Anne Murray's time with Capitol Records was running out when she recorded "Croonin." Her singles were no long charting and her album sales had dropped off significantly. The public was no longer buying the pop-rock-country formula that had served her so well for twenty-five years. What to do? Record an album of American standards. Why not? "Old Cape Cod," "Secret Love," Hey There," "The Wayward Wind" "Teach Me Tonight" – these were the tunes she listened to on the radio while growing up in Nova Scotia. They fit her middle-register voice like a glove. They were in her DNA. In a way, "Croonin" is the answer to "Where Do You Go When You Dream" (the title of an earlier an album). You sing the songs you truly love. And sings them she does, with all the dignity, sincerity, polish, and professionalism that distinguished her long career. Anne Murray was always a class act.

Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667 – 20 July 1752), also known as John Christopher Pepusch and Dr Pepusch, was a German-born composer who spent most of his working life in England. Pepusch was born in Berlin. At the age of 14, he was appointed to the Prussian court. About 1700, he settled in England where he was one of the founders, in 1726, of The Academy of Vocal Music, which around 1730/1 was renamed The Academy of Ancient Music. In Joseph Doane's Musical directory for the year 1794, the founding of the Academy is discussed; on page 76, Doane states that: In the year 1710 (memorable for Handel’s first appearance among us) a number of the most eminent composers and performers in London [agreed] to concert a plan of an Academy for the study and practice of Vocal and Instrumental Music, which was no sooner announced than it met the countenance and support of the principal persons of rank.

Few ensembles can come to Bach's St John Passion with quite the degree of performance-based insight that Gardiner and his musicians have done. Written for Good Friday in 1724, the passion was the centrepiece of Bach's year-long cycle of liturgical cantatas. Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir spent 2000 performing and recording these surrounding cantatas, before recording this disc in 2003. The result is a little slice of musical heaven. In sound, it's a masterpiece of technical precision and musical beauty. In tone, it perfectly balances the theatrical with the devotional. The English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir expertly build and release tension, their phrases shaped to sound natural, instinctive, and emotionally complete. The work's many dramatic contrasts are also brilliantly done.

Volume 8 of our complete Brahms songs proves the ideal platform for Harriet Burns in her debut album. As usual, Graham Johnson’s scholarly booklet notes are an indispensable companion.

Avoid the January blues and get your hearts thumping and legs pumping with NOW That's What I Call Running. From the makers of 101 Running Songs, NOW That's What I Call Running brings the two brands together to deliver a 3 CD set of great music for your workout and in time for the 2012 London Marathon. Whether short circuits or marathons are your thing, the album is packed with enough tunes to suit any workout mood.

Style Council's first proper album Cafe Bleu was one of their better efforts, but it indicated the group's fatal flaw – a tendency to be too eclectic and overambitious. Amidst the lazy jazz instrumentals, many of them courtesy of Mick Talbot, Paul Weller inserted several solid soul-tinged pop songs, including "My Ever Changing Moods," "Headstart for Happiness," "You're the Best Thing," and "Here's One That Got Away." However, that doesn't excuse the rap experiment, "A Gospel." The album was later released with a slightly different running order as My Ever Changing Moods in the U.S.; the American edition included the U.K. hit "A Solid Bond in Your Heart".

Easily Tikaram's most polished album to date. As usual, several of the songs sound like rough drafts, but for the first time since the raw poetry of her debut, Ancient Heart, Tikaram has come up with enough knockout numbers to justify the record's release. "I Might Be Crying" features an inventive arrangement in which a full string and brass orchestra merely underscores a sweeping landscape of vocal harmonies. "Yodelling Song" is a fresh, manic jam with acoustic guitars, fiddles, bongos and yodellers. Tikaram's eccentric folk-pop has always been creatively produced, but for this record the husky-voiced songwriter has penned some melodies well worth the studio time.