Harmonia mundi is proud to welcome the exceptional countertenor Carlo Vistoli as a new exclusive artist. Here he joins the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin to explore some of Vivaldi’s finest sacred music. Alongside the famous Nisi Dominus and Stabat Mater, the quasi-operatic motet In furore shows the extravert, theatrical side of Vivaldi’s genius, for the purposes of edification, to be sure, but also for our greater delight.

Vivaldi's work is extraordinarily profuse, and from his “extraordinary fury of composition” resulted a collection of 12 concertos, preserved in Paris since then, genuine jewels of Vivaldian music! However, for whom were they composed? The French Ambassador in Venice, Jacques-Vincent Languet, who made numerous commissions to Vivaldi in the 1720s? Perhaps as a magnificent gift to a visiting French music lover… Or perhaps François-Etienne, Duke of Lorraine and Bar? A fine music lover and musician, who in 1745 became Emperor Francis I of Austria, gave early protection to Vivaldi, who introduced himself in 1731 as “maestro di cappella di S.A.R. il Serenissimo Sig. Duca di Lorena”.

Throughout their career, it's always been clear that Muse aren't satisfied to just do the same thing over and over again, as they have evolved from their early days when they were (perhaps unfairly) pigeonholed as a Radiohead imitator into purveyors of some of the most epic symphonic rock since Queen graced the stage. On their sixth album, The 2nd Law, they continue to shake things up, diving deeper into the electronic rabbit hole as they experiment with a sound that's less reliant on Matthew Bellamy's guitar heroics, resulting in an album that's a bit of a mixed bag. Incorporating some of the slickest production the band has ever had with a more synth-heavy sound, the album certainly succeeds in feeling different from Muse's previous work…

The Platinum Collection is a beefed-up, triple-disc version of Tina!, a far-reaching if haphazardly assembled Tina Turner compilation released in the run-up to her 2008 world tour. Whereas Tina! was released in North America, The Platinum Collection was released in Europe a few months later in anticipation of the European leg of her tour. The Platinum Collection is almost definitive at 48 tracks in length. It includes all of Turner's major hits, including six Ike & Tina Turner-era recordings ("Nutbush City Limits," "River Deep, Mountain High," "I Want to Take You Higher," "Get Back," "Come Together," "Proud Mary"), and goes all the way up to the latter-day hits "When the Heartache Is Over" and "Whatever You Need" from her most recent studio album, Twenty Four Seven (1999), and "Open Arms," the one-off single from her best-of compilation All the Best (2004).

Many years ago there was a thriving Queen market for silver discs with labels such as Gypsy Eye, Queen Digital Archives and Wardour pumping out many interesting titles each month. These days Wardour produce a couple of titles per year (and not very good ones at that) and both Gypsy Eye and QDA are gone leaving on Tarantura, trolling the vast Mr. Peach tape archive, as the sole provider of great Queen silver titles. Rare Cuts Vol. 1-6 is the releases of a new Queen-dedicated label Master Stroke. Like QDA a decade ago, their initial efforts focus upon collecting upgrades of very common material and mixing up with much more rare tracks…

Hailing from Western Massachusetts (where the only thing icier than the freeway in winter is the blunt sense of humor shared by the locals), Killswitch Engage always stood apart. For as deadly serious as their airtight technical riffing is, they also knew how to have a good time, riling up crowds with uncontainable energy and unpredictable performances. They could bludgeon with the best of them or serve up the kind of sing-along banger you could blast with the windows down.
From day one, they naturally appealed to the headbangers, hardcore kids, and heartbroken alike.
However, Killswitch Engage harness all of their strengths on their ninth full-length LP, This Consequence. They’ve distilled the hallmarks of their signature sound into a bruising, often brutal, and at times brilliantly bright body of work…

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter who rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra. O'Connor achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a new arrangement of Prince's song "Nothing Compares 2 U". Since then, while maintaining her singing career, she has occasionally encountered controversy, partly due to her statements and gestures. These include her ordination as a priest, despite being a woman with a Roman Catholic background, and strongly expressing views on organised religion, women's rights, war, and child abuse. In addition to her ten solo albums, her work includes many singles, songs for films, collaborations with many other artists, and appearances at charity fundraising concerts. This collection contains basically her first 3 albums in their entirety. And they have never sounded better. Some of the album tracks from her first album were almost a revelation, compared to the sound quality on the original CD's. Highly recommended!

