The recent ENO production of Konigskinder may have helped to alert interest to Humperdinck as the composer of more than Hansel und Gretel, and those who enjoyed the work will find the splendid overture and three other pieces here. There is, of course, the complete recording, praised by JBS in August 1989; but this is a good sampler, so to speak. We have also the group of five pieces from Dornroschen (or ''The Sleeping Beauty''). Not even Humperdinck's greatest admirer could call his emotional range very great; but the music is unfailingly well made, and falls agreeably on the ear. It is easy to see why Richard Strauss admired him so much: there is not only the immense natural craftsmanship, but an ease of invention comparable to his own and indeed in one or two places containing suggestions of some of his own harmonic manner. Yet the notion of Humperdinck being capable of Strauss's range is of course unthinkable: at the time he conducted the premiere of Hansel und Gretel, in December 1893, Strauss had written most of his tone-poems and was at work on his own first opera, Guntram. It is in the music of his latter years that one can find him reliving an older manner that evokes the comfortable world which Humperdinck, wisely, never left. This is easeful music, and it is difficult not to like it.'