The Stabat Mater Dolorosa is a sequence, not a chant, and no unified melody was established for it until the mid-nineteenth century; it was even banned for a time by the Council of Trent, but restored to liturgical use in the late 1720s by Pope Benedict XIII. Much as Prohibition did not stem the tide of alcohol use, the Council of Trent's ban on the text did not diminish the popularity of the Stabat Mater. It was during the official, 160-year-long period where the Stabat Mater was not heard in churches that Giovanni Felice Sances composed the title work on this Mirare CD Stabat Mater, featuring Carlos Mena, Philippe Pierlot, and the Ricercar Consort.

Jephtha, first performed in 1752, was Handel’s last major work, written while he was struggling with poor health and failing eyesight. Yet the score contains some of his most powerful and moving music, notably the chorus’s bleak paean to blind faith, ‘How dark, O Lord, are Thy decrees!’ Jephtha is also one of his more operatic oratorios and, if many Baroque operas require the suspension of disbelief, this libretto (by Thomas Morell) may need modern listeners to suspend their distaste at the perversities of its 18th-century pietism. Handel’s wonderfully humane music cuts through all such sanctimony, however, as if – as the Handel scholar Winton Dean has argued – in highlighting the themes of personal suffering and capricious fate, Handel implicitly ‘makes Jehovah the villain of the piece’.

It should come as no surprise that Van Morrison has made an album inspired by skiffle. Van Morrison’s love of skiffle dates back to his childhood. He would hang out at the famed Belfast record store Atlantic Records, where he’d hear early 20th century folk, blues and jazz from the likes of Lead Belly and Jelly Roll Morton. So when he heard Lonnie Donegan’s take on ‘Rock Island Line’ he intuitively understood the music he was creating. Before long, Van Morrison was playing with a skiffle band in school.

One might be forgiven for thinking Beatles Baroque III by Les Boréades would actually sound Baroque, as it and two previous volumes are billed, but such is not the case. Even though this Canadian early music ensemble has impressive credentials, and plays the repertoire from Frescobaldi to C.P.E. Bach with aplomb, its performances on this disc are overwhelmingly modern in feeling and not too far removed from the actual music produced by the Beatles and George Martin in the 1960s.

Deutsche Grammophon is releasing 16 new e-albums comprising Claudio Abbado’s Complete Recordings on the Yellow Label – the legacy of a legend. Together these digital releases include over 250 hours of first-rate recordings and feature an A-Z of composers. Volume 9 in the series presents a comprehensive set of Abbado’s Mozart interpretations.

Piet Blank and Jaspa Jones - the producers known worldwide. For two they have let out already many albums and tens magnificent singles, reliably having fixed in world history of dancing music. Their hits more than once appeared at tops of charts, and each new album stably got to number 50 of the best to Germany. The first release which has left in 2003 of an album "Relax: Edition One" to a descent has occupied 22 place in charts of Germany, and a chill-miss the version of track Pet Shop Boys "Love Comes Quickly" from this album became the present hit.

Gabrielle De Val is a Spanish Singer, Songwriter and Voice-Over Actress, known for her role in The Val and most recently guesting on Bruce Mee’s concept album Circle Of Friends. 'Kiss in a Dragon Night', is Gabrielle's first solo album, organised and arranged by Bruce Mee. Together with producer Khalil Turk (Escape Music), he shaped the idea and created an album involving vocalists such as Steve Overland (FM), Mick Devine (Seven), Robin McAuley (MSG), Mark Boals (Yngwie Malmsteen) and Terry Brock (Strangeways) as well as musicians such as Gary Pihl (Boston), Eric Ragno (Joe Lynn Turner), Johan Kullberg (HammerFall) and Fredrik Folkare (Nordic Union).

Don’t forget Early Music Day on March 21st! We will celebrate this year with digital premieres of two beautiful albums. Ars Britannica is a superb journey through English music from Dunstable to Dowland by vocal ensemble Pro Cantione Antiqua. Various pieces are excerpted from the Old Hall Manuscript, our main source of English sacred music of the late 14th-century. They are coupled with a florilegium of Elizabethan a cappella madrigals, and songs accompanied by the voluble lute of Christopher Wilson.

Don’t forget Early Music Day on March 21st! We will celebrate this year with digital premieres of two beautiful albums. Pedro Memelsdorff is a renowned musicologist who founded the ensemble Mala Punica. With them he intensively explored the music of the Italian Trecento during his partnership with Erato, leading to three albums we’ve gathered under the title Gothic Italy. These recordings include the complete motets of Ciconia, a Flemish composer who settled in Padua and was one of the most important figures of the ars subtilior. Then, the complete songs - mostly in French - by the very innovative Matteo da Perugia, one of the first ever composers to put instrumental recommendations in his scores. These are coupled with a Missa cantilena, a parody mass made up by Memelsdorff after sacred or adapted profane pieces from various Italian 15th-century codices, which is an absolute splendor!

Gina Bachauer trained with the Rachmaninov at the beginning of her career. Here, she performs the old composer's second piano concerto, with its beloved Adagio, along with the solo Preludes.

Created in 1971 for percussion and voice, 'Drumming' represented a turning point in the compositional style of American innovator Steve Reich. Ensemble Links gives the listeners at the Philharmonie de Paris a new perspective of Reich's minimalist music. 'Drumming in Motion' is a staged interpretation, bringing the musicians into the audience space.

When Donald Fagen and Walter Becker re-formed Steely Dan in 1994, they didn't put out a new album. They undertook a tour of sports arenas, their first tour since the days of Countdown to Ecstasy. Since Steely Dan became stars after they retired from performing, many of their dedicated fans never got a chance to see the group in concert. Given those circumstances, maybe the uniformly positive reviews of the tour were predictable. But as Alive in America proves, the shows weren't earth-shaking. Certainly they were fun - there's no denying it's a thrill to hear these songs in a live setting, both for fans and for Becker and Fagen themselves - but essentially they were exercises in nostalgia. Alive in America is enjoyable, but it offers no new insight into Steely Dan as performers, or Becker and Fagen as songwriters.

Frontiers Music Srl is pleased to announce the signing of an incredible new trio, Heroes And Monsters. Formed by three rock n' roll lifers and friends, bassist/vocalist Todd Kerns, guitarist Stef Burns, and drummer Will Hunt, the band's self-titled debut album will be released on January 20, 2023. The players' resumes speak for themselves, but rest assured, if you are looking for hard hitting, hooky, in-your-face rock-n-roll, then Heroes And Monsters will be good for what ails you. The band approaches their style with their influences in tow, but also with an understanding and appreciation of the current rock scene. A best of both worlds scenario, if you will.