Hitchcock and Herrmann, Spielberg and Williams – director-composer pairings among whom writer Michael Beek nominates as co-companions Hayao Miyazaki and Joe Hisaishi, the founding fathers of Japanese animated film company Studio Ghibli, celebrated in this symphonic reimagining of 10 titles marking their near-40-year collaboration.

Many Studio Ghibli films will be familiar to parents, grandparents and their young ones from watching DVDs of titles such as Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), a film based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones. These fantasy films have built up a huge fanbase worldwide with their music drawn from the Western tradition. Hisaishi’s music reflects the wit, playfulness and charm in which Howl’s Moving Castle stands proud, with a musical inventiveness and cogency expressed by way of a memorable waltz theme threaded though a colourful 12-minute scenario. As conductor, arranger and producer of this album, Hisaishi couldn’t wish for a better team, led by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and recorded by Mike Hatch in St Giles Cripplegate. The only blemish on the project is the absence of track timings.

This composer loves his voices. The combined choirs of Tiffin School (directed by James Day) and The Bach Choir (Mark Austin), with Grace Davidson – movieland’s favoured soprano, noted for her ethereal vocals – make hay with the choral-fest that is Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (2008). I haven’t dined on such a choral feast since the John Alldis Choir joined Charles Gerhardt’s National Philharmonic for ‘Lost Horizon: The Classic Film Scores of Dimitri Tiomkin’ (RCA, 5/91)! It’s a similar tale with their zestful rendition of the syncopated song ‘Hey let’s go’ from My Neighbor Totoro (1988), a tale of forest spirits, adapted with great success for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Other titles bring other treats: violinist Stephen Morris weaves the sweetest sounds in the service of Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), where the chirpy pizzicato opening theme has that childlike innocence, a Hisaishi trademark, in this tale of a teenage witch setting up a flying courier service. In The Wind Rises (2013) the composer pays homage to pioneering Japanese and Italian aircraft designers – a mandolin solo from Avi Avital, with accordion and mandolin in attendance, pointing to the continent. The lolloping theme to Porco Rosso (1992), a kind of slow-motion ragtime, offers a further diversion.

This is a director-composer pairing of note, as Beek suggests. In a lighter vein, they aren’t out of company with those Pink Panther magicians Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini. Happy anniversary to Studio Ghibli!