With Oslo, Michael Wollny and his trusty rhythm section (bassist Christian Weber and drummer Eric Schaefer) confirm that their project is as solid as ever. Recorded at Rainbow Studio in the Norwegian capital in September 2017, the album confirms that Wollny is one of the most skilful German jazz pianists of his generation. An improviser, here he deploys his staple piano style, with plenty of spaces and silences. His playing carries a sincere romanticism which never feels overdone, and a muted tonality.

“Wartburg” fizzes and shimmers with all the acuity of Michael Wollny's senses and his protean capacity to be alive to the possibilities and the magic of the moment. This is improvising at the limit, life seen through a dream. The album also documents a first-ever encounter of his trio with Emile Parisien, arguably the most influential and original voice on soprano sax today. A unique moment in contemporary jazz.

Long before he had heard the whole of Mozart’s C Major Piano Concerto, Finnish jazz pianist Iiro Rantala had known the andante. “The second movement,” he explains, “is on the soundtrack to the James Bond Film ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’. It’s the scene where they show you the underwater city – and it’s my absolute favourite Bond film.”

Dance is more than movement to music. Dance is passion and pure lust for life. Celebrations call for dancing. That was as true in the palaces and the taverns of the 18th century as it is today in the techno temples of the new era. This is the surging river that ECHO-Klassik winners Spark have set out to bridge in their project "On the Dancefloor". The Classical Band throws an arch from the spirited ballet music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to the chamber techno penned by contemporary composer Sebastian Bartmann, finding that two seemingly contrasting worlds actually fit very well together.

The main composers presented here are Johann Hermann Schein and Melchior Franck, the essential representatives of early German baroque. Schein and Franck were almost exact contemporaries of each other, and developed their respective careers not fifty leagues apart – Coburg for Franck, Leipzig for Schein, who was, remember, a predecessor of Bach's in the role of Cantor of Saint Thomas – but it seems they never met.

The composers presented in this recording, Aniello Santangelo, Gennaro Manna and Ferdinando Lizio, were trained and worked all their lives in Naples, both as teachers in the fantastic "musical forges" represented by the town's four conservatories; and as instrumentalists in the five theatres (no less) that Naples boasted. Between 1732 and 1737, for example, Santangelo was a violinist for the Teatro de Fiorentini, the Teatro Nuovo and the Teatro San Carlo.

A cornucopia of catchy melodies and hypnotic music from the king of minimalist piano.

The genesis of Anton Bruckner's Eighth Symphony was perhaps ignited by a bout of sudden fame that boosted the composer’s constantly shaky self-confidence. After the performance of Bruckner’s Seventh, the famous conductor Hermann Levi had hailed him as "the greatest symphonist since the death of Beethoven". Frequently ridiculed in Vienna, Bruckner had finally been taken seriously in Munich: his importance had been recognized, and the Austrian emperor had awarded him the Order of Franz Joseph – something that filled the composer with pride.

Chamber music arrangements of symphonies were very common in the late 18th and early 19th century, and it is probably true that a large proportion of the people who were familiar with the symphonic repertoire at the time were so because of them. The Second Symphony is the only one for which Beethoven himself produced an arrangement, although there is evidence that his student Ferdinand Ries did the bulk of the work, with Beethoven adding the finishing touches.

Tower of Power - the most dynamic and distinctive band of survivors in Soul Music - is roaring into its unprecedented 50th anniversary with a dynamic disc of all new material. A labor of love, definitively titled Soul Side of Town, this package is charged with 14 filler-free songs. As always, the songs on Tower of Power's Soul Side of Town were primarily composed by the hit-making team of founding members Emilio Castillo and Stephen "Doc" Kupka who also hold down the world famous 5-man Tower of Power Horns.