The Italian prog artist Sophya Baccini is indeed an interesting case. Before her solo career she was in a prog metal band Presence and guested on albums by Osanna and Delirium among others. Her bilingual debut Aradia (2009) was classically influenced, dramatic prog full of mysterious atmospheres and many-sided arrangements, all crowned by her beautiful voice. It was followed by the William Blake inspired album Big Red Dragon (2013) that featured legendary guests such as Sonja Kristina (Curved Air), Christian Decamps (Ange) and Lino Vairetti (Osanna). It took ten years to get to the third album, but it was worth the wait. The group named after the debut album consists of female musicians only.

Vlad is the third studio album by Italian prog rock band Magia Nera. Magia Nera come from La Spezia (Italy) and their roots date back to the late sixties under the name Nuova Esperienza. In 1969 they changed their name into Magia Nera (Black Magic), inspired by the sounds of bands such as Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and Deep Purple and started playing covers and composing original material. In the early seventies the band had a good live activity on the local scene and took part with a good success to some music festivals such as the Free Festival Pop of Bottagna. When all was ready for a deal with the label Magma Records something went wrong and the band split up without recording anything … More than forty years later Magia Nera reunited with almost all the original members to complete what they had left behind. In 2017 Magia Nera finally released their debut album.

Claudio Abbado was undeniably the supreme Mahler conductor of our time. With his Lucerne Festival Orchestra he has set new standards in the field of classical music, especially in the interpretation of works by Gustav Mahler. The core of the orchestra is provided by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, itself an élite body of players. Soloists like violinist Kolja Blacher, clarinettist Sabine Meyer, oboist Albrecht Mayer, violist Wolfram Christ, cellist Natalia Gutman, the Hagen Quartet and members of the Alban Berg Quartet to name just a few, make the Lucerne Festival Orchestra a star-studded ensemble.

Most of Haydn's concertos are early works, written in the years immediately before or after his engagement at the Esterhazy court in 1761. During that time, he composed four violin concertos, of which three-all except Hob.VIIa, No.2 in D major - survive, none of them in autograph form. Hob.VIIa No.3, in A major turned up only in 1949.

Claudio Abbado's new version of Mahler's 7th (his Chicago recording was made over 20 years ago) is the product of a May 2001 concert in Berlin. It may not displace such outstanding 7ths as those by Bernstein, Gielen, Tilson Thomas, and Kondrashin, but Mahlerians will want it for its extraordinary orchestral playing and for the way Abbado captures the otherworldly qualities of this massive work. Even with his slightly faster than usual tempos, Abbado lends the huge first movement march a sense of foreboding and excels in fully projecting the weird, offbeat flavor of the Scherzo and the strangeness of the stream-of-consciousness night music movements.