Harmonica ace Charlie Musselwhite falls between the more obvious generations of blues players, younger than its elder statesmen but considerably senior to young hot-shots like Jonny Lang and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. How, then, can he find a fresh hook to his music without resorting to attention-grabbing gimmicks? Except for two songs featuring producer/guitarist Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos, Charlie Musselwhite's 1997 album, Rough News, doesn't have any famous guests, but it stands out from the harmonica whiz's long and deep discography nonetheless. Musselwhite has pared down his sound so radically that every instrument has become a rhythm instrument. When these lean, groove-based arrangements are applied to tunes as simple and catchy as "Both Sides of Fence," "I Sat & Cried" and "Natural Born Lover," the results jump at the listener with the bare-basics excitement of early rock & roll.

The music on this recital was specifically written or arranged for duo violinists Angela and Jennifer Chun. It highlights the personal and professional connections between Philip Glass and Nico Muhly, a longtime colleague and admirer of Glass's work. Glass's miniaturist works, Mad Rush and In the Summer House, create a maximum effect when paired with Muhly's minimalist Four Studies and Honest Music.

By now, anyone who has heard one of Mark Lanegan's solo albums knows exactly what the others will sound like – Lanegan's weathered, smoky voice intones tales of quiet desperation over echoing electric guitar arpeggios, folky acoustic guitar work, and the occasional piano, organ, or violin embellishment. This approach has resulted in a compelling body of work, often possessed of remarkable depth, but it's also become something of a stylistic straitjacket over the course of several albums. And that's the only major knock against the otherwise brilliant I'll Take Care of You, Lanegan's fourth solo album, which marks the first time it hasn't taken him four years to deliver a follow-up. Perhaps that's because there's no original material here – I'll Take Care of You applies the drifting, elegiac qualities of its predecessors to a selection of well-chosen, mostly underexposed folk, country, and blues covers. It's a testament to Lanegan's interpretive skill that he's able to use his already well-established style so effectively yet again, as most of these versions range from stunning to merely excellent.

If only for his melodic genius, Handel would have been forever acknowledged as one of history's greatest composers. These delightful sonatas for recorder provide abundant evidence to support that claim, and Marion Verbruggen's warm, resonant recorder and brilliant flute prove the perfect partners for bringing these rarely heard pieces to life.

A world might seem to divide the unbridled Romanticism of Berlioz from the highly controlled Late Baroque art of Rameau. However, separated by less than a century, the same passion links these two works that prove more similar than their stylistic divergence might suggest. There is the same audacity in orchestration, combined with an innate sense of drama that springs repeated rhythmic and harmonic surprises. The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra shows its versatility under Daniel Harding, who posses a matchless gift for establishing a dialogue between these two pioneering geniuses.

As the historic festival marks its 40-year anniversary, Rhino presents Woodstock 40, six-CD boxed set that features the most comprehensive collection ever available of artists that performed at the original festival, sequenced in chronological order of performance, featuring 38 previously unreleased recordings, including the Grateful Dead, The Who, Tim Hardin, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe & The Fish, and others. Also box includes 80-page book with extensive liner notes, photos and the complete and accurate set lists.

The string quartets of Béla Bartók punctuate the evolution of his style and the turning points of his existence. From the Second Quartet (1915-17) reflecting the period of World War One and his troubled personal life, through the Fourth whose exploration of rhythm, tonality and timbre produces magnificent and unprecedented sonorities in its ‘night music’, to the unbearable anguish of the Sixth (1939), as his dream of fraternity was shattered against the rise of nationalism and fascism, the Jerusa lem Quartet’s programme brings us the essence of Bartók's genius. Expect reviews in Classical music press for these hm artists with an extensive, acclaimed back catalogue for the label.

Solomon's Seal was an album recorded in 1972 by folk-rock band Pentangle. It was the last album recorded by the original line-up, before the band split in 1973. Jacqui McShee has stated that it is her favourite Pentangle album. The album title refers to the Seal of Solomon - a mythical signet ring with magical powers, sometimes associated with the pentagram symbol adopted by Pentangle.

On his fourth recording for harmonia mundi, GRAMMY-nominated conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya leads the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in an all-orchestral program featuring Witold Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra and Arnold Schoenberg's orchestration of Brahms's Piano Quartet No.1. With its use of folk melodies to generate tremendous momentum and dramatic impact, the Concerto for Orchestra established Lutoslawski as Poland's leading contemporary composer. Harth-Bedoya couples this powerful and complex score with Schoenberg's rich and colorful arrangement of one of Brahms's most popular chamber works.

