New release Canta la Serenissima includes the most divine music from the Republic of Venice, the Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta, La Serenissima. Saint Mark’s Cathedral was one of the main employers of Venetian musicians and also a place of musical reforms in the 16th and 17th centuries. Composers featured on the disc include Claudio Monteverdi, the most famous maestro di cappella of all times at Saint Mark’s, Alessandro Grandi (1586–1630), who was a master of sacred monody, Dario Castello (c. 1590–c. 1658), who was a leader of a wind ensemble from 1621 at Saint Mark’s and Biagio Marini (1594–1663), who was a violinist from 1615 at Saint Mark’s. CD includes also works composed for the city of Venice’s patron saint Virgin Mary. Vocal works are performed skillfully by soprano Kajsa Dahlbäck.

Few twentieth-century creators have been as inventive as Berio in their relationship with popular and ancestral traditions – drawing material as he did from the hits by The Beatles and the soundscapes of urban streets and markets. Here Geoffroy Jourdain paints the portrait of an explorer with a passion for the human voice. Truculent and volcanic in Sequenza III (performed with panache by French mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot), lyrical and caressing in E si fussi pisci, solemn and spellbinding in Cries of London.

The common thread—as so often in The Romantic Piano Concerto series—is Liszt, in whose Weimar circle both composer-pianists featured here moved. Both concertos are pleasingly substantial, and the typically demanding piano writing is powerfully dispatched by Emmanuel Despax.

Guitarist Michael Schenker's impact upon UFO's career cannot be overestimated. Before the German teenager's arrival (he was only 19 when he jumped ship from the Scorpions), the British rockers' early albums of half-baked space rock had been completely ignored everywhere but Japan. But with Schenker on board, the group's sound received a well-needed attitude injection, veering toward the Anglo-hard rock style that would make them famous. That is not to say that their first collaboration, Phenomenon, was an instant home run. Quite the contrary, as the band seemed a tad wary of giving Schenker's more aggressive style complete freedom to roam, reining in the budding guitar hero just enough to stunt the impact of promising rockers like "Oh My and "Too Young to Know." Likewise, "Time on My Hands" and "Crystal Light" are bogged down in excessive acoustic guitars, while "Space Child" shows glimpses of their failed space rock past…

From the opening moments of "Know-Nothing Ingrate," which kicks off Killing for Revenge, it's immediately clear that Six Feet Under focused their energies into something that's as brutal, lyrically visceral and musically dazzling as one would hope for from the ground-breaking Tampa-bred death metal lineup on their 14th studio album.
Killing for Revenge, a gnarly beast of a record that's not for the faint-hearted, dishes up nightmare-inducing imagery courtesy of frontman Chris Barnes via the vocalist's trademark guttural vocals. Both the album title and darkly detailed red-hued album cover by artist Vince Locke are perfect containers for the brutality within…

This discography of musical work by the bassist Peter Kowald, who died in 2002, was compiled in honor of his 70th birthday. Kowald (1944-2002) was a vital figure in German free jazz, playing for many years with the Globe Unity Orchestra, the Schlippenbach Quartet and with Peter Brotzmann, on to periods living in Greece, Japan and in New York. He worked in a vast amount of settings from solo and duo bass recordings to dance and film work. The four CDs here offer a selection of studio and live recordings, including the Grandmothers Teaching session with Chris McGregor, Harry Beckett etc, and two rare albums recorded for small Greek labels: Aphorisms (1997) and The Human Aspect (1990).

In the early 1980s, a particular alchemy between new musical technologies and significant social, cultural, and political transformations in Ghana gave rise to a new style of highlife. Drum machines and synthesisers appeared alongside lilting guitar lines and punchy horns, and the emerging Ghanaian diaspora began incorporating US disco and boogie, R&B, European new wave, and Caribbean zouk and soca into their music.

Yundi’s new album, recorded in Salzburg, features Mozart’s Piano Sonatas K. 310, K. 475, K. 457, and K. 331. The pianist, a Steinway Artist, was propelled into the international spotlight when he won first prize at the XIV Chopin International Piano Competition at the age of 18, becoming the youngest and first Chinese winner in the history of the renowned competition. “Yundi Li’s direct, sharply etched, upbeat account of Mozart’s wonderful C major K. 330 sonata would do any pianist proud.” – Jed Distler from Classics Today.