An Elton John collaborations album made during lockdown featuring a collection of 16 songs, with some of the biggest, most exciting artists in the world today. The lead single 'Cold Heart' featuring Dua Lipa is a mashup of 'Sacrifice' & 'Rocketman', and the album features artists such Brandi Carlile, Charlie Puth, Dua Lipa, Eddie Vedder, Gorillaz, Lil Nas X, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, Rina Sawayama, SG Lewis, Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder, Surfaces, Years & Years, Young Thug, and more.

Armchair Theatre is the first solo album by Jeff Lynne, released in 1990. The album reunited Lynne with Electric Light Orchestra's keyboard player Richard Tandy and featured fellow Traveling Wilburys member George Harrison.

Allan Taylor is one of England's most-respected singer/songwriters. His songs have been covered by artists on both sides of the Atlantic, including Don Williams, Frankie Miller, Fairport Convention, Dick Gaughan, the McCalmans, the Fureys, the Clancy Brothers, and De Dannan. Folk Roots praised him for his "ability to crystallize a mood and evoke an era with the ease of a computer memory access, crafting perfect songs with dramatic changes in the spirit of Brecht, Bikel, and Brel." The Oxford Book of Traditional Verse felt as strongly, writing that Taylor was "one of the most literate and sensitive of contemporary songwriters in terms of words and music and one who is capable of exploring more complex subjects than most of his contemporaries."

It was the heroic age, the postwar age when American pianists first made their mark in the great wide world. The heroes took many forms: the apollonian Van Cliburn, the dionysic Byron Janis, and the mercurial Gary Graffman, along with many, many others. The most intellectually brilliant and technically incendiary member of the pantheon was Leon Fleisher. While other heroes rode the Russian war horses of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov to fame and glory, Fleisher stuck with Beethoven and Brahms, the Alpha and Omega of German composers for the piano. In these Columbia recordings of Beethoven's Third and Fourth piano concertos from the 1959 and 1961, Fleisher teamed with George Szell, the sternest of living conductors, leading the Cleveland Orchestra, the most virtuosic of American orchestras, and the results are transcendent.

This premiering album by Neville Marriner includes modern, witty instrumental arrangements of the most famous arias and scenes from Verdi and Puccini’s operatic masterpieces: Nessun dorma, La donna è mobile… Don’t miss the moving chant of the ondes Martenot in Madama Butterfly or the voluble cimbalom in the Anvil Chorus from Il trovatore!

There are very few classic rock vocalists that you recognize after hearing just a few notes. The legendary Dan McCafferty, the former front man of Scottish rockers NAZARETH, is one of those vocalists. After nearly 50 years of road work with the band, McCafferty had to retire due to health reasons. However, that unique instrument — his voice — is still capable of blowing the roof off. With 15 tracks, "Last Testament" is a blistering album with a full mix of lyrical and musical styles. It arrives on October 18 via earMUSIC. There are out-and-out rockers, like "My Baby" and "Bring It On Back", for example. But at the core of this release is a newfound freedom to explore avenues of creativity.

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916. His conducting career began with the formation of his own orchestra in 1924, and between 1926 and 1933 he was active as an opera conductor at Covent Garden and elsewhere. Orchestral appointments followed: the Scottish Orchestra (1933–36), the New York Philharmonic (1936–42), the Hallé Orchestra (1943–70) and the Houston Symphony (1961–67). Barbirolli guest conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras and was especially admired as an interpreter of the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Puccini and Verdi. He made many outstanding recordings, including the complete Brahms and Sibelius symphonies, as well as operas by Verdi and Puccini and much English repertoire.

The ballet Miracle in the Gorbals (named after the working-class quarter of Glasgow), still rarely recorded, is a very somber and violent piece of music, one of the most intense among the works of Arthur Bliss. The suite recorded by Paavo Berglund finally makes its digital debut, coupled with a late cello concerto (of a quite different kind, cheerful and optimistic), premiered by Mstislav Rostropovich at Britten’s Aldeburgh Festival in 1970, and here performed by Berglund fellow countryman Arto Noras.

Pianist Noah Haidu sees a certain irony in his current recorded output. “I love composing but improvisation has always been my greatest passion. When I started releasing music in 2011 I relied on my songwriting to make a unique artistic statement, but I’ve come full circle and realized that finding my own voice on a simple, unadorned standard is a rare and necessary endeavor.” Haidu embraced that endeavor on his 2023 release Standards, and on Standards II, due out April 12, 2024 on Sunnyside Records. The new album is a breathtaking masterpiece featuring Haidu with two of the music’s most esteemed players, Buster Williams on bass and Billy Hart on drums.

He was a true giant of the piano, one of the few pianists of the last decades for whom the word “legend” was not overdone: Maurizio Pollini passed away March 23rd 2024. He will be reminded for his wide repertoire (from the great Baroque and Romantic masters to the avant-garde which he had always been a relentless promoter) and his unique playing style, very analytic with a dazzling technique and particularly clear sound. Pollini has only recorded two albums for EMI in his early career, gathered here as an homage: both dedicated to Chopin, they include famous solo pieces and the first concerto conducted by Paul Kletzki. The Polonaise, Op. 44 is made available to digital partners for the very first time.

Cozy Powell and Ray Fenwick are joined by Jan Akkerman (Focus) and Tony Martin (Black Sabbath) amongst others to deliver another powerful rocker. The CD contains two extra tracks not available on the other formats. Formed in 1987, Forcefield’s ever-changing line-up brought together the mainstays of some of the biggest 80s rock bands. The original members were Pete Prescott, Ray Fenwick and Cozy Powell. Amongst guitarist Fenwick’s credits were The Spencer Davis Group, Fancy and The Ian Gillan Band, while drummer Powell had been a key figure in bands of the calibre of Black Sabbath, Rainbow and Whitesnake and is widely regarded as an all-time rock great.

Itzhak Perlman was born in Tel Aviv on 31st August 1945 to a family of Polish origin. He was drawn to the violin from the age of three, but when he was four he contracted polio, losing the use of his legs. Despite his handicap, he began learning the violin a year later, and his first teacher was a café violinist. Very soon, he joined the Tel Aviv Music Academy where he studied for eight years with Rivka Goldgart, a teacher of Russian origin.

The sonatas and partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001–1006) are a set of six works composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. They are sometimes referred to in English as the sonatas and partias for solo violin in accordance with Bach's headings in the autograph manuscript: "Partia" (plural "Partien") was commonly used in German-speaking regions during Bach's time, whereas the Italian "partita" was introduced to this set in the 1879 Bach Gesellschaft edition, having become standard by that time. The set consists of three sonatas da chiesa in four movements and three partitas (or partias) in dance-form movements. The 2nd Partita is widely known for its Chaconne, considered one of the most masterly and expressive works ever written for solo violin.

After the English Suites, the French Suites and the Toccatas, which received unanimous critical acclaim, Blandine Rannou returns to Bach with a recording of the Goldberg Variations, played on a French harpsichord by Anthony Sidey. Bach’s original title translates as “Keyboard exercise, consisting of an ARIA with diverse variations for harpsichord with two manuals. Composed for connoisseurs, for the refreshment of their spirits… ” This feast of harpsichord music, beautifully played, is indeed just that: a refreshment – and a delight – for the spirits!