Dutch singer and songwriter Caroline Van der Leeuw is back - with a new name, a new sound, a new mission. Emphasising the depth and breadth of her artistic transformation, Nowhere Near The Sky (produced By David Kosten - Bat For Lashes, Everything Everything) is The Jordan’s extraordinary, game-changing debut album, a new chapter that comprehensively rewrites Caroline’s story as former singer of Dutch pop group Caro Emerald. Gone is the jazz, the swing, the Latin rhythms, the rockabilly, the heavily stylised wardrobe. In their place: total candour and unvarnished truth, vocals purer and more powerful than anything she has recorded before, trip-hop and folktronic textures that wrap her voice in magic and mystery, and songwriting that, after years of doubt and repressed feelings, finally pulls back the veil.

The old philosopher Don Alfonso enrages his two friends, the officers Ferrando and Guglielmo, with his claim that their fiancées will sooner or later be unfaithful to them - like all women. He proposes a wager, which the two friends accept. They swear on their honour as soldiers that they will prove him wrong and that Dorabella and Fiordiligi are not like “all women”. The immaculately restored eighteenth-century Court Theatre at the country residence of the Swedish Royal Family is the ideal home for period opera. Ever since Drottningholm Court Theatre was rediscovered in the 1920s, it has served as a living memorial to the fabulous extravagance of courtly entertainment and provided the wherewithal for the recreation of the spectacular scenic transformations of the seventeenth and eighteenth century operatic repertoire.

This lesser-known Sonny Clark session (his only studio album not made for Blue Note) is sometimes issued under drummer Max Roach's name, too. They are joined by bassist George Duvivier for a set of generally obscure Clark originals including "Minor Meeting," "Blues Mambo," and "My Conception" (which is taken as an unaccompanied piano solo). Although not obvious while listening to his recording, Clark's life was in decline and this would be his penultimate date as a leader.

Willpower was really designed to be Jack Bruce's Crossroads – it followed Clapton's monumental box by a year, had similar artwork, a similar approach that blended selections from throughout his various projects, and the same remastering/production team. Thing is, Bruce didn't have the commercial success of Clapton, nor did he have the same sizable following (although his fans were indeed devoted), and critics just sorta gave up paying attention around 1970, so there wasn't much of an audience for Willpower upon its release in 1989. Nevertheless, it's a pretty terrific summary of Bruce's career, never staying too long in one particular period (even the selections from Cream lack such heavy hitters as "Sunshine of Your Love" or "I Feel Free"), and encapsulating how unpredictable and adventurous Bruce's career has been.

Born in Toledo, Diego Ortiz published the Trattado de Glosas in Rome in 1553. At that time he was living in Naples in the service of Ferdinand Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba and Viceroy of Naples. This region was deeply influenced by Spain. His treatise, published simultaneously in Spanish and Italian, is first and foremost a precious source for the art of Spanish instrumental performance. The second book of the Trattado de Glosas is performed here in its entirety, with Bruno Cocset and Guido Balestracci alternating in the Recercadas. As a counterpoint to this corpus mingling inventiveness and virtuosity, the programme includes short pieces by composers emblematic of the Golden Century of Spain, contemporaries of Ortiz: Antonio de Cabezón, Luis de Milán and Tomás Luis de Victoria.

This superb programme combines the beautiful 'Alto Rhapsody' with the much more rarely performed 'Gesang der Parzen' and the cantata 'Rinadlo' - a work which gives us some idea of how a Brahms opera world would have sounded. This is the third and final volume of Brahms's works for chorus and orchestra, performed by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under its distinguished Principal Conductor, Gerd Albrecht.

Though several of Vivaldi’s most delightful concertos are written for the flute, he left relatively little chamber music for the instrument: the ‘Il Pastor Fido’ set which used to be attributed to him is now known to have been composed by Nicolas Chédeville. On this valuable new recording, Mario Folena and Roberto Loreggian offer what seems to be all that is left of Vivaldi’s output for the genre, informed by the latest scholarship and in delightful and lively period-instrument recordings. They couple it not with the previously recorded ‘Il Pastor Fido’ sonatas, but with a genuine rarity: an arrangement of ‘Spring’ from The Four Seasons made by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the composer and philosopher who argued that, in politics as in music, Man should return to first principles.

The Bee Gees made a commercial comeback outside the U.S. with 1987's E.S.P. and its single, "You Win Again." One, on the other hand, had an improved chart showing in the U.S., while sales fell off elsewhere. The Bee Gees are remarkable pop craftsmen – "It's My Neighborhood" is a canny, if blatant, rewrite of Michael Jackson's "Beat It," for example, and it only reminds you that Jackson's falsetto whoops owe something to Barry Gibb. And, say what you will, "One" and "House of Shame" are convincing pop music. ("One" was a Top Ten comeback hit that topped soft rock radio playlists.) This stuff works as pop for the same reason "I've Gotta Get a Message to You" and "You Should Be Dancing" did: the melodies are catchy, the hooks are deathless, and the vocals convey emotion over meaning. It may be weightless, but it's polished.

