Rarely if ever have music festivals gathered together such a stellar array of names as those in Prades and Perpignan, thanks to the glory of Casal's name and the force of nature which was Alexander Schneider. This release of the Prades Festival is rarely heard and contains the most stunning performances of the 'Brandenburg Concertos', together with items from 'The Musical Offering'.

Karajan was unquestionably a great Tchaikovsky conductor. Yet although he recorded the last three symphonies many times, he did not turn to the first three until the end of the 1970s, and then proved an outstanding advocate. In the Mendelssohnian opening movement of the First, the tempo may be brisk, but the music's full charm is displayed and the melancholy of the Andante is touchingly caught.

Women in music, either as composers, performers, or inspirational figures, are never celebrated enough. This CD presents great examples of brilliant feisty women who, amongst the barriers imposed on them at the time, managed to survive history and leave their mark. These women charmed the courts of Italy, France and England with their talent and managed to create their unique musical expression, which deserves a lot more attention in our present time. Featuring the dramatic expression of early Baroque as noted on the works by Francesca Caccini and Barbara Strozzi as well as the flamboyant and groundbreaking pieces by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre and Elisabetta de Gambarini.

For years the star cellist and Opus Klassik laureate Raphaela Gromes has taken up the cause of women composers. Three of her albums, acclaimed by critics and listeners alike, have featured music by unknown women composers, and she maintains a long-term working relationship with the "Frau und Musik" Archive in Frankfurt. So it is only natural that her new double album, FEMMES, should lend a voice to outstanding women from nine centuries of music history. No fewer than 23 woman composers found their way onto the double album, from Hildegard of Bingen to Clara Schumann all the way to Lera Auerbach and Billie Eilish, not to mention such famous operatic figures as Susanna from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro or Bizet's Carmen.

B.T.O. Live – Japan Tour is a live album containing live recordings from a 1976 Bachman–Turner Overdrive Japan tour concert. This album was only issued in Japan and Canada. It was officially released on CD by Lemon Recordings in the UK in 2012. Bachman–Turner Overdrive, often abbreviated as BTO, is a Canadian rock group from Winnipeg, Manitoba, that had a series of hit albums and singles in the 1970s, selling over 7 million albums in that decade alone. Their 1970s catalogue included five Top 40 albums and six US Top 40 singles (eleven in Canada). The band has sold nearly 30 million albums worldwide, and has fans affectionately known as "gearheads" (derived from the band's gear-shaped logo). Many of their songs, including "Let It Ride", "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet", "Takin' Care of Business", "Hey You" and "Roll on Down the Highway", still receive play on classic-rock stations.

News of the World is the sixth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 28 October 1977. Containing the hit songs "We Will Rock You", "We Are the Champions" and "Spread Your Wings", it went 4x platinum in the United States, and achieved high certifications around the world, selling over 6 million copies. News of the World is Queen's highest selling studio album to date.

The title Redemption carries a bit of weight, suggesting Joe Bonamassa is seeking salvation in something – either he's grappling with an inner torment or finding refuge in his music, but these two things aren't mutually exclusive. Certainly, Redemption teems with images of loss and regret, with Bonamassa admitting he suffered "Self-Inflicted Wounds" that left him to "Pick Up the Pieces" before he finally realizes "I've Got Some Mind Over What Matters" and discovers he's "Stronger Now in Broken Places." All those songs arrive in that chronological order, suggesting Redemption is something of a song cycle, but Bonamassa's thematic control isn't what's impressive about the album.

90125 is the eleventh studio album by the English progressive rock band Yes, released on 7 November 1983 by Atco Records. After disbanding in 1981, following the Drama (1980) tour, bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White formed Cinema with guitarist and singer-songwriter Trevor Rabin and original Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye, who had left in 1971, and began recording an album. They adopted a more commercial and pop-oriented musical direction as the result of their new material, much of which derived from Rabin's demos, with former Yes singer Trevor Horn as their producer. During the mixing stage former Yes singer Jon Anderson, who had left in 1980, accepted the invitation to return and record the lead vocals, and subsequently Cinema changed their name to Yes. The album was remastered in 2004 with previously unreleased bonus tracks.

