If the recognition of one's peers is the true measure of success, then few men are as successful as composer, arranger, and conductor Henry Mancini. In a career that spanned 40 years, writing for film and television, Mancini won four Oscars and twenty Grammys, the all-time record for a pop artist.

This 25-track collection brings together some of the most inspiring blues harp performances on record. With the exception of John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson's "Bring Me Another Half a Pint" (what's better known as Jimmy Rogers' "Sloppy Drunk" and originally penned even earlier by Lucille Bogan) from 1948, everything on here was recorded in the '50s to the late '60s at the height of the electric blues boom. Representative and sometimes definitive performances from Big Walter Horton ("Easy," "Need My Baby" and the solo on Jimmy Rogers' "Walkin' By Myself"), Little Walter ("Roller Coaster"), Jimmy Reed ("Found Love"), Snooky Pryor ("Boogie Twist"), Sonny Boy Williamson ("99"), Jerry McCain (the rare, alternate take of "Steady") and Little Junior Parker ("Sweet Home Chicago") pepper this set…

Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on August 30, 1965, by Columbia Records. Dylan continued the musical approach of his previous album Bringing It All Back Home (1965), using rock musicians as his backing band on every track of the album in a further departure from his primarily acoustic folk sound, except for the closing track, the 11-minute ballad "Desolation Row". Critics have focused on the innovative way Dylan combined driving, blues-based music with the subtlety of poetry to create songs that captured the political and cultural climate of contemporary America. Author Michael Gray argued that, in an important sense, the 1960s "started" with this album. Highway 61 Revisited peaked at No. 3 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart and No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart. Positively received on release, the album has since been described as one of Dylan's best works and among the greatest albums of all time, ranking No. 4 on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2003 and repositioned to No. 18 in the 2020 revision.

Captured Live at the Forum is the third album by American rock band Three Dog Night, released in 1969. The album was recorded at The Forum in Los Angeles. According to Three Dog Nightmare, Three Dog Night opened this show in support of Steppenwolf, who were recording various shows on their 1969–70 tour for an upcoming live album (Steppenwolf Live, released 1970). Steppenwolf and Three Dog Night both recorded for the ABC/Dunhill label and shared the same production team, and it was decided to also record Three Dog Night on this occasion, despite the band's having only released two prior albums. The choice paid off, as Captured Live at the Forum reached #6 on the Billboard album chart. All the songs featured on Captured Live at the Forum were previously issued in studio versions by Three Dog Night. "Feelin' Alright", "Eli's Coming", and "Easy to Be Hard" were included on the band's second studio album Suitable for Framing, and the remainder on their eponymous first album.

Sir Adrian Boult Neither as colorful a public figure as fellow Briton Thomas Beecham, nor as stormy and commanding on the podium as some of his better-known international contemporaries, Adrian Boult nevertheless was one of Britain's foremost conductors for nearly 70 years. He championed contemporary music, introducing Holst's The Planets and Berg's Wozzeck to the British public, but his pioneering work with the BBC Orchestra, which he created and directed for 20 years, is often regarded as his signature achievement. Born to a wealthy shipowner, Boult spent his grammar school days in London at Westminster School and took to music early. At Christ Church, Oxford, Boult flourished under the guidance of conductor Hugh Allen. In addition, Boult worked with Artur Nikisch during a stay at the Leipzig Conservatory (1912-1913).

The group's second album was virtually a re-creation of its predecessor, only slightly more sophisticated in its range of songs and the manner of playing them, and the in-house writing had improved, though the latter also became highly derivative. Steppenwolf the Second embraces everything from hard rock to psychedelia to blues, and the band is in excellent form, playing very hard and edgy, except on the deliberately lyrical, reflective "Spiritual Fantasy," a rare acoustic number for the group.

More than any other artist to emerge from the fertile black metal scene of the early ‘90s, Ihsahn has firmly established himself as an unpredictable maverick. Frontman and chief composer with the legendary Emperor, he re-wrote the rulebook on epic extreme music across a series of albums that are still widely regarded as classics. Ihsahn’s unique approach and liberated musical ethos ensured that when he embarked on a solo career, fans were primed to expect the unexpected. Full conceptual album, presented in two versions: Metal and Orchestral. Ihsahn has created his best and most unique and powerful album to date. In line with the cinematic inspirations, music and lyrics follow two parallel narratives with recurring themes throughout. The main story is presented in the metal version, whereas the secondary story is rooted in the orchestral version, although bleeding into the main story.

Inspired by his Highland heritage, the young tenor Glen Cunningham presents a personal and heartfelt journey through music connected to Scotland, both native and international, old and new. The focus of the new is a commission by fellow Highlander Stuart MacRae, setting five poems of Robert Louis Stevenson.At the album’s core, meanwhile, are Schumann’s settings of Robert Burns, showcasing the poet’s influence on the world of lieder, alongside arrangements of Burns’ songs by Scottish composers. Joined by pianist, friend and regular duo partner Anna Tilbrook, Cunningham offers a rich, evocative programme that reflects his deep connection to the landscapes and stories of his homeland.

