Countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic has emerged as a new star of the specialty partly through fearless programming, and this collection of Arie Napoletane, Neapolitan arias or arias from Naples, is no exception. There really isn't a "Neapolitan school." Rather, Naples was on the musical cutting edge in the second quarter of the 18th century, and the arias here represent both a classic opera seria style, in the pieces by the massively prolific Alessandro Scarlatti, and music by the composers who pointed the way toward the melodically simpler future of Gluck and eventually Mozart, like Leonardo Leo and Leonardo Vinci. These latter are hardly household names, and Cencic, offering several recorded premieres, renders a valuable service simply by finding and choosing the deliberate and sensuous arias heard here. Moreover, the album's stylistic contrasts play to Cencic's strengths.

One of the most commercially successful bands of its era, Three Dog Night had a remarkable run of more than 20 chart singles between 1969 and 1975, racking up nearly a dozen top-10 hits and, consequently, 12 consecutive gold albums. THE COMPLETE HIT SINGLES brings these 21 cuts together in a single-disc package. The band's soulful pop-rock, driven by the revolving, triple lead vocals of Danny Hutton, Chuck Negron, and Cory Wells, and sweetened by atmospheric keys, rock guitar, and tasteful strings, attest to their widespread appeal and sustained popularity.

Philipp Fankhauser is a Swiss blues singer/guitarist who experienced Top Ten success in his homeland after two decades of recording activity. Born in 1964 in Thun, Switzerland, he began playing music during the late '70s after taking an unlikely interest in the blues as a teenager. His interest in the blues was compounded after he attended the 1981 Montreux Jazz Festival, where he witnessed firsthand a performance by Albert Collins. Other American blues legends he saw at the Montreux Jazz Festival during the early '80s included such luminaries as B.B. King, Koko Taylor, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In particular, a 1984 performance by Johnny "Clyde" Copeland left a lasting impression on Fankhauser; in fact, the two became acquainted and the Texas legend became a mentor to the Swiss novice, whose performance career was becoming a full-time occupation around this time period.

The Czech Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov continue their acclaimed Mahler cycle with the composer's Third Symphony, working together with mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison, the Prague Philharmonic Choir and Pueri Gaudentes. In this monumental work, Mahler combines a text from Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarat hust ra with the folk song inspirations of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, culminating in eternal bliss in the closing Adagio. To Bychkov, this longest Mahler symphony offers his " least hysterical" music, and hearing it for the first time as a 10-year-old choirboy kindled his life-long fascination and love for this composer. With this recording, it comes full circle. The Czech Philharmonic - recently awarded Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year Award - is one of the world's orchestral gems, recognised for its rich tradition with the Czech masters as well as European repertoire. Together with their Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov, they have so far recorded for PENTATONE Mahler's First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Symphonies (2022-2023), part of the complete Mahler cycle to be released by the label, as well as Smetana's Ma vlast and Dvorak's Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Symphonies (2024). The Orchestra is also featured on the albums Folk Songs (2023) and Czech Songs (2024) recorded by Magdalena Kozena and Sir Simon Rattle, as well as Dvorak Legends & Rhapsodies with Tomas Netopil.

In the mid- to late '90s and early 2000s, Novembre was usually categorized as a metal band. The Rome, Italy-based outfit (whose name means November in Italian) were called gothic metal, doom metal and alternative metal, and they were compared to bands ranging from My Dying Bride to Opeth to Katatonia. But it would be a mistake to think of Materia as strictly a metal album. Parts of the disc are relevant to metal (the generally clean vocals occasionally give way to a death metal-ish growl), but much of this 2006 release is simply alternative rock. But however one categorizes Materia, this is an enjoyable, well-crafted and highly melodic effort that thrives on all things melancholy. Very few rays of sunlight find their way to Materia; the songs have a dark, gloomy, brooding and less than optimistic perspective. And there is nothing wrong with that; there is no law stating that every band that records is obligated to push the smile button…

Elina Mustonen began playing the harpsichord at the age of eight. After completing her studies at the Sibelius Academy in 1983, she proceeded to the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam to study with Ton Koopman and was awarded a soloist diploma in 1988. In 2006 she obtained her Doctoral degree at the Sibelius Academy. The topic of her thesis was J.S. Bach's harpsichord pedagogy. Ever since her debut concert at the Jyväskylä Summer Festival in 1987 Ms. Mustonen has performed widely as a soloist and chamber musician. In addition to Finland, she has been heard in Estonia, Iceland, Germany, the UK, Italy, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and the United States. Ms. Mustonen has appeared as a soloist with most of the Finnish orchestras such as the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tapiola Sinfonietta, the Sinfonia Lahti and the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. Her repertoire includes not only the major Baroque concertos but also the harpsichord concertos of Francis Poulenc, Bohuslav Martinu and Manuel de Falla. Ms. Mustonen has made several critically acclaimed recordings. Her latest achievement is a complete recording of the Six Partitas by J.S. Bach.

All of King's recordings for the Bobbin label are on this 22-track disc, including everything from his 1959-1963 singles for the label and previously unissued alternate takes of "Why Are You So Mean to Me," "The Time Has Come," and the previously unissued "Blues at Sunrise." While these are decent journeyman urban blues/R&B, they're not up to the level of his subsequent recordings for Stax. Albert King just sounds too much like the records another King – B.B. King, that is – was making during the same era. There are similar horn arrangements and alternation of stinging guitar with smooth, confident vocal phrasing. It's a tribute to Albert King's abilities, in a way, that it does sound confident, and not the work of an imitator, despite the similarities.

