The sixth, tenth and eleventh symphonies by Shostakovich are among the most popular of the corpus. They showcase the composer’s quintessence: with atmospheres by turns sombre, deceptively merry, or ironical, this is music often imbued with pomp and militarism… A great specialist in Russian music, Paavo Berglund dedicated a large part of his career to promoting the works of Shostakovich, during a time when it was still poorly considered in the West.

Éclairs sur l’au-delà… is the latest great work composer by Olivier Messiaen. Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its anniversary, this astounding masterpiece could never be heard by its creator, who died a few months before the premiere. Involving a giant orchestra, this piece could rarely be recorded, though it encapsulates Messiaen’s aesthetics, with its mystical visions and evocative sense of color. Simon Rattle’s hypnotic rendition is undoubtedly one of the greatest.

Copland describes the material for Inscape as coming from two different series of twelve tones that in turn give rise to subsidiary serial patterns. He felt that serialism "freshened his harmonic palette," although this one-movement piece is more tonal than is customary in serial composition. While Copland never attached a great deal of significance to titles, he admitted to being drawn to a literary source for Inscape, the title of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

A talented altoist influenced by David Sanborn, Brandon Fields has the versatility to be able to play both R&B/crossover and hard bop. Fields grew up in Orange County, CA, and started playing alto when he was ten. A freelance musician since he was a teenager, Fields moved to Los Angeles in 1982 and has worked steadily ever since. He toured with George Benson in 1985, was a regular member of the Rippingtons, has long been a busy session player, and recorded CDs as a leader for Nova and Positive.

The cantatas in this volume all date from Johann Sebastian Bach's second year of office as Thomaskantor in Leipzig. The series of chorale cantatas, which breaks off in early 1725, forms an almost complete yearly cycle which derives an exceptional unity of style and content from its debt to established Lutheran hymnody. Almost all the cantatas contain the first and last verse of a hymn, the other verses being paraphrased in recitatives and arias. Practically any selection of the chorale cantatas will display the unusually rich variety of form and colour that is one of their most distinctive features.

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) is one of the most remarkable French composers of the 20th century. Inspired by many (Debussy, Satie, his fellow composers of the "Groupe des Six") he found his essential own voice, a unique blend of French gaiety and a deep, serious and sometimes melancholic feeling. This new recording presents a fine selection of piano music by Poulenc: the Trois Mouvements Perpetuels, Huit Nocturnes, Villageoises, Trois Novelettes, Napoli Suite and two Waltzes, music of great charm, seductive, touching and intimate, or exuberant and jolly.

Twenty years into his career, the inevitable happened: Toby Keith started to slide down the charts. He'd had slow patches before – when he moved from A&M to Dreamworks at the end of the '90s, he had trouble getting into the Top 10 – but the success of 2011's Clancy's Tavern and its accompanying hits "Made in America," "Red Solo Cup," and "Beers Ago" wound up seeming like a fluke once 2012's Hope on the Rocks stalled on the charts. Confronted with a possible decline in his fortune, Keith takes action on Drinks After Work, his 17th album in 20 years.