It is the year 1900: the new century has just started when two young composers independently from each other publish new additions to the string octet literature. The Romanian George Enescu at the tender age of eighteen already has gathered more musical experience than most musicians twice his age. As a composer he sets himself a complex and daunting task: his octet is in four movements, yet played together they reveal a sonata form (a structure applied to the first movements of some famous symphonies), consisting of an exposition, a development and a recapitulation. The sonata form with its statements and contrasting statements is like a dramatic monologue with arguments and counter-arguments: the young Enescu, with his formal experiment, brings fragments of his Romanian background and Viennese and French musical upbringing together into a unity and thus draws us into his inner world.In contrast, the twenty-one year old Ottorino Respighi rather goes the other way: he becomes the observer, the filmmaker with the dramatic flair of capturing beautiful images in music, just as he would later do with equal conviction in works like Pini di Roma or Feste romane.

The MPS label scored a coup when they were able to set up a recording date with the Basie orchestra. It took place on October 20th, 1969 at Universal Studios in Chicago. As agreed upon, the band brought along standards from the Basie book, and the Count fulfilled MPS head Hans Georg Brunner-Schwers wish that Basie play longer piano passages than usual; normally Basie limited himself to a short riff here and there. The way Basie and his orchestra played reminded me of a top long distance runner, producer Sonny Lester commented in the liner notes to the album. He went on to say that the bands playing was, disciplined, clean, with such a feel for timing and teamwork that you had the feeling that every band member was guided by the same brain. The best-known names in that particular group were tenor saxophonist Eddie Lockjaw Davis and guitarist Freddie Green, a Basie mainstay over the decades.

What makes Ysaye’s solo sonatas so extraordinary is the richness of their harmonies, offering endless possibilities to explore a vast spectrum of contrasts in sound projection and violinistic effects each time you engage with them. To me, these works are like a boundless ocean, where every dive reveals something new, enveloping you in an infinite palette of colours and emotions. The experience of both playing and listening to them is nothing short of breathtaking, as they invite you into a world of perpetual discovery, where the music seems to breathe and transform with every interpretation. Elvin Hoxha Ganiyev is a solo concert violinist with a broad and diverse repertoire who is currently pursuing his Konzertexamen degree at Folkwang Universitat der Kunste in Essen with Prof. Aleksey Semenenko and his second Master’s degree in Instrumental soloist program of UdK Berlin with Mark Gothoni simultaneously. He holds a Master’s Degree from Hochschule fur Musik Theater und Medien Hannover in Germany, where he studied with Professor Krzysztof Wegrzyn, and also a Bachelor’s Degree from Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia in Spain, from the class of Professor Zakhar Bron.

Jean-Jacques Kravetz is a french multi-instrumentalist (piano, keyboard, sax) and fruitful composer who released his whole career in Germany. He is mostly known for being the keyboardist of Frumpy, Kin Ping Meh and Atlantis. Today he is recognised as one the great pionniers of German rock.
In a relative discretion he published a solo effort simply called Kravetz (1972). In this solo excursion he was accompanied by the famous Udo Lindenberg on drums. Musically, the album is a pleasant combination between heavy fuzzy organs and krauty improvs.

Five CD box set containing a quintet of original albums from this Classic Rock outfit. This set contains the digitally remastered and expanded editions of Foreigner (1977), Double Vision (1978), Head Games (1979), 4 (1981) and Agent Provocateur (1984). Led by vocalist Lou Gramm and guitarist Mick Jones, Foreigner, alongside Journey, were one of the most successful Melodic Rock/AOR bands of all time, Their music is still in heavy rotation on radio stations all over the world.

Ian Boddy has been at the forefront of the UK electronic music scene since 1983 when he both performed at the very first UK Electronica Festival in Milton Keynes and released his first vinyl album "The Climb". Ian Boddy provides the listener with a rich atmosphere of original timbres and floating soundscapes. He is one of the few of his generation to have successfully integrated electronic music styles as diverse as seventies-style sequencer structures, melodic neo-classicism and the post-rave Modern Ambient style.
Next to Boddy's impressive solo career stands his collaborative live performance and studio efforts with several of Electronic Music's most innovative and interesting personalities including: Ron Boots, Chris Carter, Andy Pickford, Robert Rich, Markus Reuter, Erik Wollo, David Wright and the ongoing project ARC with Mark Shreeve…

‘If you want to know who, for me, is the greatest living composer, I’ll tell you without hesitation – it’s Elgar, whom I place on the same level as my idols Beethoven and Brahms!’ So said the great virtuoso Kreisler.’ Nicolas Dautricourt continues: ‘This Concerto, with its unbridled lyricism and unique proportions, is an Everest for any violinist.’ In this, his first recording for Channel Classics, the French violinist brings together three works by two English composers. In 1888, in the same year Elgar wrote the famous Salut d’amour for his fiancée Caroline Alice Roberts, Frederick Delius composed his Suite for Violin and Orchestra, one of his very first works. The Suite, which only received its premiere in 1984, is heard here in this insightful arrangement by Frédéric Chaslin for violin, piano and string quartet.