The Subscription Concert Series of the Wiener Philharmoniker from the Golden Hall of the famous Musikverein are special concerts reserved for subscribers. Due to the exceptional quality of the concerts and the limited offer, the average waiting time for subscribers is more than 10 years. With this series, these very special concerts are made available for the first time audiovisually to a wider audience worldwide. Conductor Herbert Blomstedt, honorary member of the orchestra, is a regular guest at the subscription concerts.

There never was a supergroup more super than the Traveling Wilburys. They had Jeff Lynne, the leader of ELO; they had Roy Orbison, the best pop singer of the '60s; they had Tom Petty, the best roots rocker this side of Bruce Springsteen; they had a Beatle and Bob Dylan, for crying out loud! It's impossible to picture a supergroup with a stronger pedigree than that (all that's missing is a Rolling Stone), but in another sense it's hard to call the Wilburys a true supergroup, since they arrived nearly two decades after the all-star craze of the '70s peaked, and they never had the self-important air of nearly all the other supergroups. That, of course, was the key to their charm: they were a group of friends that fell together easily, almost effortlessly, to record a B-side for a single for George Harrison, then had such a good time they stuck around to record a full album, which became a hit upon its 1988 release.

This two-CD sampler is most highly recommended for listeners not familiar with Stan Getz's recordings of the 1950s and '60s. Starting with a version of "Stella by Starlight" that co-stars guitarist Jimmy Raney, this set matches Getz's cool tenor with such artists as trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Conte Candoli, trombonist J.J. Johnson, baritonist Gerry Mulligan, pianists Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and Chick Corea, valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer and vibraphonist Gary Burton. Also included are his two main bossa nova hits "Desafinado" and "The Girl from Ipanema" along with a couple of tracks from Getz's highly-rated Focus album. It's a fine overview of the great tenor's middle years.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) was a German musician and composer; and the second of five sons of Johann Sebastian Bach and his frist wife, Maria Barbara Bach. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Classical style, composing in the Rococo and Classical periods.

Pianist Oscar Peterson has made a remarkable number of records through the years and his two songbook series for Verve (each recording features the songs of a different composer) were extensive, to say the least. During 1952-54 he cut ten albums (113 songs) and in 1959 he added nine more records (108 songs), in addition to his regular busy activities. Because these were essentially easy-listening sets with concise interpretations that always kept the melodies of the composers close by, they are not considered Peterson's greatest work but they are enjoyable in their own right. This particular two-CD set has some of the highlights from these marathon projects, most of which (the Gershwin songbooks excepted) had never been out on CD before. Peterson teams up with guitarist Barney Kessel and bassist Ray Brown on nine numbers from 1952, features Herb Ellis in Kessel's place on 13 other songs…

The Benoit Freeman Project is a collaboration album by American pianist David Benoit and American guitarist Russ Freeman released in 1994, and recorded for the GRP label. The album reached #2 on Billboard's Jazz chart. Russ Freeman also serves as leader and frontman for the Rippingtons.

Between the album's title and the cover art, crudely handwritten song titles, and other information on a smudgy background, Xhol Caravan (or Xhol, since the Caravan is crossed off their name) were living up to their reputation as one of the most defiantly underground of the Krautrock bands. The music on Motherfuckers, Xhol's third record, recorded in 1970 but not released until two years later on the legendary Ohr label, is even more diverse and experimental than earlier efforts. The opening track, "Radio," sounds like the beginning of Faust's first album, radio static out of which bits of songs emerge, early Xhol tracks and even a couple excerpts from the band's earlier incarnation as a conventional R&B act, Soul Caravan. "Orgelsolo," on the other hand, is a nine-and-a-half minute ambient organ solo that starts off quite minimal before going into the cosmic realms of Klaus Schulze…

Japanese-only two disc (CD + DVD) set. 2020 collection celebrating the 35th Anniversary of a-ha's debut in Japan. This release includes the biggest '80s hit, "Take on Me". Disc one is a collection of the singles released in Japan during the Warner era, including 19 songs in order of release. The bonus DVD is a music video collection (nine songs have never been released on DVD in Japan), including the early version of "Take on Me". 10 of the 17 songs have not been included in the video work, The Hits of a-ha in 1991.