Formed in 2020, Wigmore Soloists is a chamber ensemble made up of a roster of outstanding musicians, led by Isabelle van Keulen and Michael Collins. An associate ensemble of the iconic London concert venue Wigmore Hall, it is the first one to be given the honor of using the name. The core line-up of string quintet, wind quintet and piano makes it possible to perform a wide and varied repertoire, and for its first recording the ensemble has chosen one of the larger works in the chamber music literature, in terms of duration as well as the forces involved. Franz Schubert modelled his Octet in F major on Beethoven’s Septet, a work which during the 24 years since its composition had proven extremely popular in Vienna. Schubert therefore copied Beethoven’s instrumentation (with the addition of a second violin) as well as his general plan of six movements.

It was when Delphine Constantin-Reznik took up the post as harpist in the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra that she first came across the name Anton Pratté, well-known in his lifetime as a harpist and composer. Her research into the music and activities of this forgotten master has now resulted in the very first recording of any of his numerous compositions for the harp. Anton Edvard Pratté was born in Bohemia into a family that ran a touring puppet theatre. He came to Sweden as an adolescent, and soon made a name for himself, performing music of his own as well as by others. Pratté gave concerts across Sweden, as well as in Norway and Finland, and in the 1840s even went on an extensive tour of Europe, performing in Berlin (where members of the Prussian royal family were in the audience), Vienna and Prague.

Pianist Horace Tapscott is always at his best when he is leading a trio. This rare outing features Tapscott with his longtime bassist Roberto Miranda and drummer Sonship on three extended performances including Tapscott's colorful "Sketches Of Drunken Mary" and a 21-minute version of "The Dark Tree."

With the title "Irish Minimalism", composer Dave Flynn has laid down a marker. Minimalism is associated with America, and specifically with composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass (both of whom have spent a good portion of their careers disavowing the term). But the hallmarks of the style – repetition; gradual, incremental changes that accrue over time; steady rhythms, often drawn from popular or traditional music; and a restrained sense of harmonic movement – are all compatible with Irish traditional music. And after years spent as both a composer and performer working in the dual worlds of contemporary classical music and traditional song, Flynn has fashioned a personal musical language by recognizing that the differences between those two styles are not nearly as great, and certainly not as useful, as the similarities.

First live Steely Dan album in over 25 years, recorded across tour dates at Beacon Theatre, The Met Philadelphia & more. Featuring "Hey Nineteen," "Aja," "Reelin' in the Years" and more.
Most rock & roll bands are a tightly wound unit that developed their music through years of playing in garages and clubs around their hometown. Steely Dan never subscribed to that aesthetic. As the vehicle for the songwriting of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Steely Dan defied all rock & roll conventions. Becker and Fagen never truly enjoyed rock - with their ironic humor and cryptic lyrics, their eclectic body of work shows some debt to Bob Dylan - preferring jazz, traditional pop, blues, and R&B…

"Riptide" is the 8th studio album by English singer Robert Palmer, released in November 1985 by Island Records. The album was recorded over a period of three months in 1985 at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas. The album peaked at #5 on the UK Albums Chart and at #8 on the US Billboard 200. It was certified double Platinum in the US by the RIAA in March 1996 and certified Gold in the UK by BPI in August 1986. It features the songs "Addicted to Love", "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On", "Hyperactive", "Discipline of Love", and "Riptide" which were all released as singles.

"The recording of Bernardo Pasquini's Sonatas (1637-1710), which we present on this album, is a complete set of pieces, not a sound recording of an improvisation based on numerical bass notation. Partial notation became a pretext for Joanna Solecka to develop various types of polyphonic texture, in accordance with the rules of counterpoint characteristic of the composer's era.Therefore, in the presented realizations there is room for a canon, fugue and free imitation polyphony, as well as for contrasting polyphony and texture nota contra notam. requiring insight going beyond the essentially fleeting improvisation.It remains to be hoped that the presented interpretations of Bernardo Pasquini's Sonate per due cembali con il basso cifrato will take the listener not only on a journey through the world of baroque counterpoint techniques, but above all will touch his soul with the diversity of and the depth of affects. "

