Electric Light Orchestra's third album showed a marked advancement, with a fuller, more cohesive sound from the band as a whole and major improvements in Jeff Lynne's singing and songwriting. This is where the band took on its familiar sound, Lynne's voice suddenly showing an attractive expressiveness reminiscent of John Lennon in his early solo years, and also sporting a convincing white British soulful quality that was utterly lacking earlier. The group also plugged the holes that made its work seem so close to being ragged on those earlier records. "Showdown" and "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" (the latter featuring Marc Bolan on double lead guitar with Lynne) became AM radio fixtures while "Daybreaker" became a concert opener for the group and, along with "In the Hall of the Mountain King," kept the group's FM/art rock credentials in order.

Instrumental psych rock frontrunners, MONKEY3, herald 2024 with a true album highlight of the new year. Mankind vs machines, spaceships launch into the deep space. Welcome To The Machine is inspired by movies such as 2001: A Space Oddity, Matrix, Sunshine, Solaris or 1984, and right from its first tones immediately marks the soundtrack of a journey to the unknown. Once again, MONKEY3 will drench album listeners and audiences, into their unique, cosmic smoke. Welcome To The Machine not only marks the seventh studio album in their impressive band history, capturing the Zeitgeist with their most epic, darkest and enthralling record to date, but also clearly proves why MONKEY3 belong to one of the most exciting instrumental rocks bands of the modern stoner and psychedelic rock scene!

Fans of this critically acclaimed series have been waiting a decade for Eric Records to deliver more sonic sensations and stereo rarities from the late 1960s. Now it’s here – Hard to Find 45s on CD, Vol. 17: Late Sixties Classics – and it’s spectacular! You’ll hear 21 beautifully remastered songs, 16 of which were Top 10 hits and 8 that appear in stereo for the first time ever!

Multiple Grammy winner Composer, Arranger Conductor Vincent Mendoza has 35 Grammy Nominations across his storied career, including his sixth Grammy for his last Album Freedom Over Everything. For his latest offering Olympians Mendoza is joined by Metropole Orkest, which he has led as chief conductor for the past six years. It is a bright, zingy and as the title suggests, triumphant record to add to Mendoza’s outstanding career. Mendoza has written arrangements for a wide variety of pop and jazz artists from Joni Mitchell, Sting, Melody Gardot, Elvis Costello and Bjork to Joe Zawinul, John Scofield and Randy Brecker.

The U.K. collection The Very Best of Michael Bolton – initially released in 2005, repackaged as a slide pack in 2007 – is a good overview of the singer's peak years, containing all the big hits except "Love Is a Wonderful Thing" (only natural, considering the lawsuit surrounding the song) in a 17-track compilation that should give most listeners all the Bolton they need.

This unusual coupling works surprisingly well, God only knows why. Perhaps the Britten’s neo-classical (or Baroque) leanings and formal freedom sit well next to Beethoven’s echt-Classical language, but whatever the reason the performances of both works are extremely fine. Paavo Järvi’s expertise in Beethoven with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is by now well-known, and in Janine Jansen he has a soloist who matches him for vibrancy and freshness.

This miraculous recital was Chang's debut recording, made when she was nine years old. In Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy you can hear some very minor flaws in the technique, which were gone when I heard her play it two years later. There's nothing else to indicate that this is a young violinist, not even the tone Chang draws from a quarter-size violin.

The program for this album of Debussy's chamber music is unusual: except for the enchanting Syrinx, for solo flute, all the pieces are written in the classical chamber music forms. Only in the realm of chamber music did Debussy do this, and hearing a group of such works together on the same bill is of considerable interest. Here Debussy could not get away without modulating, but the balance among texture, harmonic field, and fixed, sonata-like forms shift in fascinating ways.

Salvatore Accardo is an outstanding Italian violin virtuoso, best known as a master of the works of Niccolò Paganini, but equally accomplished across a wide variety of repertory for the instrument. His playing is characterized by a taut, visceral tone and a disciplined musical approach that avoids self-indulgence. Having also established himself as a successful conductor, chamber musician, and teacher, Accardo may be considered one of the most accomplished and influential musicians of his generation.

Salvatore Accardo; born September 26, 1941 in Turin, northern Italy) is an Italian violin virtuoso and conductor. Accardo studied violin in the southern Italian city of Naples in the 1950s. He gave his first professional recital at the age of 13 performing Paganini's Capricci. In 1956 Accardo won the Geneva Competition and in 1958 became the first prize winner of the Paganini Competition in Genoa.

If you’re approaching these familiar Bach concertos for the first time, or want inexpensive performances that still provide decent musical rewards, then you won’t go far wrong with this Eloquence disc. Salvatore Accardo (who also directs the Chamber Orchestra of Europe) is soloist in the violin concertos in A minor and E major. Both are earnest, direct readings that hardly differ from Accardo’s EMI remakes.

In 1995, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O'Connor joined forces on Appalachia Waltz, the first of a series of Sony Classical albums celebrating the varied musical textures of Americana. Over the course of six years, several albums were cut, among them Short Trip Home, Liberty!, Uncommon Ritual, and Midnight on the Water, in addition to the Grammy-winning Appalachia Waltz. Each project may have had its own specific instrumental focus, although the shared theme was clearly to obfuscate the genre lines that separate classical and traditional American music on a 200-year journey from the concert halls of Britain to the Shenandoah Valley.

This disc is intended to introduce a collection of keyboard instruments in Edinburgh, Scotland, but actually it accomplishes much more. The instruments featured here were built all over Europe, with the majority from the British Isles or France. They date from between 1586 and 1810, with the first example being an Italian virginal and the final one a fortepiano. Along the way come harpsichords of various kinds, a clavichord, and a small organ. Brief but relevant and engaging histories are given for each instrument.

That The Planets occupies a place at the heart of the English musical repertoire is indisputable, yet much of Holst’s orchestral output is unjustly neglected. Chandos’ series demonstrates that Holst was a composer whose inventiveness and originality was not limited to one work. The series was originally to be conducted by Richard Hickox who sadly passed away in 2009 after completing Volume 1, released to great critical acclaim. Gramophone stated that ‘Richard Hickox’s final project, reviving little-known Holst works, is a triumph’.

A greatest-hits album ought to stick to the middle of the road, playing to what an artist does best. Yet it ought not simply wallow in past glories: this collection from Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, arguably the best-known soprano of the present day, hits the spot and can safely be recommended to newcomers. Netrebko is at her best in core Italian repertory like Casta Diva from Bellini's Norma or Libiamo ne 'lieti calici from Verdi's La Traviata.