Yevgeny Sudbin has previously recorded Beethoven’s piano concertos – releases which have received international acclaim, for instance on the website ClassicsToday.com: ‘A Beethoven experience you will not want to miss.’ For his first disc featuring solo works by Beethoven, Sudbin has chosen the two final sonatas and the Six Bagatelles, Op. 126 – late works written between 1821 and 1824, just a couple of years before the composer’s death. There are numerous anecdotes that testify to the fact that Beethoven was highly temperamental. But in his liner notes to this disc, Sudbin writes of another, contrasting side to the composer: ‘warmth, generosity and wisdom – with unexpected outbursts of cheeky humour – are also unmistakably among Beethoven’s qualities and particularly evident in the works on this recording’.

This attractively presented disc is not the same one recorded by Japanese-French lutenist Yasunori Imamura for the Capriccio label in 1998, even though the keys of the two lute sonatas, and the presence of a central pair of shorter works, makes the program look almost identical. Sylvius Leopold Weiss was nearly an exact contemporary of Bach's, and the notes by Beat Hänggi contend that were it not for the difficulty and obscurity of the lute, he would be nearly as well known as today. That's hard to swallow, considering the versatility of Bach's talents and the fact that Weiss occupies one small corner of the Baroque musical universe. Nevertheless, Bach is thought to have admired Weiss' playing, and may have written lute music for him. The comparison has some validity.

John Eliot Gardiner's is a highly musical and inspired account of Messiah, featuring an excellent group of soloists and an outstanding period-instrument band. With dance rhythms athletically sprung and da capo arias tastefully ornamented, the performance generates consistent interest and is lively in spite of its length. There is splendid choral singing from the Monteverdi Choir–the ending of "All We Like Sheep" is quite potent–and much wonderful work from the soloists. The recording, made in 1982, is impeccable.

Guitarist Alvin Youngblood Hart dedicates his third release Start With the Soul to, among others, the late Thin Lizzy leader Phil Lynott. This isn't just lip service, as you can immediately hear when the opening roar of "Fightin' Hard" comes blaring through. Hart doesn't go out of his way to appeal only to blues followers. He has the natural ability to fuse twangy country, Hendrix, funk, and reggae into his Delta blues style without regard to genres. Start With the Soul is unlike other releases from artists who at the beginning of their career display an acoustic Delta approach only to end up incorporating a very commercial soul sound for the sake of reaching a wider audience or receiving minuscule radio airplay. The choice of cover versions is revealing; Chuck Berry's "Back to Memphis," Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose's 1971 hit "Treat Her Like a Lady," and the Sonics' mid-'60s garage rocker "The Hustler" lose none of the vigor of the originals.

Pianos in The Kitchen brings together select concert recordings of solo piano works performed at The Kitchen from 1976 through 1983, including works from the 1976 Bösendorfer Festival and the 1983 series of benefit concerts that supported the purchase of a new Steinway Baby Grand piano for the institution. Featured are names familiar to The Kitchen’s history such as Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Charlemagne Palestine, and Anthony Davis as well as performers/composers Harold Budd and Dennis Russell Davies, who have enjoyed important careers, but are not necessarily associated with The Kitchen’s programming. This CD covers a range of genres, from jazz to classical to new music. All of the recordings document performances in which the piano–the instrument most central to the development of Western music–is played, explored, and extended.

Four CD set of the complete Salsoul Collection by Soul Funk and Disco Band Skyy plus bonus tracks of 12" and 7" versions of key repertoire. Including the albums Skyy, Skyway, Skyyport, Skyyline, Skyyjammer, Skyylight and Inner City plus bonus tracks from 1979 through 1984. Featuring all of the big floor fillers, including 'Here For You', 'First Time Around', 'Call Me', 'Let's Celebrate', 'Bad Boy', 'This Groove Is Bad' plus many, many more. Skyy was the brainchild of Randy Muller, a multi-talented musician originally from Guyana. Muller worked with B. T. Express before forming Brass Construction. Skyy consisted of Solmon Roberts Jr, Anibal Sierra, Gerald Lebon, Tommy McConnell, Wayne Wilentz, Denise Dunning, Bonne Dunning and Delores Dunning, along with help from Randy Muller, who with Solmon Roberts Jr produced all the Skyy Salsoul Albums.

Recorded Live In Japan, Yokohama 5.12.1993.

Paris Theater London, U.K. BBC Concert, May 24, 1973.

