In 1990, after almost a decade's absence from the new-release lists and an even longer time away from the charts, Dusty Springfield re-emerged with Reputation. A partial collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys, it proved to be her most satisfying record in 15 years and sold better than anything that she'd released since the '60s. The late-'80s synth pop sound melded perfectly with Springfield's still very expressive, powerful, and soulful singing – Dan Hartman handled the producing chores on four of the cuts, Andy Richards on one, and the album has a unified sound, at once airy and dense, soaring and deep. The best cuts, however, are the five produced (and, in all but one case, written) by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys.

With a deeper and broader track listing than most ABC compilations, Look of Love: The Very Best of ABC more or less lives up to its name. Concentrating on the band's glory days, the album covers the highlights of ABC's first five albums, including de rigeur hits like the title track, "Poison Arrow," "When Smokey Sings," "Be Near Me," and "How to Be a Millionaire," as well as album tracks like "S.O.S.," "All of My Heart," and "The Night You Murdered Love." While some of the later inclusions, such as "The Real Thing," don't quite pack the punch of ABC's prime work, the 2001 track "Peace and Tranquility" fits in with the earlier material surprisingly well. Likewise, the somewhat random track listing might be somewhat annoying to anyone trying to track ABC's chronological development, but it does spotlight how consistent their brand of suave synth pop is. With a new song, a more diverse track listing, and no unnecessary remixes, Look of Love has a slight edge over Absolutely ABC: The Best of ABC as the group's definitive retrospective.

Christian Tetzlaff’s effortless virtuosity, purity of intonation, and slight emotional reticence perfectly suits Sibelius, making this the finest available collection of the Finnish composer’s music for violin and orchestra. In the concerto, Tetzlaff’s relative coolness makes the music sound more like Sibelius and less like a violin concerto, which is all to the good. That doesn’t mean he lacks anything in sheer technique: indeed, his first-movement cadenza impresses as one of the most impressively concentrated and musically satisfying on disc. Tetzlaff’s slow movement sings but avoids panting and heaving, while the finale realizes the music’s gentle melancholy as well as its more thrusting elements. He’s nicely accompanied by Thomas Dausgaard, whose gentle support perfectly suits the overall interpretation.

Recorded live at Namba Hatch, Osaka, Japan, August 11, 2003. The original source: 2 CDRs with flat stereo-mix of the show. Carefully restored, enhanced and mastered by Mark Wingfield.

Now comes a remarkable set, sure to be cherished by Ochs fans and followers, Phil Ochs, The Best Of the Rest: Rare and Unreleased Recordings, which comes out on CD on May 22nd. It consists of many demos he made for Warner-Chappell music which have not been heard by the public ever, some of songs that he recorded on his albums, but also many of songs never recorded and unknown.

[Konstantin Krimets] provides inspired leadership that prevents Glazunov's music from becoming too saccharine….Even at full price I would recommend this issue.

Like so many Bohemian composers, the eastern Bohemian Vanhal had moved to Vienna early in his career and can thus be viewed as a member of the select core of composers consisting of Haydn, Salieri, Mozart and Beethoven, to whom we owe Viennese classicism. The Missa Solemnis is noteworthy not just for its quality and opulence, but surprises the listener above all with three prolonged concert solo arias. By comparison, Vanhal’s Stabat Mater seems formally more conservative in its usual alternation between choir parts and solo numbers. It is above all the rich melodic imagination that is captivating.

A member of the Mannheim school, Ignaz Holzbauer (1711–1783) was a composer of symphonies, concertos, operas and chamber music who wrote in the style of the Sturm and Drang movement. In his penultimate opera "Tod der Dido" [The Death of Dido] (1779), Ignaz Holzbauer presented himself not only as a master of fine musical word interpretation, but also as an imaginative music dramatist. While the original Italian version underlined his position as one of the leading opera composers of the time, the German version which he wrote a year later additionally emphasizes his position as a pioneer of the German National Opera. Frieder Bernius therefore chose this version for a production performed at the Schwetzingen Festival in 1997, which is now being released here for the first time.

Over the course of a dozen solo albums and two decades, the former Birthday Party frontman and his trusty Bad Seeds have been on an endless death march through a landscape of brooding depression, tragic obsession and black-hearted murder balladry. Nocturama, as you might expect, finds them no closer to the light. Minimally decorated, languidly paced and darkly textured, most of these 10 cuts once again combine Cave’s literary narratives and croaking baritone to maximum effect, weaving mesmerizing tales of death, sin and salvation, whose bleak messages are leavened only by the sheer beauty of their performance and artistry. Every once in a while, just to startle us, Cave breaks the spell by rocking out - the hard-hitting Dead Man In My Bed lurches to a stumbling 15/8 beat, and Babe, I’m On Fire is an angular, 15-minute epic of fixation…

After his exit from Metallica, Dave Mustaine regrouped with his own band on this debut album, accentuating his own chaotic, driving rhythm guitar work and careening, lightning-fast solos. The music here is as raw as Megadeth gets, and that can be both good and bad - Megadeth's later precise, complex riffing and composition aren't completely developed, but the music is performed with a great deal of energy, while Mustaine's vocals (never his strong point) are amateurish at best. Highlights include a retooled version of Nancy Sinatra's "Boots" and "Mechanix," a Mustaine composition written with Metallica, which turned into the latter's "The Four Horsemen."

Astor Piazzolla’s tangos, beloved around the world for their pathos, passion, longing and sensibility, are here given fresh interpretations in arrangements for piano by the Argentinean-born, Brussels-based pianist Aquiles Delle-Vigne. A disciple of Claudio Arrau and winner of the Grand Prix ‘Alberto Williams’, the most prestigious competition in South America, he has been hailed by Le Figaro as a ‘fantastic, incomparable pianist and artist’, while The New York Times characterized his playing as ‘aristocratic, sophisticated and charming’. Piazzolla’s earthy yet highly developed music gains a new dimension of intimacy but also of power in the hands of this master of the keyboard.