Suzi Quatro was hardly the first Tough Girl in rock & roll – there were plenty of precursors, from Wanda Jackson and the Shangri-Las to Grace Slick and Janis Joplin – but Quatro codified a type of rock & roll woman who didn't exist before she took the stage, one who looked as tough as the guys and wasn't merely a singer but also an instrumentalist, the leader of the band who made the noise right along with the rest of the group. With her trademark leather jumpsuit and big bass guitar (which seemed even bigger given her diminutive stature of just five feet), Quatro created a new and potent image for women in rock, one that spoke of both strength and sexiness, and she became a major international star in the '70s, though it would take a while before she was as readily recognized in the United States as in the United Kingdom.

Peter Hammill has been at it for almost 40 years now, and yet, since the early 2000s, he has been on a new way up, creatively speaking. Clutch (2002) and Incoherence (2004), his previous two studio albums, had both hit high artistic marks, but that is only one of the main reasons why Singularity was so highly anticipated by the fans. It was also the Thin Man's first studio album since remastering his '70s LPs for EMI, his first since the re-formation of his old group, Van der Graaf Generator. Yet, most importantly, especially for a man of words like he is, it was his first studio release since his heart attack two years earlier. Were all the expectations generated by these "firsts" met? Surprisingly, yes. Singularity stands among Hammill's best albums of the past 25 years.

Over the course of several '60s albums on the Liberty subsidiary, Dolton, the Ventures became the most popular instrumental combo in the U.S.; they would later go on to international fame in the '70s and '80s as pop icons in Japan and Europe. Staying consistent with other globally appealing theme albums like The Ventures' Beach Party and Super Psychedelics, the band opt for a mod, go-go spin on 1966's Wild Things! Along with high-profile covers like "Wild Thing," "Summer in the City," and "The Work Song," some respectable originals like "Wild Trip," and "Fuzzy and Wild" are also included. With the aid of their fuzztone- friendly Mosrite guitars, the group keep things sufficiently grainy and hard-edged throughout; the occasional Farfisa organ, Peter Lorre impersonation ("Wild Thing"), and Martin Denny exotica flourish help balance out the mix. Later released on a See For Miles' two-fer with the Guitar Freakout album, Wild Things! might not compare to classic early releases like Surfing and In Space, but it still is a good bet for die-hard Ventures fans.

Monteverdi's seminal first opera tells the dramatic story from Ovid's Metamorphoses of the descent of Orfeo (Georg Nigl) into the underworld to recover his beloved wife Euridice (Roberta Invernizzi), who has died from a snake bite. In a new production for La Scala, based on a painting by Titian and directed by Robert Wilson, the opera receives a powerful and inspiring performance from a fine cast, the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala and Concerto Italiano under the much-admired Italian early music specialist, Rinaldo Alessandrini. Filmed in High Definition and recorded in true surround sound.

This programme is something of a memorial to Daniel Majeske who died from cancer in November 1993 after being Concert Master of the Cleveland Orchestra for 25 years. Christoph von Dohnanyi honours his memory in a written note, and Majeske's performance of Mozart's Sinfonia concertante, K364, recorded two years before his death, celebrates his searching, highly cultivated solo playing.

Renowned for his rich production in the field of orchestral music, Kalevi Aho is also a prolific composer for chamber forces. Here three works spanning two decades have been combined, with the Sonata for two accordions originating in 1984 as a Sonata for solo accordion described by the composer in his own liner notes as ‘comparable in aspiration with Liszt’s most virtuosic piano works’.

Hailed by George Bernard Shaw as one of the 19th century’s greatest virtuoso pianists, Agathe Backer Grøndahl was also a pioneer among women composers, juggling marriage, motherhood and an extensive career. She was taught by Liszt in Weimar, and as one of Norway’s most respected composer-pianists, created a large body of work that displays colourful stylistic variety and poetic breadth. The beautiful Sérénade from Trois Morceaux, Op. 15 may well be Backer Grøndahl’s most popular piano composition, but her concert études are virtuoso masterpieces – the folk-tune arrangements drawn from her Op. 30 and Op. 33 sets illustrate her perceptive absorption of her country’s folk music. The remarkable fairy-tale suite I blaafjellet, Op. 44 is possibly the first impressionist piece by a Norwegian composer.

Marilyn Manson started out as a depraved, marginally talented group of freaks that played a caustic but undeveloped brand of metallic industrial noise. Then Trent Reznor stepped into the studio for seven months with the band, and Manson emerged with the most intense, visceral, mechanical metal album since The Downward Spiral. Antichrist Superstar is a horror-house of grisly atrocities that stains as indelibly as a bathful of warm blood. Brooding rhythms collide with corrosive samples and buzzsaw guitar riffs, while vocalist Marilyn croons irresistible melodies in the voice of a vagrant regurgitating broken light-bulb shards. Essential listening, regardless of how much input Reznor had.

Paul McCartney creates a splash whenever he releases a new album, but Ringo Starr stays a bit on the sidelines, cranking out records and tours to a smaller, dedicated audience. Starr is under no delusion that he might suddenly have a Top 10 smash: he's happy to be a working musician, which is all he ever wanted to be. After all, he was a working musician before he was a Beatle, a beginning he celebrates on "Rory & the Hurricanes," the opening track of Postcards from Paradise, his 18th studio solo album. "Rory & the Hurricanes" is part of a long line of latter-day autobiographical tunes from Ringo, and that's not the only similarity Postcards from Paradise shares with the records Starr has made in the new millennium…

Homework (Remixes) is a remix album by Daft Punk released by Warner Music France on 22 February 2022. The release coincided with the 25th anniversary of Daft Punk's album Homework. It comprises remixes of tracks from Homework by artists including DJ Sneak, Masters at Work, Todd Terry, Motorbass, Slam and Ian Pooley.

For twenty years Marco Serino was Ennio Morricone’s violinist, the soloist on his film soundtracks and on world tours where they were reworked for the concert hall. In January 2020, after what proved to be his last public concert, at the Italian Senate in Rome, Morricone finished the transcription of this magnificent and unpublished collection, which recasts the themes of his most famous scores in suites transcribed for violin and orchestra. The work was carried out in close collaboration with Marco Serino and dedicated to him as a fruit of the artistic partnership between the two men. The collection alternates between pieces already performed in concert and others that are heard in this version for the first time. A year and a half after the composer’s death, this extraordinary document, a testimony to friendship and professional esteem, now becomes a recording project with the collaboration of Andrea Morricone, the composer’s son, who conducts the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento.