeme Järvi, recording for various labels, seemed to make a new recording every week,...