Sublimely refined songs about broken hearts, dazzling landscapes and lost kingdoms, with zither and flute accompaniment.

Delicate, quietly profound 1959-60 chamber recordings of old masters, on a dozen instruments, notably the guqin zither, the pipa lute and the xiao flute.

Shashmaqom trio improvisation from Uzbekistan, artful and serious: heartfelt singing and fine tanbur lute playing, set off by the accompaniment of dutor and rabob lutes, and doyra percussion.

Virtuoso performances recorded in 1972 and al fresco in 1970, mixing together works from the nineteenth century heartlands of the instrument, and rocking Mande tunes of the 1960s and 70s.

Highly rhythmic ensembles of percussion, flutes, whistles and trumpets from the mountainous north of the country; and brilliant pichanchalassi playing, five flat stones struck with two oval stones.

Brilliant, jacking, extended, improvisatory, ancient dance music played at the initiation of diviners (drugged with jolonthi, to ward off spells) on a twelve-blade xylophone with calabash resonators.

Deeply moving singing from Ferghana in Central Asia — classical, slow, suspenseful and meditative in a world of pain — accompanied by lutes, chang (a psaltery), nay flute, dayera tambourine, and ghijak spike fiddle.

Polyphonic song — a kind of broken, yodelling counterpoint — accompanied by drums, sticks, sanza, vegetal trumpets, hand-clapping.

Elegant, serene, new-wave, profoundly tuneful playing, with accompaniment from Abhijit Banerjee’s tabla and Sudipta Remy’s tampura.

The sitar maestro recorded in 1986, performing two raga and a dhun in the classical style of the Senia Beenkar Gharana, with its focus on melodic and rhythmic elaboration.

Haydee Alba’s 1990 debut album — emotional and poetic from the off, already steeped in tradition — following the evolution of the form over its nineteen tracks. ‘An artist’s job is to make her public dream.’

The greatest singer of his generation presenting the classical music of Azerbaijan, accompanied on the tar lute and the kamancha viol by the Mansurov brothers.

Utterly beautiful contemporary recordings.

Ragas with intensely controlled and expressive singing from South India, in the uncommon, neglected Carnatic tradition.

Subtle, calm classical trio music — for shakuhachi flute, koto zither and shamisen lute — influenced by Buddhism.

Following in the footsteps of Bela Bartok across Transdanubia, the Highlands, the Great Plain: marvellous recordings over thirty years of hurdy-gurdy, cymbalum, shepherd’s pipe, bagpipe, popular song.

Bardic epics and nomadic songs, with dombra lute accompaniment.

Musical accompaniments to kabuki theatre, by this pre-eminent Japanese chamber orchestra, with voice, shamisen lutes, fue flute, and kotsuzumi, otsuzumi and taiko drums.

A rare Saravane-style lam, beautifully sung by Nang Soubane Vongath, and with rocking, virtuoso mouth-organ, with sixteen or so reed pipes, a metre-or-more long.