On his second album for the Concord Jazz label, guitarist Robben Ford stays pretty much to the formula of Blue Moon from 2001. He concentrates on playing, singing, and covering great songs (and even writes a few) with interesting arrangements, inspired solos, and crisp, clean production that lets the song shine through the players. Much has been made of Ford's eclecticism and that is reflected in his choice of material here, though he never strays from the blues or R&B into jazz or fusion. Ford's selection of session players reflects his divergent interests as well: Edgar Winter appears on saxophone, while John Mayall and Ivan Neville guest along with horn bosses Bob Malach and Dan Fornero and Ford's road band. Opening the set with the title track, written by soul man Jackie Edwards, Ford lays out his formula immediately: a tight horn chart for tenor and baritone saxes, as well as trumpet; a crystal clear, expressive vocal delivery; and Ford's signature stinging guitar in the solo break lifts proceedings off on the up tip.

Apparently a staple in Russia, the music of Taneyev exists on the fringes of the repertoire in the West, something that should be rectified–and will be if this superb CD made by a starry cast of performers gets the attention it deserves. He’s a Romantic composer, but hardly of the heart-on-sleeve variety, since he was a master of counterpoint and firmly encased his Romantic impulses in a well-fitted classical jacket. Sometimes he makes you think of a more modern, pungent Brahms with a Russian accent.

One listen to Lisa Gerrard's The Silver Tree (originally available only digitally, then as an Australia-only import, and finally, as a U.S. release) is enough to convince anybody – who isn't already convinced – that there's a very specific reason she has been courted by directors to compose soundtracks. There are 13 tracks here full of wispy ambient soundscapes, on top of which the former Dead Can Dance vocalist places her almost otherworldly gift of a voice. Sung nearly as prayers or meditative mantras, Gerrard employs monosyllabic glimpses of other languages – and occasionally English – to create her own tapestry of dreams. Some may be tempted to call this "new age" music, but it's so much more melancholy than much of what passes for that trash, and it's nearly sacred in its approach to articulation, creating the feeling in places ("Come Tenderness," "The Sea Whisperer," and "Abwoon," to name a few) that she is actually singing inside a cathedral. In other places, such as "Wandering Star" and "Serenity," her voice offers a drone approach that is as subtle – yet powerful – as her instrumentation.

After the stripped-back collection I Often Dream of Trains, Robyn Hitchcock slowly formed a backing band called the Egyptians with ex-Soft Boys Andy Metcalfe and Morris Windsor, and keyboardist Roger Jackson over the course of the next year. Fegmania!, the Egyptians' first album, was a distinct departure from both the Soft Boys and Hitchcock's previous solo work, featuring layered, intertwining guitars and keyboards that created lush and thick sonic textures. Even with the more detailed arrangements, the songs remained twitchy and off-kilter, with melodies that usually went in willfully unpredictable directions, yet remained catchy all the while. Fegmania! was Hitchcock's most consistent work to date, featuring such highlights as the Eastern-tinged "Egyptian Cream", and the creepy "My Wife & My Dead Wife", and the relatively straightforward "The Man with the Lightbulb Head".

This was the last of the six albums John Mayall originally made for Blue Thumb/ABC Records between 1975 and 1978, about which he has said, "ABC released six of my albums as a tax write-off. A week after they were released you couldn't find them in any store." It's a live album on which Mayall fronts a quartet consisting of guitarist James Quill Smith (who sings lead on several songs), bassist Steve Thompson, and drummer Soko Richardson. The approach is rock-oriented, and the set list includes such Bluesbreakers favorites as Mose Allison's "Parchman Farm," and Freddie King's "Hideaway" (taken at a frantic tempo), along with the usual complement of generic Mayall originals, among them, a remake of "The Bear," from Blues From Laurel Canyon.

This sparkling suite for violin and piano came into being when the composer had to adapt his incidental score for a production of Shakespeare's play to the impending absence of the chamber orchestral. The result is a brilliant piece for violin and piano, which the composer quickly released in a four-movement version. There are other recordings of the chamber orchestra suite in five-movements that duplicate only three of the movements of this version. Violinist Gil Shaham and pianist André Previn are ideal partners in this brilliant performance. The four movements allow Shaham to show four sides of his violinist's personality: He skips and plays in carefree fashion in the opening movement, indulges in the grotesquery and parody of the second, gets to play the romantic in the garden scene of the third movement, and dazzles with virtuosity in the final hornpipe. Previn's part is more than mere accompaniment; the piano often has a large part of the mood of the music and his contribution is, to use a word already employed here, ideal.