On his debut GENUIN CD, Simon Luethy lets his nearly 300-year-old violin by Nicola Gagliano sing: The violinist, who made his Carnegie Hall debut back in 2017, plays works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Sergei Prokofiev, Henryk Wieniawski, and Franz Waxman – all highlights of the repertoire and touchstones for any young musician. Luethy plays the classic Spring Sonata and the bravura Carmen Fantasy with precise articulation and tonal beauty. In the sonatas, pianist Alexandra Troussova proves to be an equal partner, and in the virtuoso pieces she provides the young violinist with a rich-sounding backdrop.

The “Sei Suonate à Cembalo certato è Violino Solo”, as Bach’s six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord (BWV 1014–1019) are entitled in the oldest surviving fair copy, are undoubtedly among those works which have set new standards in chamber music. They have long established themselves on the world’s concert platforms, and yet they still raise questions. There is no certainty about when or where the sonatas were written. Did Bach compose them when he moved to Leipzig?

Previous instalments of the Beethoven sonata cycle from Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen have met with wide acclaim. Described as ‘conversations by a perfect instrumental pairing’ in BBC Music Magazine, the discs have received a Choc in Classica and the recommendation of German website klassik.com, respectively. This the third and final volume brings together Beethoven's last three works in the genre, composed between 1801 and 1812. The centre-piece is the ninth sonata, the famed ‘Kreutzer Sonata’. The title page of the first edition described the sonata as ‘written in a highly concertante style’ and it does indeed surpass everything that had previously been written in the genre, in terms of scale as well as technical and compositional complexity.

It is not by chance that luminous textures and sensual orchestral colors are considered essential features of French music. Its history features great names renowned for their art of instrumentation and sensitive use of timbres, who include the composers of the cello concertos on this recording: Camille Saint-Saëns, whose instrumentation technique always combines color with transparency, Édouard Lalo, who was highly esteemed by Claude Debussy for the wealth of color in his works, and Arthur Honegger, who painted striking soundscapes not only in his Cello Concerto but in his works without a large orchestra as well. Often it is the fine shadings and delicate transitions that characterize the tone colors of French music and are responsible for its delightful charm. Daniel Müller-Schott – Opus Klassik award winner 2019 – appealingly combines five works from the French sound kaleidoscope on his newest album with the DSO Berlin and Alexandre Bloch ‘Four Visions of France’.

This is a riot! Rather than put out some windy and dreary box set to celebrate their 30th anniversary, Canada's seminal power prog band and one of big rock's most enduring units turns the tables and lays out hot and heavy covers of eight classics from the annals of rock & roll history. The track list is amazing, and the cool thing is that the arrangements of these nuggets are not all ripped up and mutated, either. "Summertime Blues" may begin as a nod to Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady," but it comes roaring back as an acknowledged homage to the Who's Live at Leeds version.

Duke Ellington's concert at the 1959 Newport Jazz Festival lacked the excitement and adventure of his appearances in 1956 and 1958. Ellington and his orchestra played their usual program of standards and features with the 14-and-a-half-minute "Idiom '59" being introduced…

When a band boasts two former Elton John sidemen (drummer Nigel Olsson and guitarist Davey Johnstone), one expects some very '70s-sounding rock. And that's pretty much what happened when, in the early 1990s, they united with singer Billy Trudel, keyboardist Guy Babylon and bassist Bob Birch to form Warpipes. For the most part, Holes In the Heavens isn't as Elton-sounding as one might expect – instead, the quintet often goes for a slick arena-rock approach that has more in common with Nazareth. This little-known CD isn't earth-shattering, but it does have its strong points, including the rootsy "Son of a Loaded Gun," the invigorating "Satellite City" and the haunting title song.

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan is a documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th-century American popular music and culture. The film focuses on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his "retirement" from touring following his motorcycle accident in July 1966…

Supercharger's Goes Way Out gained instant access into the trash rock pantheon. From the recorded in a kitchen sound and ringing guitar feedback sequels to the bratty singing and pissed-off lyrics, this album is like a guidebook on playing and recording minimalist punk rock…

Prine's third album is louder and more jaded than his first efforts, a set of rowdy country-rockers that tear along at a reckless speed. Sympathy takes a back seat to cynicism here, and while that strips the record of some depth, Prine's irreverence is consistently thrilling, making this one of his best…

Waeltaja is an epic glorification of the harsh nature of the north and a tribute to the myths and legends that are still to this day told in northern Finland. It is a tale of a wanderer embarking on a quest to find the northernmost shores of Pohjola - the worlds end, to learn the wisdom of the respected seers of the North, to bathe in the ice-cold sea - in the realm of Ahti and eventually return home from his travels like a pilgrim of pagan ways. On his way back our protagonist is caught in a blizzard thus making his journey home a trial of strenght against the forces of nature as he gets lost in the cold, battling the elements and his own spirits during his long road back to the forests of ancient Kainuu. This poetic tale was written and performed by visiting talent S.Korpituli (Iku-Turso, Korpituli, Khanus, Wrathage, etc.) in native Finnish. The album was composed by Grim666 in a search for a more simplistic sound, using harmonies instead of lead guitar, making more space for the ambience of the keyboards in order to deliver an ice-cold experience of Finnish Black Metal.

This two-disc, European import serves up a nice career overview of U.K.-based, blue-eyed soul/Sophisti-Pop outfit Simply Red. Split into two parts, disc one ("Hold Me") focuses on the ballads ("Holding Back the Years," "If You Don't Know Me by Now," "Stars," and "We're in This Together"), while the second disc ("Thrill Me") narrows its sights on the group's penchant for radio-friendly dance-pop ("The Right Thing," "Moneys Too Tight (To Mention)," "Something Got Me Started," and "Fairground"). At 38 tracks, Very Best of Simply Red may be a bit much for the casual fan (2008's definitive 25: The Greatest Hits remains the group's most cohesive and streamlined collection), but it's a goldmine for listeners who have followed Mick "Red" Hucknall and his rotating cast of players since 1985.

Hexahedron documents the second of the two dazzling, sold-out Ulver shows in the legendary Studio at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter at Høvikodden back in April 2018. A special commission and “an honourable undertaking”, as Tore Ylwizaker put it in their career-spanning book Wolves Evolve – The Ulver Story, published last year. “To orientate our music into an art setting is appealing to me”, he said. “Doing whatever we want, not knowing what it’s supposed to become or where it will end up.” During the shows at Henie Onstad the band found themselves trapped in a multidimensional “hypercube” in the middle of the asymmetric space. Inside it they experimented with all-new ideas in an installation as galactic as the music presented was unmistakably ulverish. Around them, the audience moved unhindered among hallucinatory lights and laser-guided melodies, losing themselves in interstellar clouds of gas, dust and broken junk of exploded stars.