Maria João Pires Acclaimed as one of the greatest interpreters of Mozart, Portuguese pianist Maria-João Pires is an artist who combines exquisite stylistic refinement with a serious effort to plumb the intellectual complexities and spiritual depths of music. Refusing to conform to the traditional image of a concert virtuoso, Pires emphasizes the spiritual dimensions of music, always searching for hidden meanings which may elude the analytical performer. This remarkable reverence toward works of music, clearly manifested in her performances of Mozart, was made explicit by her remark that, as a performer, she acts as a channel for the composer's ideas. Interestingly, Pires views both the composer and the performer as conduits for a transcendent force. However, while approaching the work of music with immense awe, Pires is acutely aware of its formal structure, finding a certain transparency in the most intricate formal constructions. In her performances of Romantic masters, particularly Chopin and Schumann, Pires masterfully reconciles her passionate experience of the music with an admirable appreciation for the inner logic of the work she is interpreting. Reflecting her vast emotional range, her tone, as critics have observed, encompasses a dizzying variety of intensities, from an almost imperceptible lightness to an imposing monumentality, with a rich scale of intervening nuances.

Armed with purifying fire, blessed swords, and Holy Rage, Ecclesia's lyrical themes deal with the 12th Century dark medieval age of Holy Inquisition. On Ecclesia Militans, one will find a perfect syncretism between traditional heavy metal and epic doom, recalling the likes of Candlemass, the UK's Solstice, and especially Tony Martin-era Black Sabbath. Ecclesia's proselytism will convert fans of those as well as anyone who can feel the righteous fervor of medieval brimstone - now confess your sins!

Flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal was a musical giant, doing much to popularize the flute and to broaden the acceptance of Baroque music; he was the first player to establish the flute as a presence in the international concert world. His recording career extended from the era of 78 rpm recording to that of compact discs, and he was among the most frequently recorded artists of all time. Rampal was born in Marseille on January 7, 1922. His father, Joseph Rampal, was a flute teacher and the first flutist of the Marseille Symphony Orchestra, and he gave Jean-Pierre his first lessons beginning at the age of 12. Joseph Rampal tried to steer his son away from a musical career, and Jean-Pierre began to study medicine. In 1943, however, German occupation forces conscripted him, and he discovered that he was going to be sent to Germany as a forced laborer. Rampal went absent without leave, joined the French Resistance, and made his way to Paris under a new identity. There, he enrolled at the Conservatoire de Paris as a flute student, and five months later, he earned a degree with the school's top prize. Shortly thereafter, Paris was liberated, and conductor Henri Tomasi heard Rampal and invited him to perform Jacques Ibert's flute concerto on national radio in France.

'60s British pop trio the Ivy League consisted of members John Carter, Ken Lewis (previous members of Carter-Lewis and the Southerners), and Perry Ford. All three members were session singers who possessed high-pitched singing voices, forming the group in 1964. Although an initial single quickly disappeared from sight, their second single, "Funny How Love Can Be," turned out to be a surprise U.K. Top Ten hit. Further hits followed, including "That's Why I'm Crying" and a cover of "Tossin' And Turnin'," the latter of which hit number three on the U.K. charts. The original trio managed to only release a single full-length album, 1965's This Is the Ivy League, before both Carter and Lewis left the group a year later. With replacement members Tony Burrows and Neil Landon taking the recently departed original members' places, the Ivy League issued two more full-lengths, 1967's Sounds of the Ivy League and 1969's Tomorrow Is Another Day.

David Oistrakh is considered the premiere violinist of mid-20th century Soviet Union. His recorded legacy includes nearly the entire standard violin repertory up to and including Prokofiev and Bartók. Oistrakh's violin studies began in 1913 with famed teacher Pyotr Stolyarsky. Later he officially joined Stolyarsky's class at the Odessa Conservatory, graduating in 1926 by playing Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto. Performances of the Glazunov concerto in Odessa and Kiev in 1927, and a 1928 debut in Leningrad (Tchaikovsky concerto), gave Oistrakh the confidence to move to Moscow. He made his premiere there in early 1929, but the event went largely unnoticed. In 1934, however, after several years of patiently refining his craft, Oistrakh was invited to join the Moscow Conservatory, eventually rising to the rank of full professor in 1939. Meanwhile, Oistrakh was gaining success on the competition circuit, winning the 1930 All-Ukrainian contest, and the All-Soviet competition three years later. In 1935 he took second prize at the Wieniawski competition. In 1937 the Soviet government sent the now veteran violinist to Brussels to compete in the International Ysaÿe Competition, where he took home first prize.

Clara Schumann was one of the famous piano virtuosos of the 19th century. She was respected by contemporary composers such as Liszt and Thalberg, and was a self-made figure who was appointed as a university professor at a time when women's social participation was difficult.