Forgotten, obscure, but most amazing and unusual act from the 70s - the band was formed in 1970 in Lansing, Michigan, by former gospel tenor Leon Morton and his gospel-mate Walter Ballard. Within it's short (18 months or so) career the band successfully tried to become the loudest and the hardest acid rock band - but without acid. Today they would've been called Christian rock. Back then, it was an act of short-lived Jesus Rock Movement - the musicians tried to preach ("Let Jesus bring you back", "Life everlasting"…) through acid-rock sound. Even the name of the band had Biblical reference. However, fronted by vocalists Sharon Keel and Ken Fitch, and supported by drummer Eddie Johnson (with Juliard background) the group achieved impressive results. In 1971 Monument Studios in Nashville (not the best place to play acid-rock) recorder this classic album.

When the pandemic struck early in 2020, violinist Elena Urioste and pianist-composer Tom Poster responded by channeling their creative energies into #UriPosteJukeBox, a portmanteau of their surnames and a nod to the retro feel of the jukebox with its eclectic selection of songs to be chosen by the listener. The original intention was to produce one video of the duo performing together for every day of the lockdown (which at the time was anticipated to be relatively brief). What followed was a project that took off in ways the pair had never dreamed of, capturing the imaginations and hearts of listeners across the globe, embracing requests that traversed many musical genres, featuring commissions by contemporary composers, and entertaining followers with increasingly elaborate costumes, props, additional instruments, and multi-tracking.
In all, they made 88 videos – one for each key on a piano. The impact of the endeavor and the joy it brought in an extraordinarily challenging time were more formally recognized when the Jukebox won a Royal Philharmonic Society Inspiration Award. This album captures the spontaneous and varied feel of the original videos, drawing together some of the duo’s favorite pieces in a way that celebrates this joyous project and all those who contributed to it.

This obscure LP finds Sonny Stitt sticking to tenor and playing a typical set filled with blues, standards and riff-filled originals. Organist Charles Kynard made his recording debut during this session, guitarist Ray Crawford and drummer Doug Sides are strong assets and the two versions of the emotional title cut are highpoints.

When Johnny Winter emerged on the national scene in 1969, the hope, particularly in the record business, was that he would become a superstar on the scale of Jimi Hendrix, another blues-based rock guitarist and singer who preceded him by a few years. That never quite happened, but Winter did survive the high expectations of his early admirers to become a mature, respected blues musician with a strong sense of tradition. He was born John Dawson Winter III on February 23, 1944, in Beaumont, Texas, where his brother Edgar Winter was born on December 28, 1946; both brothers were albinos.

The cliché about singer/songwriters is that they sing confessionals direct from their heart, but John Lennon exploded the myth behind that cliché, as well as many others, on his first official solo record, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Inspired by his primal scream therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov, Lennon created a harrowing set of unflinchingly personal songs, laying out all of his fears and angers for everyone to hear. It was a revolutionary record – never before had a record been so explicitly introspective, and very few records made absolutely no concession to the audience's expectations, daring the listeners to meet all the artist's demands…

Samira Spiegel is an exceptional talent: she has won prizes at international competitions on both the violin and the piano! With GENUIN, she now presents an exciting album featuring music for both instruments inspired by Bach. On the piano, the works range from Franz Liszt's "Fantasie und Fuge" to Busoni's adaptation of the "Chaconne" and Francis Poulenc's "Waltz Improvisation" to Damian Scholl's "une fleuve tranquille" from 2013. On the violin, she juxtaposes Eugène Ysaye's fifth solo sonata, which is genuinely haunted by Bach, with the original "Chaconne" by the great Leipzig master. An adventurous and ludicrously virtuosic ride through styles and centuries!

The Eliot Quartet has already been showered with prizes, including awards at the German Music Competition, the Mozart Competition in Salzburg, and the Melbourne Competition. It's new GENUIN release presents two milestones of the string quartet repertoire: Ludwig van Beethoven's Razumovsky Quartet, Op. 59 no. 1, and Sergei Prokofiev's thrilling Second Quartet. Both works deal with East European folklore, and the four musicians bring out their melodic colors and rhythmic peculiarities with great accuracy and homogeneity of sound.

Antonio Pompa-Baldi plays his solo piano arrangement of Respighi's B minor Violin Sonata, a dramatic work from his later period.