On ne saurait rester insensible à l’écoute de ce « Geitsliches Singspiel » (Drame sacré) composé par un enfant de 12 ans. On reste évidemment ahuri par tant de science et de sensibilité, même si Léopold (le papa) veillait au grain en mettant parfois son nez (et sa main) sur le manuscrit de son divin rejeton. Créé à Salzbourg pour les fêtes de Pâques 1767, Die Schuldigkeit des Ersten Gebots, K 35 (Le Devoir du Premier Commandement), résulte d’une commande de l’archevêque Colloredo dont le nom et le caractère retors ont traversé le temps grâce à son orageuse confrontation avec le jeune Mozart. On sent dans la partition que ce gamin génial est déjà possédé par le théâtre et qu’il a assimilé les styles italiens et germaniques. A la tête de l’Ensemble Il Caravaggio, Camille Delaforge dirige cet ouvrage d’extrême jeunesse avec, comme il l’écrit si bien, « l’âme juvénile à l’heure de la maturité ». Sa direction est souple et vivante, théâtrale comme l’exige l’écriture souvent si proche des arias d’opéra avec ses acrobaties vocales et ses vocalises éperdues. Ses solistes don’t (Adèle Charvet) sont tous excellents. Cette œuvre va bien au-delà de la simple curiosité, car elle révèle déjà l’incroyable talent du futur génie.

Dedicated to Bramwell Tovey, this album of world premiere recordings by celebrated composer Roderick Elms features soloists Carlos Bonell (guitar), Derek Hannigan (bass clarinet) and Joanna Smith (piano) and Roderick Elms himself, with the BBC Concert Orchestra under the baton of Barry Wordsworth.

At his arrival in Venice in 1613, Monteverdi, ever the tireless worker, finally found a challenge that suited him: he would compose every day, both sacred and secular music, for the glory of God or his patrons. In the twilight of his life, he gathered his works into a corpus, intended to inspire musicians during the celebration of religious services. This recording is a musical testament to his carefully preserved life's work. Vincent Dumestre and Le Poeme Harmonique pay tribute to the brilliant composer who set the tone for all 17th-century sacred music.

A very nice box set from Capriccio of Prokofiev’s complete incidental music, featuring some of his most well known musical scores. The Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin play with fire and panache under the baton of conductor, Michail Jurowski.

The fashionable literary salons of Paris were centres of experimentation in the refined art of conversation that expressed an idealised vision of love as well as a most poetic depiction of aristocratic society. The women who founded these salons, such as the Marquise de Rambouillet and Madeleine de Scudery, exerted a considerable influence on social culture and its fashion for preciosite, creating a poetic style whose inevitably plaintive accents would swiftly lead lovers who frequented such salons down the winding paths of the pays de Tendre. "The true character of those who love is composed of tenderness and plaintiveness", according to Abbe Charles Cotin – and music was employed as a means of expressing every nuance of amorous feeling that many poets of the style galant took great pains to depict. The musicians who were most in vogue would then take their galant verses and set them to song in the form of airs serieux, a genre which dominated all secular French music for most of the reign of Louis XIV. This album, a world premiere recording, is devoted to the airs serieux of Joseph Chabanceau de La Barre, a scion of one of the most prestigious families of French musicians of the 17th century.

The lute became the instrument of choice at European courts around 1500, the time of their greatest cultural and spiritual importance. The lute was considered by the Humanists to represent Orpheus's lyre, as it embodied the metaphysical ideal of the power of music and was also closely linked to improvisation. Here we revive this tradition for the first time on record: this programme is almost entirely improvised and presents the Renaissance lute with all its surprising colours and sonorities as a living instrument.

Orlando di Lasso (b. 1532 in Mons) was one of the most important and prolific composers in the whole of sixteenth-century Europe. Famed as a singer from boyhood, he escaped several kidnapping attempts ordered by princes who coveted his talent for their courts. Di Lasso is a fascinating character: an extravagant and provocative musical figure, an adventurous artist and cultivated polyglot. On being asked to provide the soundtrack for a documentary on di Lasso by Joachim Thome, Simon-Pierre Bestion became immersed in the composer's multiverse. This album, an extension of the music for that film, projects the iconoclast di Lasso into our 21st century world. As Bestion explains: 'I made a deliberate choice here to interpret this music with a great freedom of instrumentation and of timbre. What is more, even though there were no drums or saxophones in di Lasso's day, the performer was free to choose whichever or the ornamentation he wanted.' Join La Tempete for this unpredictable, fantasy-enriched exploration of the timeless realm of Orlando.

