Together, Corey Cerovsek and Paavali Jumppanen have turned in one of the freshest, sweetest, and altogether most charming sets of Beethoven's violin sonatas in years. Though not imbued with the blazing virtuosity that Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich or the heightened expressivity that Itzhak Perlman and Vladimir Ashkenazy brought to the works, Cerovsek and Jumppanen create performances of poise, depth, and refinement.

Girl Talk was recorded live to two-track using a single microphone. The liner notes state that Holly Cole's intention in doing so was to preserve the "quintessence of her live performances," and the result is dazzlingly successful. The air of intimacy between artist and listener is so great that, if anything, the feeling of being present in the moment is greater here than on the 1996 live album It Happened One Night. On an album recorded "live in concert," the ambient noises that occur when a large number of people are gathered in one place can seem discordant or inappropriate when you're listening to the CD in your car or your living room; the atmosphere can exclude rather than include you.

Michael Mantler, jazz and new music iconoclast, has been on a quest for the past 25 years to find new marriages of voices and words in his compositions. Here, with the help of distinguished vocalists such as Robert Wyatt and Susi Hyldgaard, he has succeeded in perhaps finally finding that direction without faltering. In the past he has employed not only Wyatt and Hyldgaard, but also Marianne Faithfull and the poems of Beckett, Brecht, Mallarme, and others, but always with mixed results.

Bartók's Duos are triple-threats: progressions of very brief practice works for violinists from students to skilled artists; transformations of folk dances and songs into art works; and pieces for concert performance, either piecemeal or complete. The Keller-Pilz duo makes its own sequence of the 44 primarily to heighten contrasts and sustain interest, a practice sanctioned by Bartók since the published order progressing from easiest to most difficult doesn't complement the pure listening experience. This revised order certainly works in these spirited performances.

Gould was a great admirer of the conductor Joseph Krips, and hearing them in the Emperor together you can sense the partnership is a strong one with Gould giving his most convincing performance of the fifth we have on record. He's quicker and leaner than with on the later Studio recording with Stokowski, and Krips is fiery and alert with the excellent Buffalo Symphony.

Gioseffo Zarlino (1517–1590), a priest, was maestro di cappella at San Marco for the last 25 years of his life, following Adrian Willaert and Cypriano de Rore. A year after arriving at San Marco, he published this book of 13 motets for six voices. These motets are being published this year (2013) in a modern edition by Cristle Collins Judd, the annotator of this disc, along with four motets for four voices published a year later (not recorded here).

John Peel favourites and Dandelion Records proto-metallers Stack Waddy burned brightly and briefly during a recording career that barely lasted two years in the early 1970s. Leaving behind two albums of pounding, blues and psych infused heavy rock, some BBC appearances and a handful of outtakes, the Manchester four-piece imprinted themselves firmly enough on the memories of anybody who saw them to remain cult favourites today. Drawn together here are all of Stack Waddy’s Dandelion Records recordings - the ‘Stack Waddy’ and ‘Bugger Off!’ albums alongside a John Peel compered BBC In Concert performance and the aforementioned outtakes. Raw, bloody and never far from a beer or two, the band tear through Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, The Kinks, Zappa, Beefheart and even Sinatra, as well as their own excellent material.

The title is a tip-off that after the soul excursion of The Reflection, Keb' Mo' is getting back to the blues, but also that he's concerned with not limiting himself to just that genre. It's clear Keb' Mo' has a broad view of the blues, seeing it as the backbone of American music, a generous definition he makes plain on Bluesamericana. As the record rolls through its ten tracks, it amiably drifts across the country, touching upon the careening New Orleans stomp of "Old Me Better" as well as the soulful thrum of Memphis on "For Better or Worse." Keb' Mo' takes plenty of stops along the way, favoring a bit of Chicago grind and low-key Texas shuffles, but usually he pours it all into a relaxed, friendly groove that leaves plenty of space for his warm, cheerful vocals…

By 1967, bossa nova had become quite popular within jazz and traditional pop audiences, yet Frank Sinatra hadn't attempted any Brazil-influenced material. Sinatra decided to record a full-fledged bossa nova album with the genre's leading composer, Antonio Carlos Jobim. Arranged by Claus Ogerman and featuring Jobim on guitar and backing vocals, Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim concentrated on Jobim's originals, adding three American classics - "Baubles, Bangles and Beads," "Change Partners," and "I Concentrate on You" - that were rearranged to suit bossa nova conventions. The result was a subdued, quiet album that used the Latin rhythms as a foundation, not as a focal point. Supported by a relaxed, sympathetic arrangement of muted brass, simmering percussion, soft strings, and Jobim's lilting guitar, Sinatra turns in an especially noteworthy performance…

In the last 30 years, the relationship between the leading Czech string quartets and Janáček two String Quartets has evolved markedly. The best Czech performers have always produced fine recordings of these extraordinary works, but more recent generations of players have pursued a different level of engagement. While performances such as that of the Talich Quartet (2005) show remarkable insight, recordings by other quartets, such as the Haas and ≤kampa, grapple with the passion and drama, occasionally even sadism in these turbulent works. The Pražák Quartet has an international reputation in Czech repertoire, in particular for their Dvořák their new recording of Janáček’s Quartets shares many of their fellow ensembles’ keen engagement with the composer’s language.