Harpsichord star Mahan Esfahani approaches one of the greatest masterpieces of the Baroque repertoire with fresh eyes: Bach’s incomparable Goldberg Variations, which he presents in a unique virtuosic way.

In spite of the French title, and the conductor known for his interest in period performance, this is not the French Orphee et Eurydice of 1774; it is a different 'period version', the period in question being not Gluck's but that of Berlioz (or, as we shall see, nearly so). In 1859, Berlioz, always a passionate admirer of Gluck, prepared a version of the opera for the contralto Pauline Viardot. The alto version of the opera was of course the original Italian one, of 1762, for a castrato, but Berlioz wanted to incorporate some of the changes Gluck had made in 1774 and to use a French text. His compromise version has served as the basis for most revivals of the opera, in whatever language, from then until relatively recent times, though its four-act structure has rarely been followed.

This disc brings together two composers from Naples, albeit from different generations. They are also different in that Scarlatti was an important contributor to the genre of opera, whereas Durante never composed anything for the theatre. They have also something in common: both were considered rather conservative - Scarlatti in particular towards the end of his career - and in the oeuvre of both the traditional counterpoint plays an important role.

Computer World is the eighth studio album by German electronic music band Kraftwerk, released in May 1981. The album deals with the themes of the rise of computers within society. Critics see this album as a peak in the career of Kraftwerk, along with Autobahn and Trans-Europe Express. The compositions are credited to Ralf Hutter, Florian Schneider, and Karl Bartos. The sound of the album is more reliant on purely electronics and vocals. As was the case with the two previous albums, Computer World was released both as German and English language editions.

"Baby Come Back" is one of those classic one-hit wonders of the '70s; the kind of breezy song that easily found its way to number one, and remained in the public consciousness for years later. It's the kind of song most listeners know when they hear it, yet they're not sure who it is – and, if they do know who it is, chances are, that's all they know. They know that Player is responsible for that song, and that's it. Few people realize that Player had another Top Ten hit with "This Time I'm in It for Love," or that both of their first two albums – 1977's Player and 1978's Danger Zone – reached the Top 40 and went gold. They had more success than most one-hit wonders, and it was deserved, since they epitomized what mainstream soft pop/rock was all about in the late '70s – and that was the sound of Los Angeles.

The idea on Tonin' was to turn the Manhattan Transfer loose on a baker's dozen of good old 1960s pop and R&B hits in league either with the original artists or prominent guests from that period and beyond. And yes, it's a stellar list, guaranteed to stir warm and fuzzy memories, and the tunes echo the old lament of an earlier age, "They don't write songs like they used to."

Amanda Lear first surfaced in the early '70s as a fetishistically clothed album-cover model for Roxy Music. She was said to be a transsexual but, as she told Interview magazine, that was just a ruse dreamed up by her sponsor, David Bowie, to draw attention. Her importance to disco fans, however, began in 1977, when she recorded I Am a Photograph in Germany with production help from Tony Monn. I Am a Photograph is the first of six sleazy, hard-to-find albums in which she flaunts a voice so heavy with low notes it makes one wonder if she really isn't a man after all. But Lear's slow notes are simply an exaggeration of the whiskey-voiced sultriness created by Marlene Dietrich.

BMG Heritage released Toni Braxton's Platinum & Gold Collection in 2004, a good time for a sweeping roundup of the singer's bounty of hits from the mid-'90s. Her once chart-topping career had gone from red-hot to a bare simmer by this point. Her last substantial hit, "He Wasn't Man Enough for Me" (from her lukewarm album The Heat), had come in 2000, and her two subsequent albums – Snowflakes (2001) and More Than a Woman (2002) – had failed to spawn any substantial hits of their own. This dry spell, which sans "He Wasn't Man Enough for Me" stretches all the way back to 1997, is a stark contrast to the mid-'90s, when she was regularly scaling the charts with huge hits like "Another Sad Love Song," "Breathe Again," "You Mean the World to Me," "Un-break My Heart," and "You're Making Me High," to just list her biggest crossover hits.

Conductor Tarmo Peltokoski, signed to the Deutsche Grammophon label at age 23 and promised to be the next phenomenon from Finland, impresses with his debut album offering fresh performances of three familiar Mozart symphonies. Some young conductors burn out, but one may hope it doesn't happen to Peltokoski, who shows impressive control over the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in these recordings. The sheer intensity of these readings also may bring the notion of burnout to mind. Other conductors have taken Mozart symphonies at a quick clip, but Peltokoski is close to the fast end of the spectrum, and he takes care to shape intermediate phrases to push the motion forward.