When Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev visited Hollywood in the late 1930s, his friend and American champion, maestro Leopold Stokowski, was recording The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, to be used in Fantasia. Prokofiev was indelibly impressed by Walt Disney’s work. He saw how the Disney artists made their animation efforts adhere closely to pre-recorded music tracks; he experienced the click track, a device developed by Disney to ensure that sight and sound were closely coordinated. He then returned to Russia to work with Sergei Eisenstein on the epic film Alexander Nevsky.

Suite à deux projets éblouissants avec la violoncelliste Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, son épouse à la ville, Martin Helmchen a commencé une collaboration en solo avec le label Alpha Classics par la publication d’une remarquable interprétation des Variations Diabelli, l’une des meilleures des dernières années, et sans doute supérieure à celle de Gorini parue sur le même label. Dans le cadre de l’année Beethoven, il s’associe avec le chef Andrew Manze pour une intégrale des Concertos du Maître de Bonn. Ce premier volet donne le ton.

La Nuova Musica presents a new live recording of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, with countertenor star Iestyn Davies singing the title role. Once created to reinstate the “noble simplicity and calm grandeur” of ancient Greek culture, the opera continues to delight audiences with its direct and unpretentious appeal, epitomized by the world-famous aria Che farò senza Euridice. This live recording presents the original 1762 Vienna premiere version of the opera, with Gluck’s exquisite evocation of the Elysian Fields from his 1774 Paris version as a small addition.

The Road to Hell is the tenth studio album by English singer-songwriter Chris Rea, released in 1989. It is Rea's most successful studio album, topping the UK Albums Chart for three weeks, and was certified 6x Platinum by BPI until 2004. The second part of the two-part title track, "The Road to Hell (Pt. 2)", is also one of Rea's most famous songs.

Esteemed as one of Germany’s leading music critics, Ferdinand Pfohl never lost a passion for composition that had been nurtured in Leipzig. He wrote highly individual works for his own instrument, the piano, conceiving cycles that reveal harmonic daring and sophistication, often evocative of developments in impressionism. As Strandbilder (‘Beach Pictures’) shows, he mastered tonal painting- while in the compositional unity of Suite elegiaque, Bohemian and Russian elements mingle with the influence of one of his great heroes, Grieg.

Here are the Monteverdi Vespers as you’ve never heard them before! ‘I see these Vespers as a great incantatory ritual that connects the sacred with the pagan, the intimate with the collective. I experienced this powerful sensation many times in my childhood, in the choir of an abbey: the intense, warm light of a late summer day, filtering in from the west and reflected all the way up to the choir’, says Simon-Pierre Bestion.

A grasshopper, a milkmaid’s pail, a shepherd, a fox, a country mouse, a cobbler… These are just some of the diverse and varied characters from the famous Fables that Jacques Offenbach decided to set to music in 1842, some 150 years after they were written by Jean de La Fontaine. With their vivid texts featuring talking animals and stock characters, the Fables offered an allegorical and didactic way of alluding to the court and the mores of the time. Offenbach chose six of the 240 Fables of la Fontaine to set as mélodies. Here the conductor Jean-Pierre Haeck presents them in his own orchestration performed by the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen and the mezzosoprano Karine Deshayes, who excels in this repertory. To complete the programme, the singer performs numbers from Offenbach’s opéra-bouffe Boule-de-neige and the orchestra plays movements from the ballet Le Papillon, offering listeners a recording as refined as it is witty.

An improvisatory string quartet opens up the hidden region between classical and jazz, riffing off music from around the world.

Essential: a masterpiece of country rock music
On their first four albums, the Eagles were at pains to demonstrate that they were a group of at least near-equals, each getting a share of the songwriting credits and lead vocals.

Jackson Browne faced the nearly insurmountable task of following a masterpiece in making his second album.

Recorded during the band's 1982 commercial renaissance with "You Can Do Magic," this is a live album that's also a de facto greatest-hits package.

The claim to fame for America's 1982 album, View From the Ground, is that it yielded the soft rock duo's last Top Ten hit, "You Can Do Magic."

Among America's first four albums, only their third, Hat Trick, was not an outstanding commercial success. Then former Beatles producer George Martin came to the rescue for Holiday, whose tasty, well-structured arrangements of simple material helped reestablish the band's popularity with the singles "Tin Man" and "Lonely People."

Boxset, originally slated for Record Store Day Black Friday 2015 release (but many copies delayed until January 2016), includes: Pretty Hate Machine 180g Vinyl LP Down In It 12" Vinyl Single (3 Tracks) Head Like A Hole 12" Vinyl Single (7 Tracks) Sin 12" Vinyl Single (4 Tracks) Limited to 3400 copies on 120g vinyl.

NEA Jazz Master Ron Carter with Renee Rosnes, Jimmy Greene and Payton Crossley on November 17, 2018 Live in Sweden!