Two recent reissue sets bring us a broad sweep of 20th-century Americana.

Not long before its demise, the Philips label recorded a series of (mostly) light orchestral music with the newly reconstituted Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Their conductor was John Mauceri, an American with a broad musical background. A protégée of Leonard Bernstein, for the purposes of this set he represents a bridge between Arthur Fiedler in the 50s and 60s, and John Wilson today.

John Mauceri with Julie Andrews

These recordings, made and released in the first half of the 1990s, continue in the style of those light music specialists – also Felix Slatkin (father of Leonard), who conducted the old Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and recorded many miscellaneous discs for Capitol Records in the 1950s. Mauceri led the orchestra from 1991 to 2006.

The recorded sound is, not unexpectedly, lush and rich: A ‘pop’ producer was at the helm. It resembles the brash Decca Phase 4 sound, but is better integrated. The most ubiquitous release in Mauceri’s Philips series (included here) was a recording of the...