Completely Well was B.B. King's breakthrough album in 1969, which finally got him the long-deserved acclaim that was no less than his due. It contained his signature number, "The Thrill Is Gone," and eight other tunes, six of them emanating from King's pen, usually in a co-writing situation. Hardliners point to the horn charts and the overdubbed strings as the beginning of the end of King's old style that so identifiably earmarked his early sides for the Bihari Brothers and his later tracks for ABC, but this is truly the album that made the world sit up and take notice of B.B. King. The plus points include loose arrangements and a small combo behind him that never dwarfs the proceedings or gets in the way. King, for his part, sounds like he's having a ball, playing and singing at peak power. This is certainly not the place to start your B.B. King collection, but it's a nice stop along the way before you finish it.

Laurence Hobgood is best known for being singer Kurt Elling's regular pianist. Hobgood's solos are thoughtful and inventive, so it is only right that he finally has a chance to fully shine on this CD. The date actually features a co-op group that also includes the virtuosic bassist Brian Torff (who has had a lower profile since he impressed many during his period with George Shearing) and drummer Paul Wertico. Most of their collaborations on this set are taken at slow to medium tempos, with the improvisations being melodic, lightly swinging, and full of subtle surprises. Torff has a few features (being particularly impressive on "Amazing Grace"), Wertico plays well in support, and Hobgood is in top form. The program concludes with a humorous version of "What Am I Here For." Recommended (Scott Yanow, AMG).

The six Hamburg String Sinfonias are magnificent examples of Bach’s later style when, after the years at the Berlin court, he had greater freedom in Hamburg. They are particularly striking in their unexpected twists of imagination, and they contain some of his most inspired and original ideas. Using modern instruments at higher modern pitch, Benda directs light, well-sprung accounts, with extra light and shade. The excellent sound is full and open, as well as immediate.

Celebrated for his modular, repetitive style, minimalist composer Michael Nyman was among experimental music's most high-profile proponents, best known in connection with his film scores for director Peter Greenaway. Born in London on March 23, 1944, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music and King's College, London, under communist composer Alan Bush and Thurston Dart, a musicologist specializing in the English Baroque. Under Dart's tutelage, Nyman was introduced to 16th- and 17th-century English rounds and canons, their repetitive, contrapuntal lines highly influencing his own later work; Dart also encouraged him to travel to Romania in the interest of seeking out the country's native folk music traditions.

It is our good fortune that Ferdinand Ries bequeathed to posterity six remarkably beautiful Quartets for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Violoncello. These compositions sparkle like gems in the early Romantic chamber literature including the flute. On the present release, Vol. 2 of our complete recording, his Quartets in G major WoO 35, 2 and E minor op. 145, 2 as well as his remarkable String Trio in E minor WoO 70, 2 are heard. On the one hand, conventional elements verging on practically Baroque sequential processes stand out in the trio. On the other hand, here we also find innovative musical surprises and full-fledged, motivically organized development sections, above all in the fourth movement.

In April of 1996, Ofra Harnoy entered the venerable Abbey Road Studios in London with the London Philharmonic Orchestra to record Edward Elgar’s great cello concerto. Unfortunately, shortly after this event, the end result did not end up where it was supposed to be and was not released to the public. In fact, the whereabouts of the recording went unknown for quite some time, afterward.

Mozart composed his last three symphonies (Nos. 39-41) in the space of six weeks during the summer of 1788, at a time when he had sunk into poverty, regularly borrowing money from his friend Michael Puchberg and pawning household items. In recent years he had been organising many concerts in Vienna and was equally in demand as a teacher. Then, in Prague, he had enjoyed the tremendous acclaim of his Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787). Now, however, he struggled to find subscribers for the publication of three string quintets and faced what seemed to be the end of his Viennese concerts.

Mozart brought back to life! The pianist Michael Wessel records all 18 of Mozart's piano sonatas: a unique cosmos sparkling with unbridled ideas!

