Tribute to Alvin Ailey.

A two-disc boxed set devoted to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (V2 63881-27018-2) documents the musically varied and vital work of this important choreographer and company. The first disc contains the eleven traditional songs Ailey first staged as Revelations in 1960; the ballet went on, of course, to become not only the company's signature piece but also one of the most popular and stirring of all contemporary dance works.

An interview with Judith Jamison follows the music, and she speaks movingly about her experience of first watching, then dancing, and now caring for Revelations as the company's artistic director. She describes the religious significance and emotional power of the African-American music (usually called spirituals) and the church rituals that Ailey brought to Revelations. The ballet's appeal is captured well here. Chorus and soloists perform the hushed, intense "I Been 'Buked," which opens Revelations; the joyously swaggering "Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham," which invariably brings audiences to their feet at the work's close; and everything in between with zest, commitment, and plangency. The recorded sound is clear and full.

The second disc is, literally, a much more mixed effort. Called "A Musical Retrospective on 40 Years of Dance," it begins and ends with words spoken by Ailey himself that form part of the score of Hymn, Jamison's tribute to the choreographer staged in 1993. Thirteen other selections from different works are performed, including portions of dances by Ailey, such as the first movement of his 1975 Night Creature, set to Duke Ellington, one of the love songs from his Love Songs, created for Dudley Williams in 1972, and even--why again?--"Wade in the Water" from Revelations.

We also hear excerpts from ballets by George Faison (Suite Otis), Talley Beatty (The Stack-Up), Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (Shelter), Ulysses Dove (Bad Blood), Billy Wilson (The Winter in Lisbon), and Donald McKayle (the venerable Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder). Although these works may be meaningful and their scores (mostly jazz) enjoyable even in excerpt form, the disc as a whole can't avoid seeming somewhat aimless, disjointed, and unplanned after the cumulative, canny theatrical power of the complete Revelations. As Jennifer Dunning has written, Alvin Ailey "choreographed more than fifty other dances. But he was never to match Revelations." The musical evidence on this well-produced set leads one to a similar conclusion.

Erato, with its Grammy-nominated recording, Les Fetes d'Hebe (3984-21064-2), has taken us magically back in time to ballet's beginnings amid the pleasure and artifice of prerevolutionary France. Conductor William Christie, his expert ensemble Les Arts Florissants, and some fine vocal soloists offer a precisely and exquisitely executed realization of Rameau's 1739 opera-ballet; although negligible, its plot offers opportunities for highly ornamented singing and much dancing. Among the performers who once delighted aristocratic Parisians with rigaudons, tambourins, and other sprightly, piquant dances were the celebrated rivals, lyrical Marie Salle, star of the work's premiere, and technically dazzling Marie Camargo.

Harmonia Mundi's recording of Jacaras! (907212) is another fascinating journey into dance history, this time to eighteenth-century Spain, where Santiago de Murcia composed brilliant pieces for guitar. He based his works on standard classical forms of his day, as well as on bailes, jotas, and fandangos--almost scandalously energetic and suggestive dances thought to be of Mexican and African origin. The music is exhilarating; the performances, led by master Baroque lutenist and guitarist Paul O'Dette, are irresistible; and the recorded sound is beautifully limpid.

Great Pianists of the 20th Century: Mikhail Pletnev (Philips 456931-2) gives us Tchaikovsky with a difference. Performing his own arrangements for solo piano of extended excerpts from The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty, Pletnev, a Russian keyboard virtuoso and conductor, often conveys an amazing degree of orchestral color, scale, and sweep. Some of the music gets submerged in his restless passagework, but for the most part the pianist makes us hear and appreciate the composer with fresh ears. The two-disc set also includes an electrifying performance of Tchaikovsky's Second Piano Concerto, the score that Balanchine used for his 1941 masterpiece, Ballet Imperial, which in New York City Ballet's current repertory is now known simply as Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2.

Glazunov's Raymonda hasn't attained the popularity of the Tchaikovsky ballets, but not for any lack of musical quality. While the full-length ballet is often scorned for its tedious plot, many choreographers have used parts of its opulent score to create successful ballets. Balanchine, for example, returned to this music for Raymonda Variations, Pas de Dix, and Cortege Hongrois. Listening to the entire score performed superbly by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, under Alexander Anissimov (Naxos 8.553503-4), one is struck again by its potent combination of tender and nostalgic melody, fiery exotic pageantry, and almost Wagnerian orchestral might (the medieval Hungary of Raymonda frequently sounds like the medieval Germany of Lohengrin). Anissimov's conducting is spirited and sensitive; too bad he leaves out a couple of supplementary dances, including the rousing mazurka from the wedding divertissement.

Edward Willinger is a contributing editor of Dance Magazine.