Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings is a powerful piece, packed with emotional intensity yet also extraordinarily listenable-and popular. Here, Barber's short masterwork of simplicity and resonance gets eight treatments, from those he approved of (Charles Munch and the strings of the Boston Symphony; the Tokyo String Quartet; organist David Pizarro; and the Smithsonian Chamber Players) to new interpretations that don't quite match with the older renditions. James Galway's new flute-and-synthesizer reading is a bit anemic, though thankfully not showy, and the Canadian Brass's arrangement is likewise tempered and calm, even if not very close to having significant bite. Richard Stoltzman and the Kalman Clarinet Choir probably do the best job of taking Barber to new places; the woody tones mesh almost polyphonically. Also included is the Choir of Trinity College's reading of Agnus Dei, Barber's choral setting of the Adagio, a distillation that might well be the high point of the CD. For the most stunning rendition of the Adagio, however, listeners should really hear the Thomas Schippers version. -Andrew Bartlett.

Patrick Doyle eats classic literature adaptations for breakfast. The talented Scots composer was clearly born to write for this medium after his many Shakespearean collaborations for Kenneth Brannagh. His first dip into the world of Jane Austen is as much a joy as any of those. The two songs opening and closing the disc immediately make it an essential. Soprano Jane Eaglen's performances of "Weep You No More Sad Fountains" and "The Dreame" are light years from that of Kate Winslet on film, though. Elsewhere the evocation of the English countryside seems effortless on Doyle's part. He does it with a little wit and a lot of tempered romantic sentiment, thankfully preventing his portrayal from tipping into either classical or farmyard cliché. His overall theme for the crossed love lines (nicely presented in "Devonshire") is yet another fabulous string piece to add to his concert repertoire. It may not quite be the album to ensure you swoon into the arms of your most-dreamed-of desirable, but it certainly made it possible for Ang Lee's superbly cast ensemble. -Paul Tonks.

Unlike Back To Titanic, this sequel album tries to tell a complete story, drawing in large amounts of external material "to keep the spirit of William Wallace. alive, and to further enhance your listening pleasure". That actually means five tracks of traditional bagpipe music (totalling 17 minutes of the running time), that have nothing to do with the film. There are also numerous cuts of dialogue. Genuine fans of the movie and score will no doubt be delighted by the whole concept of this album. Anyone simply looking for more of James Horner's music will be disappointed. "Scottish Wedding Music" is a nice enough background jig, but the remaining pieces are really reprises of material on the original soundtrack-from which there are also plenty of cues copied across. -Paul Tonks.

Howard Shore's music for the massively successful first film chapter of Tolkien's saga won him the Oscar for Best Original Score, something of a surprise given the music's ambitious scale and determinedly dark overtones. Its sequel, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers takes the same, often Wagnerian-scaled dramatic tack, following the film's story line into even more brooding and ominous dark corners. The previous film's Hobbit-inspired pastoralism is supplanted here by rich ethnic textures that expand the musical scope of Middle-earth and the World of Men; the hardanger, a Norwegian fiddle, represents the Rohan and the North African rhaita colours the Mordor theme, while log drums, dilruba, wood xylophone and cimbalon add intriguing textures elsewhere. The score's looming orchestral clouds are brightened by Shore's masterful choral writing, which infuses ancient liturgical influences with various solo turns by Isabel Bayrakdarian, indie-pop star Sheila Chandra, Ben Del Maestro and Elizabeth Fraser. "Gollum's Song", the composer's concluding collaboration with lyricist Fran Walsh, is delivered with Björkish, postmodern angst by Emiliana Torrini, and helps punctuate the story's modern sense of allegory. -Jerry McCulley.