Deep in the heart of the Cold War, there was once a miracle in Moscow – Texas-based classical pianist Van Cliburn, of whom no one had heard, conquered at the First Tchaikovsky Competition, an event set aside to showcase Soviet talent. Cliburn was warned by his own government not to go, given the tense political relationship between the United States and Soviet Union at the time, and once he arrived he was greeted as a party crasher, subject to hostile stares and animosity of the kind he had never dreamed of back in Texas. And it was Cliburn, at the end, which brought down the house, and held the award. Back in America, he was greeted with a ticker tape parade and was the subject of a best-selling biography by Abram Chasins, The Van Cliburn Story, copies of which continue to clog the shelves of American thrift stores five decades hence. Ultimately, though, Cliburn's celebrity lost its luster. Nerves, ultra-picky perfectionism, and mishandling by management led to his early retirement from the concert scene; his greatest latter-day achievement being the force behind the Van Cliburn Piano Competition, America's most prestigious such event.

This CD contains selections from a triumphant Japanese tour which saw three-fourths of the original lineup augmented by such guest stars as guitarists Barry Finnerty and Roland Bautista, percussionist Rafael Cruz, and bassist Alphonso Johnson. But the interaction and contributions of Joe Sample, Wilton Felder, and Stix Hooper make this memorable, plus the fact that this is the first time the complete concert has ever been available on a domestic release. It's really a "greatest-hits live" CD, with such familiar numbers as "Spiral," "Rainbow Seeker," "So Far Away" and "Put It Where You Want It" part of the menu. While not in the class of such classic releases as 1, Scratch, or Second Crusade, this is still a welcome addition to the legacy of a sorely underrated group.

Emma Kirkby and London Baroque here return to BIS with a disc of music from the French composer Michel Pignolet de Montéclair. An almost exact contemporary of François Couperin and only some 15 years older than Rameau, Montéclair was also a composer working in all the genres current at the time, including that of the chamber cantata for one or two voices and strings, dealing mainly with subjects from classical history or mythology. The large majority used French texts with four Italian ones, including La Morte di Lucretia, recorded here.

Following critical acclaim for their world premiere recording of Stravinsky’s Funeral Song, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly return with a new collaboration featuring some of the greatest works in the orchestral repertoire by Richard Strauss, including Also sprach Zarathustra and Till Eulenspiegel, recorded live at the opening concert of the Lucerne Festival, 2017.

Around the middle of it 18th century began a basic stylistic A radical change in the history of music: the Baroque took its farewell and classical music made its entrance. Georg Philipp Telemann was one of the first to perceive and enthusiastically take up the new, fresh wind. At an age at which others have long since retired, a second creative spring almost began for him: the German Singspiel had just been launched by composers of the young generation, such as Hiller and Dittersdorf, the 80-year-old Telemann sits down with a 20-year-old librettist and sets the story of "Don Quixote at the Marriage of Comacho" to music full of wit and grace.

Phil Collins - Face Value (1981). Phil Collins' first solo album, 1981's Face Value, was a long time coming, but it proved worth the wait, both for the Genesis drummer/vocalist himself and fans of thoughtful, emotionally charged pop. He'd been wrestling with the idea of doing a solo record for years, finding great inspiration in the pain caused by an impending divorce and craving artistic independence after years of collaboration. Many of the songs ended up on Genesis' 1980 album Duke - and "Against All Odds" was pocketed for later use - but he kept enough to make an album that stands as a classic moment of '80s pop/rock. Collins produced the album himself and played keyboards and drums, calling in friends and the Earth, Wind & Fire horns to fill out the songs…

It's been long time since Tom Waits recorded an album as saturated with tenderness as this one. The carny-barker noise merchant who has immersed himself in brokenness and reportage from life's seamy, even hideous underbelly for decades has created, along with songwriting and life partner Kathleen Brennan, a love song cycle so moving and poetic that it's almost unbearable to take in one sitting. Alice is alleged to be the "great lost Waits masterpiece." Waits and Brennan collaborated with Robert Wilson on a stage production loosely based on Alice Liddell, the young girl who was the obsession and muse of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland books. The show ran in Europe for a time and the production's 15 songs were left unrecorded until now. Alice forgoes the usual nightmare lyric sequences, warped, circus-like melodies, and sonic darknesses that have been part and parcel of Waits' work since Swordfishtrombones…

Great small combo work from Anita O'Day - done at a time when the singer had maybe faded from the American limelight a bit, but continued to do some really exceptional work for a variety of smaller labels! In fact, we might even say that Anita during this stretch was even hipper than before - as even on some of her classic 50s albums, she maybe still had a bit of the hoke from the big band years - whereas the O'Day on this album is older, mature, and really wonderfully suited to bring the most out of the tunes - all familiar, but handled with spare backings that really let the lady remind us why jazz vocals, when done right, are such a wonderful art!

Colosseum's debut album is a powerful one, unleashing each member's instrumental prowess at one point while consolidating each talent to form an explosive outpouring of progressive jazz-rock the next. Those Who Are About to Die Salute You is coated with the volatile saxophone playing of Dick Heckstall-Smith, the thunderous keyboard assault of Dave Greenslade, and the bewildering guitar craft of James Litherland. Together, Colosseum skitters and glides through brisk musical spectrums of freestyle jazz and British blues, sometimes held tightly in place by Greenslade's Hammond organ, while other times let loose by the brilliancy of the horn and string interplay. Each song sparks its own personality and its very own energy level, giving the band instant attention upon the album's release in 1969…

Just after his live performance in Houston to celebrate NASA's anniversary, Jean-Michel Jarre released Rendez-Vous, an appropriately cosmic-sounding album of glittering synth pop. It consists of the same music heard at the Houston concert and shows Jarre moving closer to conventional rock territory, though still with his distinct blueprint. The final track, "Last Rendez-Vous: Ron's Piece," was composed by Jarre for astronaut Ron McNair and was intended to be the first musical piece played and recorded in space. McNair's historic duty was cut short, however, by the Challenger shuttle disaster of January 1986.