Exquisite eloquence from Australia's foremost Baroque and Classical flute virtuoso, Melissa Farrow. Well known to Australian audiences as a featured artist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian Haydn Ensemble and Pinchgut Opera, this is her first solo album: a deep dive into the elegant musical salons of early 19th-century Vienna. Sublime melodies, joyous virtuosity, and delicate nuances of colour: Farrow plays the nine-key instrument prized by composers of the day, where each note has multiple possible fingerings, each with its own subtle shades of timbre. Capable of expressing a vast range of emotions, the instrument was, as the great German Romantic Jean Paul described it, ‘a divining rod, plumbing the depths of the soul.’

Carl Friedrich Abel also composed orchestral works for the London concert series of Bach-Abel Concerts, organized jointly with J. C. Bach, including 46 symphonies, 40 of which appeared in print during his lifetime. The six remaining works, five late symphonies and one Sinfonia Concertante, have survived in manuscript in the Royal Court Library in Berlin. On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of his birth, the Main Baroque Orchestra under Martin Jopp presents four of these symphonies as world premiere recordings as well as the Sinfonia Concertante on this recording.

A quirky detour of late-'60s British progressive/blues rock, Blodwyn Pig was founded by former Jethro Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams, who left Tull after the This Was album. Abrahams was joined by bassist Andy Pyle, drummer Ron Berg, and Jack Lancaster, who gave the outfit their most distinctive colorings via his saxophone and flute. On their two albums, they explored a jazz/blues/progressive style somewhat in the mold of (unsurprisingly) Jethro Tull, but with a lighter feel. They also bore some similarities to John Mayall's jazzy late-'60s versions of the Bluesbreakers, or perhaps Colosseum, but with more eclectic material. Both of their LPs made the British Top Ten, though the players' instrumental skills were handicapped by thin vocals and erratic (though oft-imaginative) material. The group were effectively finished by Abrahams' departure after 1970's Getting to This. They briefly reunited in the mid-'70s, and Abrahams was part of a different lineup that reformed in the late '80s; they have since issued a couple of albums in the 1990s.

2023 is the 10th anniversary of Einaudi’s most popular album, In A Time Lapse. Building on the success of Nightbook and integrating more instrumentation than ever before, Einaudi fully embraced the range of possibilities this provided him. From delicate tracks including Waterways and the haunting Underwood through to Life, Experience and Newton’s Cradle where the larger ensemble is used to its full effect. Violinist Daniel Hope lends his talents to many tracks on the album and is featured on Experience, the song that has gone on to become Einaudi’s best most popular track.

Johann Sebastian Bach hardly ever left his native Saxony, yet he was always up to date on what was going on elsewhere in Europe. Naturally, he paid close attention to innovations from Italy, the cradle of the concertante style, and instilled transalpine sparkle in his brilliant counterpoint, especially in his keyboard works. Proof of this may be found in the pieces based on originals by the Venetians Antonio Vivaldi and Benedetto Marcello, in which Bach transcends everything with his polyphonic genius. In the large-scale Italian Concerto, the future composer of the Goldberg Variations revisits Corelli and, once again, Vivaldi. After several solo recordings devoted to musical dynasties (La Famille Forqueray, La Famille Rameau and Les Freres Francoeur), Justin Taylor sets off on a voyage of exploration of Bach and Italy.

In 1733, Pergolesi created La Serva padrona in Naples, which won over Paris in 1752, becoming the symbol of Italian music. Quickly played in French as La Servante Maitresse, it inspired Rousseau for his Devin du Village, a parody of which was created under the title Les Amours de Bastien et Bastienne. Mozart discovered it in 1768 and composed his Bastien und Bastienne in German for the private theatre of the magician Mesmer. These two masterpieces bound through style and history come to life with colourful plots: lightness, falsehoods and what is comic create delightfully bubbly situations for the tyrannical servant and naive shepherds, from which Pergolesi and Mozart derived the best musical effects. Adele Carlier, David Tricou and Marc Scoffoni, with the Opera Royal Orchestra and Gaetan Jarry, carry this torch of emotion and comedy, so emblematic of the 18th century.