Over time, the memory of the brilliant virtuoso that was Eugène Ysaÿe (Liège, 1858 - Brussels, 1931) ended up supplanting his status as a composer in the collective memory. It should be remembered, however, that Eugène Ysaÿe created, through his works, a fundamentally new and original genre, distinguished by a science of writing and harmonic richness. This album brings together concert works by Eugène Ysaÿe which, with the exception of the Saltarelle carnavalesque, have never been recorded in their orchestral version. It therefore invites us on a unique journey into the composer's sound universe, from his first to his last compositions written for soloist(s) and orchestra.

Nannette Streicher opened her piano workshop together with her husband and brother in Vienna at the end of the 18th century. They built well over a thousand instruments, of which only around 40 fortepianos have survived to this day. The piano parts on this album were recorded on Nannette Streicher's fortepiano with the serial number 1060. Ludwig van Beethoven himself was good friends with the couple and played their instruments. The three selected sonatas on this album span a period of 14 years, from 1798 (Op. 12/1 and 3) to 1812, the year of the composition of Op. 96 - two years before the piano used here was completed. Stefania Neonato is involved both in performance practice on historical instruments and the modern piano playing tradition. Christine Busch appears as a soloist and chamber musician in concerts worldwide, performing on both modern and baroque violins.

For this well-rounded CD reissue that adds nine cuts to the original program, Anita O'Day, in her prime period, is mostly heard accompanied by Buddy Bregman & His Orchestra, but there are also a few tracks on which she is joined by a jazz combo featuring trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison. Highlights include "Don't Be That Way," "Stompin' at the Savoy," "Pick Yourself Up," "Sweet Georgia Brown," and "I Won't Dance." Virtually all of Anita O'Day's 1950s recordings are recommended, for her drug use had not yet affected her voice and her creativity was generally at its height.

After the spare and lengthy reflections and dislocated experiments of his excellent Dance album, Gary Numan made a return to a more focused approach with I, Assassin, which turned out to be his last truly great album for many years. Much of what would characterize his later music in the '80s did start to show up here, to be sure, but instead of the formless flailing all too apparent on Warriors, and especially on Berserker, Numan's work here with modern electronic funk combines his early rigor and to-the-point rhythms with a deft, creative hand in the arrangements. "White Boys and Heroes," the brilliant opening number, remains one of his best singles, featuring fretless bass work from Pino Palladino (long before both it and him had turned into rent-a-clichés), and set against droning, distorted vocals and doom-laden keyboards…

Before Ratt, before Hanoi Rocks, before the New York Dolls, and before a lot of the British bands which history recalls as archetypal glam rockers, there was Silverhead, the first and positively the greatest metal band ever to dress up like a bunch of weird-looking hookers. Silverhead, this unsightly, unseemly, and unconcerned behemoth's debut album, is strutting teenage trash of the first order. Guitars totter precariously on absurdly high heels, the rhythms are offering knee-tremblers in a backstreet alleyway some place, the lyrics drape lasciviously over anybody who'll hold them up, and the riffs will spend the night with anyone. "Long Legged Lisa," "Rolling With My Baby," and "Sold Me Down the River" might not be the most immortal songs ever oozed onto vinyl, but they certainly dress the sluttiest.

First of the Big Bands is a studio album by Tony Ashton of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke and Jon Lord of Deep Purple, released in April 1974 by Purple Records in the UK and Europe and Warner Bros. Records in the US. The project was Ashton's and Lord's brainchild and continuation of their working relationship after Ashton Gardner & Dyke helped out on Jon Lord's soundtrack album The Last Rebel from 1971. Stylistically, First of the Big Bands was the precursor to Paice Ashton Lord's Malice in Wonderland album from 1977. Most of the album was recorded at Air and Apple Studios, London, with additional work being completed at De Lane Lea and Island.

In the Upper Austrian Schlägl Abbey there are numerous instrumental instrumental concertos, mostly for solo violin, but often also for harpsichord. The demands on the violin soloist are enormous. There must have been a very talented violinist on site.Ars Antiqua Austria has brought some of the concertos back to life. An exciting journey into the still unknown past.

The Italian quartet Barock Project have been making musical waves lately through their outstanding studio album Skyline, released in 2015, which they followed up last year with the live double album Vivo.
In a nutshell, Detachment further enhances them as one of Europe's current finest and most innovative bands, whose distinctive classically-led sound should attract a much wider appeal among serious prog listeners.
If you like your progressive rock to be open, inviting and with a keen focus on melodies and harmonies, without loosing track of being sophisticated on a structural level, Detachment is an album with your name written on it.

This programme spotlights Gabriel Fauré's orchestrated songs and his music for the stage, of which his suite from the incidental music for Pelléas et Mélisande includes some of his best-loved music. Performances of Fauré's spectacular Wagnerian drama Prométhée are a real rarity, while the eloquent Shylock suite, based on Shakespeare, contains some of his most elaborate symphonic music. Fauré orchestrated only a small number of his more than 100 songs, but these include the transcendentally beautiful love song Les Roses d’Ispahan with its harmonic subtleties and gorgeous coda.