This is the original Prokofiev/Ravel concerto coupling as it appeared on LP; the Prokofiev has also been coupled with the Tchaikovsky First Concerto. I prefer this edition since superb performances of the Ravel are less common. The young (1967) Martha Argerich plays the Prokofiev for maximum brilliance but leavens the Ravel with the composer's ironic lyricism. It's very effective. The bonus is one of the greatest performances of the Ravel piano suite ever recorded, but it leaves me wondering what will happen to the remainder of the original LP. All those solo Ravel pieces should be in the catalog; as Argerich plays them, they offer a primer on what keyboard color is all about.

Violinist Jennifer Koh’s „Bach & Beyond Part 2“ is the newest installment in a three-album cycle based on her ground-breaking, multi-year recital series of the same name. Koh, “a masterly Bach interpreter and a champion of contemporary repertory” (The New York Times), performs J S Bach’s landmark violin Sonatas and Partitas alongside 20th and 21st century solo violin works they’ve inspired, including new commissions.

Intense, romantic music-making from the world’s most captivating pianist. Thrilling, deeply personal interpretations of the dark, passionate sound-worlds of both Brahms piano concertos. A unique, multi-faceted artist who continues to push creative boundaries, Grimaud is one of few pianists to conquer the monumental dimensions of the epic Op.83.

The Dadaist provocation of the cover, announcing dog but showing cat, speaks volumes about the quartet’s musical aesthetics: if humour is one of their ways of standing back, it is not the only one. The group assume head-on the tragical and operatic accents of the themes that pass through Dieu m’a brossé les dents (God has brushed my teeth): dirges and dying voices. But from the first notes of the introduction, where the zither duplicates and bypasses the remote ringing of the piano, the drama takes on a layer of fantasy. Sitting on the edge of the mirror, we are surrounded by roaming ghosts and floating shadows. By freeing the themes from their gravity, this aesthetic choice defuses a pathos that is close at regular intervals.

Starsailor burst onto the scene in 2001 when their single Fever earned them the title of "Britain's best new band". The band was formed at Wigan and Leigh Music College by music students James Walsh (vocals/guitar), James Stelfox (bass), and Ben Byrne (drums). Later saw the arrival of keyboardist Barry Westhead, who cemented their sound. In April 2000, after seeing their first London show (at the Heavenly Social) the NME wrote: "One live encounter was enough to convince many sceptics that here was a band who were genuinely special, blessed with a singer whose voice thrummed like an emotional telegraph wire, that swerved the pitfalls of indie melancholia and were clearly in love with rock 'n' roll and all its possibilities." Their debut album Love Is Here featuring the Top 10 single Alcoholic, reached Number Two in the UK Album Charts in October 2001, after receiving great critical acclaim and went on to sell over half a million copies in the UK alone.

A saxophone, the desire to unravel a new kind of sound. Guillaume Perret is a sound explorer. He plays the wa-wa pedals and electric effects to elevate his notes to a new and surprising universe, one that makes you dream, distorting sounds to make them strangely more musical. His music doesn’t belong to a specific genre, rather it calls upon our senses. It is an innovative mixture of contemporary Jazz, funky grooves, screaming metal… a hybrid sort of music, troubling, bewitching, that evokes sensations and imagery. Designed as a movie soundtrack, Free aims to be a free path through different landscapes, different emotion.