Keyboardist-composer Vijay Iyer's energized sequence of ECM releases has garnered copious international praise. Yet his fifth for the label since 2014 Far From Over, featuring his dynamically commanding sextet finds Iyer reaching a new peak, furthering an artistry that led The Guardian to call him one of the world's most inventive new-generation jazz pianists and The New Yorker to describe him as extravagantly gifted… brilliantly eclectic.

2017 album from the German prog rockers. The Vision, The Sword and the Pyre is a rock opera about Joan of Arc. Composed, directed and produced by Frank Bornemann, the work is dedicated to the life and acts of the late Middle Age French heroine Joan of Arc, canonised in 1920, and combines unique musical complexity with absolute and unbiased historical precision. Eloy aside, Frank Bornemann is an acclaimed supervisor and producer of well-known bands of different musical stripes (including Scorpions, Guano Apes and Revolverheld).

Eugène Ysaÿe sketched out his six sonatas for solo violin in just 24 hours, after hearing a concert by the violinist Joseph Szigeti in which the latter played the G Minor Sonata BMV 1001 by Johann Sebastian Bach. The 65-year-old Ysaÿe dedicated each of his op. 27 sonatas to a different violinist – he portrayed their characters in the sonatas, but also showed whom he ideally wanted as interpreter for each work. Except for Manuel Quiroga, whose health was very poor, all of the other five virtuosos played the sonata dedicated to them.

„In this new album, Cathy Krier takes an original step and goes entirely against the grain of her previous programmatic approach. In her two most recent CDs she had juxtaposed the apparently divergent styles of Rameau and Ligeti, or Liszt vs. Berg/Schoenberg, uncovering astounding new connections among them. The current release now takes the opposite path. At first glance, Claude Debussy – the inventor of musical Impressionism – and Karol Szymanowski – often called the ‘Polish Impressionist’ – would seem to have much in common.

Familia Tribute To Bebo and Chico is an awe-inspiring collaborative album between Arturo O’Farrill and Chucho Valdez. Spanning three generations of musicians, the project is a tribute to the musical legacy of their fathers: Dionisio Ramón Emilion “Bebo” Valdés Amaro and Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill. The first half presents a blending of Afro-Cuban music genres, jazz idioms, and Haitian meringue, and overall is reminiscent of Latin jazz compositions of the 1950s-90s.

The passion and charisma of Maria Callas, performing live on the stages of the world’s greatest opera houses and concert halls, can now be experienced as never before – thanks to new audio remastering from the best available sources. These are performances that played a crucial part in creating the legend of Callas, La Divina, and which keep her thrilling art very much alive.

The ensemble Les Surprises was born under the lucky star of Jean-Philippe Rameau, since its name refers to Les Surprises de l’Amour, the opéra-ballet he composed in 1748. Hence, after presenting two discs on the Ambronay Éditions label, the first devoted to Rebel and Francoeur, the second to Destouches and Delalande, I thought it important to tackle one of our favourite composers.

"I wanted it to be the biggest sounding Foo Fighters record ever. To make a gigantic rock record but with Greg Kurstin's sense of melody and arrangement… Motorhead's version of Sgt. Pepper… or something like that." So speaks Dave Grohl of the mission statement made manifest in Foo Fighters' ninth epic, the aptly-titled Concrete and Gold, due out September 15 worldwide on Roswell Records / RCA Records. Concrete and Gold was written and performed by Foo Fighters, produced by Greg Kurstin and Foo Fighters, and mixed by Darrell Thorp.