Viola Virtuosa aims to demonstrate that the viola can, in addition to producing all the deep, sad notes and songful qualities attributed to it, also be an independent solo instrument. The instrument’s position, between the violin and the cello, offers us violists many opportunities to combine elements from both soundscapes and there- by to create something independent and new. This CD features a number of transcriptions – not derived from a desire to take something from someone else, but because I am absolutely convinced that good music can be played in a variety of ways as long as we remain true to the spirit in which the work was originally composed.

With the present disc, Pascal Rophé and his Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire pay tribute to their great countryman, Claude Debussy – but not with the standard orchestral fare. Debussy Orchestrated paints a portrait of a light-hearted composer, seen through the eyes of two of his collaborators, Henri Büsser and André Caplet, who transferred the works recorded here from the keyboard to the orchestra. In Petite Suite, composed for piano four hands in 1899, Debussy makes allusions to Fêtes galantes by Paul Verlaine, the poet who so often inspired him.

Johann Sebastian Bach and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin go back a long way together. This recording, made with the welcome participation of Isabelle Faust and Antoine Tamestit, follows the complete violin concertos (2019), which left a lasting impression. Ever since a memorable first recording in the late 1990s, the Berlin musicians have returned regularly to the inexhaustible source of the Brandenburgs. They have achieved a sovereign mastery of what is not a single work, but six. In their hands, they become successive episodes of a piece of musical theater in love with dance, transparent sound and freedom.

Why any critic would think that Hank Mobley was at the end of his creative spark in 1963 - a commonly if stupidly held view among the eggheads who do this for a living - is ridiculous, as this fine session proves. By 1963, Mobley had undergone a transformation of tone. Replacing the scintillating airiness of his late-'50s sides was a harder, more strident, almost honking one, due in part to the influence of John Coltrane and in part to Mobley's deeper concentration on the expressing blues feeling in his trademark hard bop tunes. The CD version of this album sets the record straight, dropping some tunes form a session months earlier and replacing them with alternate takes of the title cut and "Carolyn" for historical integrity, as well as adding "Syrup and Biscuits" and "Comin' Back"…

The Waterboys, one of the most creative, loved and literate bands of the last four decades, return this summer with their 14th studio album Good Luck, Seeker. Comprising dramatic spoken-word over wild, relentless genre-busting music (is it psychedelic soul? Is it trance? punk?), My Wanderings In The Weary Land might just be the greatest rock’n’roll record ever made – and one that is darkly appropriate to our weird, wired times.

Legendary composer/guitarist Frank Zappa was born in Baltimore on his date in 1940. The Zappa Family Trust celebrates what would have been Frank’s 80th birthday had he not died in 1993 by sharing the A Very Zappa Birthday EP.

The Cross & the Crucible is the fifth studio album by the British neo-progressive band Pallas, released in 2001. The album was recorded in their own studio The Mill in Crathes, Aberdeenshire in the winter of 2000 to 2001. For the first time Pallas use guest musicians. The song The Cross And The Crucible is based on the Requiem by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The music of this album was, according to the reviewers, compared with Pallas' classic in the genre, The sentinel, especially in the pompous-sounding parts. The new logo of Pallas is also a return to The Sentinel. Patrick Woodroffe, creator of that album cover, designed it. The album tends to be a concept album about (the abuse of) science and faith.