Volume 7 of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s Mozart piano concertos survey with Gábor Takács-Nagy and the Manchester Camerata features two of the late concertos – Nos 24 and 25 – along with a spirited reading of the Overture to Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). Concerto No. 24 was written whilst Mozart was busily composing Le nozze di Figaro, between October 1785 and the première, in Vienna, in May 1786. One of only two piano concertos in a minor key, this extraordinary work possesses many unusual features, including the deliberately ambivalent tonality of the opening melody, which uses all twelve tones of the scale (a pre-echo of serialism??!).

Although it didn't enjoy the major label hype that his current output does, Walker's HighTone encore just may be his finest album of all, filled with soulful vocal performances, bone-cutting guitar work, and tight backing from the Boss Talkers and the Memphis Horns. Honestly, you can't go wrong with any of Walker's remarkably consistent HighTone discs - but give this one the slightest of edges over the rest.

Joyce DiDonato becomes more interesting and more of a complete artist with each performance and recording. Even though we are living in a time of great coloratura mezzos (Bartoli, Genaux), DiDonato still stands out. A video of her Dejanira in Handel's Hercules a few years ago alerted us to the fact that she wasn't just another pretty Rosina and Cenerentola; indeed, she had fine dramatic chops as well. Well, while she remains the Rosina and Cenerentola of choice, with this CD she seems poised to enter the dramatic-Rossini-role sweepstakes as well, heretofore the property of Gencer, Caballé, Sutherland, and in one case, Callas.

The main item in this second volume of Shostakovich film music on Chandos is the popular Suite from The Gadfly, whose “Romance” became an instant hit as the theme from the British TV series Reilly: Ace of Spies (it was well known in Russia long before). This newcomer is certainly exciting and full of contrast and color, with a very dreamy “Romance” and a much brasher treatment of such extravert segments as the “Folk Festival” than we hear on Chailly’s suavely polished Decca recording (to cite the most noteworthy among the competition). The result is arguably more “Russian” in feel, though I wouldn’t give up the playing of the Concertgebouw for any amount of money.

DKV trio's concert in the course of 2012 Autumn Jazz Festival was a night to remember for many reasons. The trio played up to the promise and delivered. The concert itself, a result of a decade - long logistical struggle to bring together the three at one place and time, was also the release date campaign to a 7cds boxset called "Past Present" that would gather a several of the famed DKV performances done near the end / beginning of each year in Chicago and Milwaukee.

Spring were a Leicester-based British progressive rock band that represented the early 1970s progressive rock movement. A one-shot band, it released only one album in its career, a self-titled LP released in 1971. Spring's music is notable for the use of the mellotron with three of the its five members credited with playing that instrument on the album. Songs for a second album were recorded but not released at the time. They were later released on CD together with some demo's as "The Untitled 2".

In this recording of the complete piano sonatas on period instruments, the Viennese master Paul Badura-Skoda delivers the work of a lifetime: Schubert's music with his passion, his suffering, and that inimitable tone which makes his native city the place so essentially and existentially identified with music. This collection of the twenty Sonatas for period piano recorded by Paul Badura-Skoda on the instruments in his own collection has every chance of being considered by posterity as one of the most creative and most significant achievements.

The double album collects the thirty-two songs, over two hours of music from Renato Zero's concert, last summer at the Arena di Verona.

For her second Warner Classics release, young Italian pianist Beatrice Rana turns to a pinnacle of the solo keyboard repertoire and a composer she has described as "my first love": Johann Sebastian Bach. Her interpretation of his epic Goldberg Variations bears out Le Monde's judgement that "Beatrice Rana certainly has nothing left to prove when it comes to technique, but what makes an impression are her calm maturity and her sense of architecture," and Gramophone's that she is "a fully developed artist of a stature that belies her tender years." Bach was the composer who most obsessed Beatrice Rana as a child, and in a recent interview with Pianist magazine, she confessed that it would be his music, and above all the Goldberg Variations, that she would choose if she had to devote her life to a single composer.

This is the great late-night Sun Ra chillout album you never knew about. The band had been working in a more groove-oriented setting off and on for over a year, as evidenced by the albums Lanquidity and On Jupiter, with both featuring prominent electric bass and electric guitar. Sleeping Beauty picks up right where On Jupiter left off, with the gentle, swaying "Springtime Again" echoing the same mellow vibe of "Seductive Fantasy" from On Jupiter.

Soul Jazz Records Two Synths, A Guitar (and) A Drum Machine is a new collection of current D-I-Y post-punk bands shaped by the mutant sounds of no wave, punk funk and New York Noise bands from the late 70s and early 80s that collided with the world of underground dance music found at the Paradise Garage, Mudd Club in NYC. Other influences include Manchester and Sheffield’s industrial 1980s post-punk sounds as well as 1970s German electronic experimentalism. Featured artists include LA D-I-Y band Automatic, Toronto's New Fries, German Toresch, Susumu Makai from Japan/UK, Vex Ruffin, Philippines/California, and Madmadmad, Gramme, Tom of England and other UK groups. That all these bands manage to make distinctive contemporary music out of these 80s roots is testament to the wide range of other musics that are seamlessly absorbed into a modern melting pot of sound – hip-hop, electronic European avant-garde, rave culture, and more.

Thirteen hours of unreleased and ultra-rare music. The Eternal Myth Revealed is a 14 disc docu-biography of Ra's life and career, from his birth in 1914 up to 1959. In addition to his own music, it includes music he was influenced by, and a lot of stuff he may or may not have had a hand in as arranger, vocal coach, pianist or something else. Sun Ra's output was as prolific as Ellington's, and discographers have had nightmares and arguments attempting to document it accurately.

Synthetic Block (1998). Jonathan Block records as Synthetic Block. Synthetic Block is also the title of his debut release. He combines sequences and atmospheres to create little pockets of energy. It is all very tidy and systematic. Block sets his compositions with right angles and exact circles. He puts square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes. The scientific approach, while it seems harsh, works well for Block. The atmospheres are gentle and warm. The soundscapes are friendly and inviting. This is a very nice debut. It will appeal to fans of Ron Boots, Dave Fulton, and Paul Ellis…

10 CD box set celebrating the work of the German Beethoven-pianist of international renown, Wilhelm Backhaus. It contains all of his concert recordings, the most popular sonatas and waltz-variations.

This is quite simply one of the most important and consistently superbly executed recording projects of all time. Bartók's piano music isn't exactly overrepresented on disc, being as it is without doubt one of the most important piano oeuvres ever composed, and in the hand of Zoltán Kocsis, doubtlessly one of the greatest pianists alive today, one should expect some superb discs where the works at long last receive the treatment they deserve. In fact, the actual result surpasses any possible expectations.