The Fall of a Rebel Angel is the eighth studio album from the German musical project Enigma, released on 11 November 2016 by Republic Records. The first studio album since Seven Lives Many Faces (2008), it is a concept album that tells the story of a protagonist's journey of development and change to find a new, fulfilling life. The album was developed by Enigma's founder, producer, and principal composer, Michael Cretu and German lyricist and librettist Michael Kunze. Its artwork was designed by Wolfgang Beltracchi.

Spirits Having Flown is the fifteenth album released by the Bee Gees. It was the group's first album after their collaboration on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. The album's first three tracks were released as singles and all reached No. 1 in the US, giving the Bee Gees an unbroken run of six US chart-toppers in a one-year period and equaling a feat shared by Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, and The Beatles. It was the first Bee Gees album to make the UK top 40 in ten years (not counting the soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever), as well as being their first and only UK No. 1 album.

Nicola Benedetti’s new album on Decca Classics features premiere recordings of two works written especially for her by jazz musician Wynton Marsalis: Violin Concerto in D and Fiddle Dance Suite for Solo Violin.

In earlier times, adaptations and rearrangements of their own works or those of others formed an integral part of the daily lives of musicians and composers. So-called ‘historically informed’ performance practice, which has developed out of a strictly historical perspective on past eras of music, long left this way of treating an existing composition almost totally unexplored. Today, however, it is enjoying a renaissance and is part of a musician’s training. The idea of arranging Bach’s works is a natural one, since the composer himself was an inveterate transcriber. Most of the programme recorded here consists of solo keyboard works rescored for a chamber formation – in other words, the performers have chosen an approach that is the contrary of Bach’s usual practice. A fascination for the timbral possibilities of the viola da gamba trio and a shared passion for Bach’s music prompted the Cellini Consort to create this original and personal programme.

lack Oak Ensemble, a string trio boasting three of Chicago’s most enterprising and dynamic chamber musicians, makes its recording debut with Silenced Voices, an album of intriguing works by six promising, early 20th century Jewish composers originally from Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands. One survived World War II as a member of the Dutch resistance, the others perished in concentration camps and elsewhere in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Alessandro Grandi (born in Venice in 1590), regarded by scholars as “the greatest motet composer of his time”, was a prominent figure of the new Venetian style in the first half of the seventeenth century. An extremely precocious talent, he was considered by his contemporaries equal to Claudio Monteverdi. Yet our knowledge of his life and musical output is scanty, and thus he has remained mostly undiscovered. “Celesti fiori” (celestial flowers), a title taken from his Fifth Book of Motets, is the first complete monograph recording dedicated to this important composer. It consists of a selection of works, almost all recorded here for the first time, chosen from his books of motets, all published between 1610 and 1630.

Professional chamber choir The Crossing moves listeners with their new release THE ARC IN THE SKY, a breathtaking performance of the eponymous work by accomplished choral composer Kile Smith. Based on texts by Robert Lax (1915–2000), it constitutes an American pilgrimage into spirituality.

Hannah Lash’s multi-layered music balances rhetoric with sensuality and enters into a dialogue with pre-existent forms while simultaneously reexamining them. On this excellent recording of her music for string quartet by the JACK Quartet, we hear Lash’s engagement with two canonic traditions as points of inspiration (the Baroque Suite as well as an extra musical discipline — tapestry arts from the Middle Ages), alongside two works that concern themselves with instrumental and musical phenomenon.

Since graduating from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 2005, soprano Veronika Dzhioeva has become one of Russia’s leading singers, and is in great demand throughout Europe and abroad, regularly appearing at prestigious houses and working with leading orchestras and conductors. A remarkably versatile singer, she has won considerable acclaim for her mastery of parts ranging from Mozart to the weightiest of spinto and dramatic soprano roles.

Schumann composed the Intermezzi Op. 4 in Spring 1832 and declared that they were special works, conceived as “longer Papillons” where “every note ought to be weighed and balanced”. The Intermezzi employ the same techniques used in Op. 2: quotations, fragments, and metamorphoses of poetry into music. The Piano Sonata in F sharp minor Op. 11 was written between 1833-35 and dedicated to his beloved Clara Wieck, to whom Schumann addresses with the two alter-egos of his split personality, Florestan and Eusebius, the former enthusiastic and passionate, the latter introvert and reflective.

Mark Knopfler’s ninth solo studio album ‘Down The Road Wherever’ features unhurriedly elegant new songs inspired by a wide range of subjects, including his early days in Deptford with Dire Straits, a stray football fan lost in a strange town, and the compulsion of a musician hitching home through the snow. Mark has a poet’s eye for telling details that infuse his songs with his unique psychogeography – ‘where the Delta meets the Tyne’ as he describes it – and his warm Geordie vocal tone and his deft, richly melodic guitar playing are as breathtaking and thrilling as ever.

The Dream of the Rood sets texts chosen by the composer from the Anglo-Saxon poem of the same name which dramatically describes the story of the crucifixion in a highly original portrayal of Christ’s death coupled with Casken’s own arrangement of Pérotin’s Viderunt omnes, the earliest surviving vocal work of plainsong in four parts. In both arrangements, Casken introduces a large instrumental ensemble and masterfully enhances the medieval texts and music of the originals within a highly effective contemporary context. Alongside these are three pieces from the rare Conductus repertoire of the 12th/13th centuries which have been core to The Hilliard Ensemble's performing library.

Acclaimed international piano trio Trio Casals makes a triumphant return with the fourth installment of Navona Records' MOTO series, zestfully interpreting nine new American compositions – virtually all of them either tailor-made or arranged for the ensemble.

Leon Russell's accolades are monumental in a number of categories, from songwriting to session playing, to his solo work. Leon Russell and the Shelter People is the second solo album by the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. This 1971 gem shot to No. 17 on the Billboard album charts.

The Beach Boys, one of the world’s most legendary and influential bands, have reunited for a global 50th Anniversary Tour. Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, and David Marks will tour together for the first time in more than two decades.