Have you ever noticed BBC Music Magazine on the stands? It has a format like Gramophone's, covers music news with a British slant. It includes articles on and reviews of recordings along with items like "building a library" and a CD of the month. The latter is not merely an article about a recommended recording; the actual CD in a jewel case is wrapped up with the magazine.

Of course BBC isn't the only outfit to offer a CD with their monthly publications, but they are one of the few whose CDs are of complete works, nicely packaged. Years ago when I was a subscriber, I acquired a marvellous collection of Mozart violin sonatas, some Tippet symphonies and a CD with Pictures at an Exhibition among other Russian orchestral pieces, along with other fascinating releases or music I might not have encountered otherwise.

Then I began publishing CD reviews and, for the first few years at least, I received a dozen or more releases every week. I did not renew my subscription to the BBC publication. But I've always had a soft spot in my heart for it. Two or three months ago when I saw they were offering something I've been wanting for years, Ravel's L'heure espagnole, I picked up the issue for little more than the price of a Naxos. The recording a delight and I had a couple of hours of interesting reading in the bargain.

(Strictly speaking, L'heure espagnole is Ravel's only opera, though a lyrical pantomime-fantasy, L'enfant et les sortilèges is also worth hearing and, if you are lucky enough, seeing.)

The story in this fifty-minute atmospheric farce has to do with the frustrated wife of a clockmaker who, on the Thursday her husband must spend winding the town clocks each week, invites a couple of suitors to satisfy her longings. This articular week each is wrapped up in himself, though, and doesn't respond to the most obvious of her hints. Finally, after lovers are hidden in clocks and clocks moved upstairs, downstairs and back again, she chooses a handsome muleteer who had only come in to have his watch fixed. He is ready and willing to do her bidding. Her husband returns to find the suitors there, and they each buy a clock from him for the sake of discretion. Everyone lives happily after. Who said that operas all end with bloody corpses strewn across the stage?

Mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly leads the cast and sets the tone. Sounding young, but hardly virginal, she creates the impression that few Thursday's go by without her being satisfied. Among the others, tenor Jean-Paul Fouchérot is especially charming as the suitor who can not stop declaiming poetry long enough to attend to his lady's wishes.

Giannandrea Noseda conducts the BBC Philharmonic orchestra and assures a lightness of touch in the proceedings along with a heady parfum espagnol.

As a filler, BBC offers an exceptionally lovely and delicate account of Ravel's Rhapsodie espagnole, this time by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Tadaaki Otaka.

Although this issue left the stands a few months ago, BBC Music Magazine usually has a supply of back issues, and for that matter, you might want to check out the current one. They're available, among other places, at Maison de la press internationale on Bank Street and Mags and Fags on Elgin.