2016 five CD set containing a quintet of classic studio albums packaged together in a new slim-line slipcase from the punk rock/new wave pioneer Graham Parker. Featuring the albums Howlin' Wind, Stick To Me, Squeezing Out Sparks, The Up Escalator and Struck By Lightning.

Post Script, features some very apt artwork because the contents of this disk is mainly geared towards the 'World Music' WOMAD side of Peters works. There are some generally weaker and ‘oddball’ tracks such as Warm Doorway making up the body of this one, although as you’d expect there are a fistful of gems to be unearthed. One such track is the amazing While The Earth Sleeps which adopts an almost (albeit causal) dance and techno type feel to it which is certainly new ground for Peters’ ever evolving style and direction. One of my favourite ‘early’ Gabriel numbers, the dark ballad Here Comes The Flood is included and more importantly is sung in German which is a nice twist, and the ultra rare Ain’t That Peculiar is included too. The latter was recorded live in 1979 with Robert Fripp and is a sure fire winner.

2009 three CD collection from the former Smiths frontman containing all his solo singles released between 1988 and 1995. Featuring the a and B-sides of each single, this triple disc set is the ultimate Morrissey collection and is a must-own, even if you have already purchased all of the original singles! From 'Suede head' straight through to 'A Swallow on My Neck', this set includes 62 tracks including plenty of non-album cuts, live recordings and so much more. Contains the hits 'Everyday Is Like Sunday', 'The Last of the Famous International Playboys', 'The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get', 'My Love Life', 'Suede head' and many others. Absolutely essential!

Sometimes even the most consistent artists need to shake things up a bit. In Robert Cray's case, that means shuffling his lineup – he retained longtime bassist Richard Cousins but brought in drummer Les Falconer and keyboardist Dover Weinberg – and bringing in producer Steve Jordan, who last worked with Cray on 1999's Take Your Shoes Off. There's a reason this record is called In My Soul: Jordan assists Cray in moving toward Memphis soul, dedicating the entire record to slow, sultry burners that emphasize his mellow vocals and dexterous grooves. This may primarily be a mood record but the individual songs are also quite strong, whether it's the originals ("Fine Yesterday" is so gorgeous it makes heartbreak seem welcome) or sharply chosen covers. Among the latter is a cleanly funky reading of Otis Redding's "Nobody's Fault But Mine," which features Falconer on co-lead vocals, an unusual change of pace for Cray that also signals how the veteran guitarist has been revitalized by his change in companions.

Molly E. Molloy (Massachusetts, April 4, 1940 – New York, June 15, 2016) was an American dancer, choreographer and teacher who worked internationally. She was based in Paris, New York and London and was the originator of the Molloy Technique of Jazz Dance, a form of Modern American Jazz which she notably taught to choreographer Arlene Phillips and her troupe Hot Gossip.

Musique Classee X is a brand-new selection of unreleased music composed by the great Alain Goraguer for movies from the golden age of French pornography, brought together on vinyl, an object of all the desires. This compilation features eight never-before-released tracks composed by Alain Goraguer, orchestrator and composer of an impressive number of monumental French songs, from Boris Vian to Serge Gainsbourg, and well known by hip-hop fans and sampling lovers for his cult soundtrack for La Planète Sauvage (1973). Tracks saved from oblivion and fully restored, from the soundtracks of these evocative titles: Swinging Couples Cruise, Private Nurses, Right Of The First Night, and A Foreign Girl In Paris.

Renata Tebaldi was one of the dominant lyrico-spinto sopranos of the 1950s and 1960s, with a large, powerful voice that, despite a severely flawed top, was described by many of her admirers as one of the most beautiful of the 20th century. In many ways she and Maria Callas were defined by one another, although often far too simplistically, assuming that what one had, the other did not. (Rather like the cats versus dogs debates among pet lovers, in which all dogs are loving but dumb and all cats are bright but treacherous.)

This double set replaces both previously released RCA multi-disc overviews of Guess Who hits. As of its appearance in late 2003, both the flawed triple-CD 56-track The Ultimate Collection and 1988's excellent Track Record compilations were out of print. This release tries, and generally succeeds, as a comprehensive overview of the band's glory years. In fact, it's the only one to kick off with two pre-Burton Cummings nuggets: 1964's "Shakin' All Over" and a rare 1966 garage rocking psychedelic single, "It's My Pride." Collectors will also appreciate an early 1968 version of "When Friends Fall Out," a song re-recorded three years later for the American Woman album. From there on, this is a sturdy if unremarkable collection of fairly obvious selections, some of them, such as "Heartbroken Bopper," "Glamour Boy," and "Hang On to Your Life," reproduced in difficult to find single mixes.