TWO SUPERB LIVE BROADCAST RECORDINGS FROM LAURA NYRO IN 1994 Laura Nyro s ninth studio album Walk the Dog and Light the Light was released in the late summer of 1993, more than nine years after its predecessor, Mother's Spiritual. It followed Nyro's 1989 live album Laura: Live at the Bottom Line, and the atmosphere of the new record was similarly laidback It was the last album of new original material that Nyro released during her lifetime: although she began recording another album in 1994, it was not completed prior to her death from ovarian cancer in 1996. The newer recordings were released posthumously in 2001 as Angel In The Dark. Laura went out on the road in early 1994 to promote Walk The Dog…. and on February 22nd that year she performed at The Kintetsu Hall in Osaka, Japan, where she gave an extraordinary concert which was recorded for both FM radio broadcast and for TV transmission. Later in the year, in June, she was back in the US and played at Pittsburgh s Point State Park, another show recorded for radio broadcast. Both these superb concerts are now featured in full on this CD, providing fans of this enormously talented singer and composer with an audio illustration of the strength and beauty of Laura s live performances so near to the end of her sadly short life.

CLASSIC ERA MANASSAS - LIVE BROADCAST FROM THE WEST COAST When Manassas took the stage on 7th October 1973, on the final night of their Winterland engagement that year, they had no idea it would turn out to be one of their last performances. Playing a wealth of material from their debut double album, a few choice numbers from their second record, and with some choice surprises in store, it would turn out to be one of the group s most memorable shows. The first set kicks off with a fully electric performance containing side one of their debut, performed in sequence. Both Stills and Al Perkins, who plays an impressive second lead guitar, as well as pedal steel, provide the bulk of the solos, and by this point in time they had become quite adept at complimenting each other. Chris Hillman then leads the group into a fine rendition of The Byrds' hit So You Want To Be A Rock 'N' Roll Star , providing an unexpected but delightful conclusion to this 18-minute sequence. Johnny's Garden provides some lighter relief with its laidback folk-rock vibe before they conclude this first set with the smouldering blues cut Go Back Home , a standout track from Stills' first solo record.

'The BBC Collection’ is an all-encompassing collection of the many recorded performances of Rory Gallagher at the BBC. Featuring eighteen CDs worth of radio concerts and sessions from 1971 to 1986, roughly 75% of this material has not been officially released before. Also included is two Blu Ray discs of BBC TV concerts and studio performances from 1973 to 1984, all of which has not been officially released previously. Amassed from the BBC archives and Rory Gallagher’s own transcription discs and off-air cassette recordings, the boxset spans 16 years of his career (1971-1986), taking in highlights such as the 1977 dual television and radio broadcast Sight & Sound concert, Rory’s headlining set at the Reading Festival in 1980 to the emotional ‘At Midnight’ concert live from the Ulster Hall in Belfast, 1984. A ‘best of’ from this collection will be available on 2CD and 3LP, titled “The Best of Rory Gallagher at the BBC” These releases celebrate the importance of the artist Rory Gallagher, who was possibly the most recorded musician of the 1970s by the BBC.

In 1956, Bernard Haitink conducted the Concertgebouworkest for the first time and together they would play more than 1,500 concerts across the globe. Besides his modesty, his humanity, his musical taste, and his honesty to the music, three words come to mind when one thinks of Haitink and his orchestra: Sound, Trust and Magic. Jörgen van Rijen, Principal trombone of the Concertgebouworkest, said at a memorial concert in February this year, “Every time with him [Haitink] the orchestra sounded warmer, deeper and richer, from the first moment he started to rehearse. How he did that is difficult to tell … he always gave us musicians the feeling he trusted you, that he was there to help, not to interfere.”

Le Retour des Dieux sur la Terre and Le Caprice d'Erato are part of the tradition inherited from Louis XIV of occasional pieces that served to illustrate major events at Court: Composed four years apart, the first to celebrate the wedding of Louis XV and Marie Leszczynska in 1725 and the second for the birth of their first son in 1729, these two divertissements are veritable little concert operas in which splendid grand narratives, triumphal overtures, surprising dances, solemn choruses and grandiose finales follow one another.

Ever the iconoclast, if there is one thing that Brian Eno has done with any degree of consistency throughout his varied career, it is presenting his art in an array of perpetually "out of the box" forums. All that changed – in a manner of speaking – with the release of two companion multi-disc compilations. Eno Box I: Instrumentals (1994) condenses his wordless creations, while Eno Box II: Vocals (1993) does the same for the rest of his major works on a similarly sized volume. Interestingly – and in his typically contrary fashion – this initial installment was actually issued last. Each of Eno Box I: Instrumentals' three CDs respectively concentrates on a specific facet of the artist's copious back catalog.

Roots & Fruits is a 1998 album by Wolfgang Puschnig, an Austrian jazz saxophonist, composer, and musician known for his work in both jazz and world music. Puschnig's musical style is marked by his ability to blend traditional jazz with influences from different cultures, creating a diverse and eclectic sound.