JAMES GALWAY, FLUTE; "Celebrating 70 — A Collection of Personal Favorites (RCA Red Seal) ★★★★

PAAVO JARVI, CONDUCTOR, CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA; Holst, "The Planets"; Britten, "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" (Telarc) ★★★

The superstar of the flute, James Galway, celebrated his 70th birthday in 2009. For the occasion, RCA Red Seal released a compilation album that features selections from some of the many recordings he has released over the years.

It's a delightful collection, and what's not to like about it? It has a little bit of everything: classical, film tunes, jazz, pop and folk.

The opening tracks include movements from works by Antonio Vivaldi, Wolfgang Mozart and J.S. Bach. There is also Sergei Rachmaninoff's ever present "Vocalise"; Claude Debussy's "Prelude ?l'après-midi d'un faune"; Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Flight of the Bumblebee"; and several others.

On the pop side, there are Elton John's "Basque,"; Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark," with vocalist Cleo Lane; Henry Mancini's theme from "The Pink Panther" and the traditional Irish song "Danny Boy," among others.

As one expects from Galway, his playing exhibits wonderful virtuosity and consummate musicality. This is an album that's difficult to resist.

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Gustav Holst's "The Planets" suffers from overexposure. As with Sergei Rachmaninoff's piano concertos, Johannes Brahms' symphonies and Felix Mendelssohn's violin concerto (among many other works), there is a plethora of recordings available today. Adding to that ever-expanding list needs some justification — the new recording has to be exceptional on every count.

And that's just not the case with Paavo J?vi's recording of "The Planets" with his Cincinnati Symphony. To be sure, it's a good recording with a fine performance by the orchestra, with J?vi getting down to the details and nuances of the score. But it's not enough. The performance lacks energy and drive and doesn't stand up to several other newer recordings of the work.

"The Planets" is paired with a re-release of Benjamin Britten's venerable "A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra," a captivating work that gets a solid and stylish treatment by J?vi and the orchestra.

e-mail: ereichel@desnews.com

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