The French group Halloween was one of the first new progressive rock groups to emerge from the late 80's. Nothing is truly over and done with, as the phoenix rising from the ashes of time can always rise once again and soar into the mainstream. Call it rebirth (or its better-known French label 'la Renaissance') perhaps even artistic freedom after 24 years of immaculate silence, this veteran group reignites its muse for a return to the progressive community in 2025. Around the original core trio of vocalist/violinist Jean-Philippe Brun, Gilles Coppin on keyboards,(both class of 1988) and drum stool director Philippe di Faustino (in 1989) , as well as adding Geraldine LeCoq on the vocals (1994), Psy-KO showcases their ongoing legacy of intricate symphonic-prog but adding impregnable jazz-rock elements that eschew a mature sensibility in proposing challenging colorations to their discography.

Two CDs devoted to the Springfields is probably a bit much for casual fans. This set could likely have been trimmed to one 70-minute CD, leaving out "Silver Dollar," "Row Row Row" and some of the other lesser material from their first album, although it is strange in an enlightening way to hear Dusty singing the latter, a pre-World War I standard more suited to the likes of Ruth Etting. What's good is that none of the high spots are left out, including "Allentown Jail," the ethereal "Far Away Place," "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" (natch), the delightful "Little Boat" (the best of their international numbers), and the gorgeous, near-British beat style "Come On Home," where Dusty starts to show off some of the soulfulness that would later identify her voice. The notes are well detailed, and the mastering is flawless.

"This compact disc presents all the studio recordings that remain from a time when, as a twenty-five year old champion of the avant-garde, I had to seek for every possible occasion of playing the new works of our composers. In those days, they were hounded and ripped apart by ideological critics; now they are recognized as the masters of new music. Audiences today need to realize with how much excitement and trust people discovered and took over the new currents seeping in from Europe through the Iron Curtain. These works represent and symbolize a marvelous epoch of friendship, a time when we came to know new horizons and discovered ourselves in the Soviet Union's huge, heterogeneous spaces." (Alexei Lubimov. May 2003)

Over a period of five years, Swiss directors Norbert Wiedmer and Peter Guyer documented the activity of legendary producer Manfred Eicher, the founder and driving force behind ECM Records, whose advocacy of progressive jazz and of classical composers like Arvo Pärt, Meredith Monk, Valentin Silvestrov, and György Kurtág changed the landscape of contemporary music in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The film Sounds and Silence: Travels with Manfred Eicher was released in 2009 and this 2011 soundtrack album is made up largely of tracks taken from previously released ECM albums that Eicher produced, some from as early as 1980. Most of the pieces are low-key and understated and feature chamber ensembles, although there are several piano tracks and several featuring orchestra or chorus. The album has a mix of selections from ECM's classical and jazz repertoire, and from the label's specialty, the many pieces that lie somewhere in between the two.

Helen Shapiro is remembered today by younger pop culture buffs as the slightly awkward actress/singer in Richard Lester's 1962 debut feature film, It's Trad, Dad. From 1961 until 1963, however, Shapiro was England's teenage pop music queen, at one point selling 40,000 copies daily of her biggest single, "Walking Back to Happiness," during a 19-week chart run. A deceptively young 14 when she was discovered, Shapiro had a rich, expressive voice properly sounding like the property of someone twice as old, and she matured into a seasoned professional very quickly.

STUNNING 1991 BROADCAST FROM MILTON KEYNES At the end of the Street Fighting Years tour in 1990, long-term Simple Minds manager Bruce Findlay was dismissed, and over the next few years the band gradually altered to the point where it was a shifting set of musicians around the only remaining core members, Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill. In 1991, Simple Minds returned with Real Life. The album's cover showed the trio of Kerr, Burchill and drummer Mel Gaynor, and the writing credits for all songs was Kerr/Burchill. The album reached No. 2 in the UK, where it also spawned four Top 40 singles. The band toured to support the release, playing as a basic five-piece (Kerr, Burchill, Gaynor, bassist Malcolm Foster and new keyboard player Mark Taylor) and cutting down on the extended arrangements of the last few large tours. On 24th August ’91, Simple Minds played the huge Milton Keynes Bowl as part of their Real Life tour, and for many fans this show was the finest of the entire jaunt. Performing for almost two hours in total that late summer evening more than 30 years ago, the entire gig was recorded for live FM radio broadcast and is now available in its entirety on this new 2CD set.

Austrian guitarist Rosa Franziska Maier – laureate of numerous international competitions – releases an imaginative musical collage with GENUIN, comprising works spanning three centuries. Centered around William Walton’s "Five Bagatelles" are compositions by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Johann Sebastian Bach, Giulio Regondi, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Isaac Albéniz. In Maier’s richly colored and precisely articulated guitar sound, these works evoke a wide range of luminous moods, forming an imaginary museum bathed in the light of a Mediterranean summer evening.