Back from Spain, with a big pile of unlistened-to CDs awaiting me. Of course, I made a beeline for Sandrine Piau singing Handel oratorio arias. A highly satisfactory CD; lovely music, lovely voice, excellent accompaniment (Accademia Bizantina). Handel's music is truly wonderful, and neither German, English nor Italian.

Not so Sergei Rachmaninov; he may have been a wandering cosmopolitan from necessity, but his music is 100% 24 carat Russian. I followed up Handel with Rachmaninov's The Bells (Evgeni Svetlanov from the late 1970s). I have never heard it before, but will listen to it again with interest and pleasure.