By the time they released Fire On the Bayou in 1975, the Meters (now a quintet, with addition of Cyril Neville to the lineup) had graduated from regional cult heroes to internationally renowned recording act. In addition to playing on records by the likes of Paul McCartney, Dr. John, LaBelle and Robert Palmer, they were personally invited by the Rolling Stones to open their 1975 U.S. tour. The momentum helped Fire On the Bayou to become one of the Meters' most acclaimed and commercially successful albums. It remains a fan favorite, thanks to such gritty classic jams as "Talkin' 'bout New Orleans" and "They All Ask'd for You," which demonstrate the band's effortless instrumental expertise and organic rhythmic rapport. This remastered expanded edition contains five bonus tracks.

Blending the eclectic energy that first captivated her fans with a bold, fearless artistic vision, 'Mayhem' marks a triumphant return to Gaga's pop roots. The album explores themes of chaos and transformation, celebrating music's power to unite, provoke, and heal. 'The album started as me facing my fear of returning to the pop music my earliest fans loved', said Gaga. Far from a nostalgic throwback, 'Mayhem' reinvents her early sound with a kaleidoscopic approach that draws from her expansive musical library while embracing a fresh and fearless artistic perspective. Gaga describes the creative process as 'reassembling a shattered mirror: even if you can't put the pieces back together perfectly, you can create something beautiful and whole in its own new way'.

18th-century Venice is the ultimate setting for splendor—architectural, pictorial, theatrical, musical, and vocal. Venetian opera shines across Europe, combining dramatic intensity with the beauty of vocal lines. Just as Canaletto and Guardi capture every facet of La Serenissima in their panoramic paintings, composers seek to explore the full spectrum of human emotions through opera.Returning to the recording scene, Sophie Junker invites us to discover these composers alongside Martyna Pastuszka, leading the {oh!} Orkiestra. Her brilliant and agile soprano flourishes in arias of fury and vengeance (Vivaldi and Lotti) as well as in the heartrending laments of an Iphigenia (Porta) or an Ariadne (Marcello). Meanwhile, Martyna Pastuszka’s violin leads one of the magnificent concertos from La Stravaganza (“The Extraordinary”)—a fitting subtitle for this program!

If Born This Way was made for the Little Monsters, its 2013 sequel ARTPOP was made for the world. Lady Gaga has grand designs for her third album, to pull a "reverse Warhol," which presumably means she wants to channel high art into pop instead of pop into high art, but it's a little difficult to discern Gaga's intent, either in this statement or ARTPOP as a whole. Willfully existing simply on the surface, a surface that perhaps (or perhaps not) signifies a greater depth, ARTPOP is teasingly garish, its bright colors and brittle beats attacking with glee, the emphasis always on big, pulsating beats, shattered reflections, and sound cascading over song in every instance. Inevitably, this emphasis on production means the pop in ARTPOP winds up diminished; perhaps it's "pop" in the pop-art sense, as it's shamelessly intentionally populist, but as pop music it's stiff, relying not on hooks in either its melody or rhythm…

Could Alain Planès let the centenary of Satie’s death go by without paying tribute to this composer whom he admires above all others? On a 1928 Pleyel, he offers us a panoramic survey of this often droll, caustic music, which stubbornly resists classification. Marc Mauillon (in the songs) and François Pinel (in the pieces for piano four hands) accompany him in his exploration of the finest compositions of the ‘Maître d’Arcueil’. An exceptional CD, with a booklet ‘personally’ illustrated by both the composer and the performer themselves.

After a pair of solo efforts that veered from eccentric yet inspired (Monkey Grip) to eccentric and uninspired (Stone Alone), Bill Wyman (The Rolling Stones) perfected his blend of rock & roll and oddball humor into one solid album on 1982's Bill Wyman. Instead of utilizing the all-star group of backup musicians that dominated his previous solo outings, Bill Wyman found the veteran rocker handling much of the instrumentation himself, with only a rhythm section and a few guest stars pitching in. The result is a crisp, consistent sound that mixes the electronic edge of new wave with good, old-fashioned rock & roll production values. Bill Wyman also benefits from catchy, well-written songs that provide a hook-laden backdrop for Wyman's humorous musings: "A New Fashion" is a witheringly acidic send-up of trend-chasing pop stars that layers a memorably melodic chorus over an effectively sparse electronic backdrop…

This is a previously unpublished album including Beethoven's late masterpieces, Piano sonatas, Op.109 & 110 and Bach's uncommon Overture in the French Style, drawing inspiration from the French tradition of François Couperin and showcasing the perfect technique and musical inspiration of one of the greatest French pianists at his best.

In the early nineteenth century, the house concert was the most common form of musical performance in Vienna. Professionals featured alongside aristocratic music lovers and ambitious bourgeois amateur musicians, and composers presented their works. While Beethoven's admirers were largely counted among the Austrian and Bohemian nobility, Schubert's circle tended to consist of literati, artists, and state officials who saw the salon as a protected space where both aesthetic and political debates could be held.