Whether on his own or with his Project, Alan Parsons vacillated between arch artiness and immaculate soft pop. With The Secret, his first album in 15 years, he veers decisively toward the former. The opening pomp of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" – which is indeed the Paul Dukas composition, here presented as a collaboration with Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett – is a bit misleading. While Parsons doesn't avoid other old-fashioned prog tropes – parts of Todd Cooper's lead vocals on "One Note Symphony" are delivered through a robotic effect – he certainly dresses these affectations in adult contemporary threads.

A man with as much experience as he has ingenuity, Randall Bramblett has been a singer-songwriter, a session musician, and a hired gun for legends such as Gregg Allman and Steve Winwod. Bramblett’s latest release from his more than thirty years in the business, Devil Music, delivers the expected level of virtuosity, and surprises with a deep-fried, novel twist of Southern darkness. “Dead in the Water,” the album’s lead single is equally fulfilled through evocative lyrics, well-timed and managed effects, and instrumental superiority; a narrative of nowhere, the track is populated by dead-end characters and lowly living; fitting, for a track that Bramblett claims is inspired by William S. Burroughs. While immersing itself in the wonderfully weird, infinitely spiraling darkness of whimsy that exemplifies some of Tom Waits’ best work, “Dead in the Water” sees a guest appearance by storied axeman Mark Knopfler.

Sibelius's Symphony No.3 was composed in 1907. It is the link between the romantic intensity of his first two symphonies and the more cold complexity of his later symphonies. Symphony No.7 was completed in 1924 and is notable for having only one movement. The Swan of Tuonela is a tone poem based on the Kalevala epic of Finnish mythology. The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra and Yevgeny Mravinsky pair these with Debussy's Nocturnes Nos.1 & 2.

This stylishly devised programme juxtaposes cantatas by Rosenmüller, Krieger and Buxtehude with instrumental chorales and sonatas by Scheidemann, Praetorius, Tunder and Weckmann; most of these now known, if at all widely, as forerunners to Bach rather than as fine musicians in their own right as they deserve to be. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Hamburg became a leading commercial port where material and cultural goods circulated freely. Ensemble Méridien has chosen this city as the focal point of a fascinating musical journey through northern Germany, a journey that reveals different aspects of this artistic power. The port of Hamburg was also the driving force behind the north German organ school of the time. Churches were overflowing with magnificent organs, and their building and playing techniques reached extremely high standards, as is evident from the organ music included here. Though most of the music in this recital has been recorded before, it has only appeared on relatively obscure labels, and not in this imaginative context where one may more fully appreciate its dramatic as well as musical merits.

John Eliot Gardiner has proved himself a doughty champion of the later French Baroque, cultivating credible performing methods and unearthing undeservedly neglected repertoire. … "Les Boreades" recorded in 1982. Viewed by many as one of the greatest of Rameau's operas, the score is both dramatically effective and a riot of orchestral colour. Gardiner conducts with a real feeling for the way in which instrumental timbre underpins the drama, while in a strong cast Philip Langridge is both stylish and superbly theatrical as Abaris.

One might think that with all of the attention that Handel’s music has received over the years and especially since the tercentenary of his birth in 1985, that no stone has been left unturned in the effort to accord the composer his due. Indeed, there have been revelatory and monumental cycles of his operas and oratorios—especially Messiah—as well as numerous releases of Music for the Royal Fireworks, Water Music, the Concerti grossi, ops. 3 and 6—the list goes on and on, almost ad nauseam. As with any composer, though, there are darker recesses in Handel’s œuvre that seemed to have attracted the interest of a multitude of dust bunnies, but few performers. This Hyperion recording, originally recorded in 1988 and released under the title Music for Royal Occasions, holds three such works specifically composed for English courtly festivities of various import between 1713 and 1736.

This opera-pretending-to-be-oratorio (opera was banned in Rome during the period in which the work was composed) offers an excellent way to discover and appreciate Alessandro Scarlatti’s vocal/dramatic facility and his engaging manner of setting melody to appropriately varied, effectively complementary accompaniment. We enter the famous Abraham/Sarah/Hagar/Ishmael story (from Genesis, chapter 21) at the point where Abraham’s wife Sarah insists that he must banish the slave Hagar and her son Ishmael to protect their own son Isaac’s inheritance.