Completed in 1877, Brahms’s remarkable and impressive Symphony No. 1 was the result of a fourteen-year gestation period and established the composer as the leading German symphonist of his generation. This inaugural issue in a major new cycle on Naxos brings together the internationally acclaimed London Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Marin Alsop, fêted by The Guardian as “…well on her way to becoming one of the best Brahms interpreters”.

Smitty is unequivocally not mellowing with age. This set finds him physically threatening some poor slob in "Get Outta My Way" and generally living up to the boast of the title track. As his profile finally rises, Smith is receiving a little high-profile assistance - Ron Levy produced the set and handles keyboards, while the Memphis Horns add their punchy interjections wherever appropriate.

Sometimes it’s okay to judge a book by its cover. Depicting a down-and-out Frank Sinatra entrenched in his own private world while glamorous couples dance and swirl around him, oblivious to his presence and condition, the artwork to the aptly titled No One Cares testifies on behalf of the music and moods within the record’s grooves. One of the crooner’s top-flight ballads efforts, the 1959 Capitol effort again finds him pairing with sympathetic arranger Gordon Jenkins and inhabiting each note of every song.
Often viewed as the sister album to 1957’s Where Are You?, this third pairing of Sinatra and Jenkins yields slower tempos, more deliberate textures, and lonelier emotions. A profound sense of tragedy burrows into both the luscious strings and Sinatra’s timbre, laced with ache, wanderlust, and dismay…

Invisible are from Argentina and they released 3 albums in the seventies before calling it quits. Their second album named Durazno Sangrando from 1975 is to many the peak, the story is based on the book of Carl Jung and has very solid lyrics besides music made by the head of the band Luis Alberto Spinetta. It has some great instrumental sections like the opening track Encadenado al ánima who is the longest from here. Not very much to add, while is pleasent most of the time, on some particular passages is little going on even has some subltle jazz symphonic arrangements in overall sound.

James Murray and Francis M Gri's Remote Redux is a delicate and original response to distance and closeness as expressed by the Japanese concept Ma, known also as negative space. It's a place of elegant dimension where Gri's graceful piano motifs and bowed guitar figures are carefully framed within the free flowing surrounds of Murray's warm synth sequences and nuanced sound design. Having released each other's work on their Slowcraft and KrysaliSound imprints James and Francis naturally extended this exchange into a remote London-Milan collaboration. The resulting debut is an unhurried collection of exquisitely crafted minimal ambient, tender and contemplative, a listening experience that simultaneously explores and distorts our awareness of separation and togetherness.

"Poro, re dell'Indie" (HWV 28) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language libretto was adapted from Alessandro nell'Indie by Metastasio, and based on Alexander the Great's encounter with King Porus in 326 BC. The libretto had already been set to music by Leonardo Vinci in 1729 and by Antonio Vivaldi among others and was used as the text for more than sixty operas throughout the 18th century. The opera was first given at the King's Theatre in London on 2 February 1731 and on 15 further occasions. A run of 16 performances was a mark of success for the time as is the fact that the work was revived on 23 December 1731, and again in a revised form on 8 December 1736. It was also given in Hamburg and Brunswick.

Leopold I assigned music a central place in the cultural life of his times. He encouraged the production of music at his Vienna court and composed over 150 arias in Italian, some German-language oratorios and musical comedies, and many sacred works. His oratorio Il Sagrificio d’Abramo occupies a special place among Viennese Passion compositions because the figure of Isaac is described as a prefiguration of Christ. Since the librettist, Conte Caldana, places the sacrifice scene in the foreground in the first part of his text, an entirely new level of meaning is created. As a result, Ubidienza (Obedience) and Humanità (Humanity) become Abraham’s partners in dialogue from the very beginning.