NMC's Ancora series continues with a joint 70th birthday tribute to Nicholas Maw and Richard Rodney Bennett: Life Studies, written for the virtuoso players of The Academy of St Martin-in-the Fields (the performers on this recording), is a series of vibrant character studies which range from the intensity of Penderecki and lyricism of Britten to a jazzy double bass solo (in Study V). Richard Rodney Bennett's dramatic cantata Spells sets a sequence of haunting invocations by Kathleen Raine; it is performed by its dedicatee, soprano Jane Manning, with The Philharmonia Orchestra, Bach Choir and Sir David Willcocks. 'Maw treads a completely resolved path in his Life Studies between Bergian reserve and Tippett-like buoyant ecstasy... This is sheerly brilliant writing and the Academy trounces the challenge. [Jane Manning in Spells] is in splendid voice - try the Spell of Safekeeping - where she is at her wonderful best. Two brilliant retrievals from the fearsome mid-1970s.' MusicWeb