Although this is no longer a monthly column, Limelight’s Clive Paget and I still keep our eyes peeled for interesting reissue compilations. Here are four fascinating and varied releases of historic and/or hard to find recordings for early 2021.

Kirsten FlagstadPerformances by Kirsten Flagstad are amongst the highlights in the latest batch of reissues

Let’s start with a set of the seven symphonies plus other works by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli (1935-2019). Reissued on four discs by Cugate Classics, these recordings were made in 1994/95 in the composer’s city of Tbilisi in Georgia, by the Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra conducted by Djansug Kakhidze. They are completely idiomatic, and the sound is first rate. Kancheli was described perfectly by the Soviet composer Rodion Shchedrin as “a restrained Vesuvius”: His music consists of long, gentle, static passages beset by explosive interruptions; he rarely wrote anything between the extremes of loud and soft. The music is mesmerising and quite literally stunning. Even in...