The Octet in F major, D. 803 was composed by Franz Schubert in March 1824. It was commissioned by the renowned clarinetist Ferdinand Troyer and came from the same period as two of Schubert's other major chamber works, the 'Rosamunde' and 'Death and the Maiden'.The Octet boasts the largest scale for any chamber work by Schubert. It is scored for a clarinet, bassoon, horn, two violins, viola, cello, and a double bass. This instrumentation is similar to that of the Beethoven Septet, differing only by the addition of a second violin.

‘The Time of Day’ provided Haydn with an inspiration to compose and his Symphony numbers 6, 7 & 8 collectively became known as The Day Trilogy. Celebrating their 30th anniversary, Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite Bande are highly respected exponents of this repertoire and this recording is no exception to their consistently high standards. Carrying on with their ‘one instrument to a part’ policy, the recording is presented in a wonderfully light and airy way, allowing the music to shine through.

Depending on your count, The Sound of the Smiths is the third or fourth posthumous Smiths compilation – a number that may be a bit excessive considering the group's rather concise catalog, containing just four studio albums and singles rounded up on three singles compilations (and two of those covered the same essential territory, too). That's a lot of repetition but whether it's taken in either its single-disc or double-disc deluxe editions, The Sound of the Smiths is the best of these posthumous overviews. The single-disc – which is the first disc of the deluxe set – is the hits disc, containing every cut from the 18-track 1995 compilation Singles and expanding it with five cuts all dating from the mid-'80s: "Still Ill," "Nowhere Fast," "Barbarism Begins at Home," "The Headmaster Ritual," and "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby."

Frédérick Haas possède une connaissance approfondie de la facture des instruments, et des secrets de leurs réglages. C’est cela qui lui permet ce dialogue si intime avec l’instrument. Car le clavecin de Haas est tout sauf métallique. Sous ses doigts d’une précision jamais répétitive, l’écriture ciselée et fort ornementée de D’Anglebert résonne avec l’amplitude de l’orchestre lullyste, tandis que le claveciniste nous submerge de couleur. Peut-on vraiment croire que l’intégralité du programme a été enregistré sur ce clavecin Henri Hemsch de 1751 tant l’artiste parvient à tirer de sonorités différentes de cet assemblage savant? A la manière d’un peintre, Haas sculpte chaque pièce comme un petit chef-d’œuvre.

On the CD Musicalischer Seelen-Frieden Dorothee Mields and the ensemble Hamburger Ratsmusik present several of the most beautiful solo cantatas of the baroque composer Johann Philipp Krieger. Krieger understood how to unite French and Italian elements of style in his music and thus as a composer he was an important role model for the generation in which Bach and Telemann were active. His altogether twenty sacred concertos from the collection "Musikalischer Seelen-Friede", the only edition of Krieger’s sacred music, which was printed in 1990 and 1996, are among the most important contributions to this important genre in his time.

2015 three CD collection of full-length, 12" and extended mixes by some of the '70s' finest booty-shaker makers. Includes grooves by Chic, The Trammps, George Benson, Sister Sledge, Chaka Khan, Kleeer, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Herbie Mann and many others.

Includes tracks by Patti Drew, Bobby Bryant, Groove Holmes, Candido, Bobby Womack, Les McCann, Norman Connos, Gerald Wilson and Lou Rawls.

Subtitled "A Voluptuous Journey Through '70s French Erotic Cinema", this compilation sounds precisely as you would imagine, and for some that'll be a very good thing, but those of you looking for something beyond the vintage euro-funk fromage-athon might be a tad disappointed. So many European B-movies and exploitation flicks from the 1970s have yielded unfeasibly brilliant soundtracks, and while there's nothing at all wrong with any of the material compiled here, there's seldom anything beyond the usual easy listening sample-baiting silliness to arouse your excitement. Having said that, when this compilation scores, it scores big: Piierre Bachelat's soundtrack for Histoires d'O is a psychedelic synth standout, while his visionary 'Motel Show' from Le Dernier Amant Romantique' is as good an Italo disco find as has surfaced in recent times. A special mention should be granted to one of the pieces lifted from the Emmanuelle 4 OST: the rather distressing 'Bach Anal', which has to be one of the most outstandingly insidious puns in the history of word play. In its own Moog-fuelled, breathy chanteuse-fronted way it does sound a bit like J. S. Bach though, which is to its credit I suppose.

We all need calm sometimes. Coping with the pace of life today the body is constantly required to produce high levels of adrenalin - for both good and bad reasons. The human body needs to re-balance itself in order to operate at its best levels - too much adrenalin with no re-balancing can actually do us harm. We call that harm stress. Stress can only be harnessed by bringing the natural balance back through relaxation.

Playing a brilliant modern trumpet, Alison Balsom engages in an adventurous and thrilling dialogue with an ensemble of period instruments as she performs six virtuoso concertos of the baroque era, originally composed for violin or oboe by Handel, Vivaldi, Telemann, Albinoni and Marcello. She collaborates with Director Trevor Pinnock – the musician who originally inspired her discovery of baroque music as a child – and a specially assembled instrumental group, Pinnock’s Players. Seeing this pioneering album as “a delicious colliding of the two worlds” – baroque and modern – Alison Balsom explores the possibilities of the piccolo trumpet while savouring the sonorities of period instruments and their “compelling authenticity and ability to reveal the composer's intentions”.

Van Halen has sold more than 80 million worldwide and is tied for the most multi-platinum albums by an American band. This is a collection that spans multiple decades and features both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar on vocals. Eddie Van Halen is regarded as one of the greatest guitar players in rock history and was well known for popularizing the tapping guitar solo technique. Eddie died of cancer in 2020, this is the end of the band, as his son Wolfgang stated: “You can’t have Van Halen without Eddie Van Halen.”

Tug of War is the third solo studio album by the English musician Paul McCartney, released on 26 April 1982. It is his 11th album overall following the break up of the Beatles in 1970, his first album released after the dissolution of his band Wings the previous year, and his first album following the murder of his former songwriting partner John Lennon. The cover features an abstract oil painting by the artist Brian Clarke, a frequent McCartney collaborator, incorporating an overpainted transparency of a portrait of Paul taken by Linda McCartney. Tug of War was produced by former Beatles producer George Martin and was a number-one hit in many countries, selling over one million copies in the United States in the year of its release. Some critics hailed it as a 'return to form' for McCartney, with Far Out Magazine declaring it his strongest work in 2022.

Over the past decade, The Velvet Underground’s live archive has been raided with increasing frequency. First we got the official release of a long-bootlegged 1966 Columbus, Ohio gig as a part of the “super-deluxe” edition of The Velvet Underground & Nico. And in 2013, the 1967 Gymnasium gig (which had only circulated amongst collectors for a few years), showed up on the similarly super deluxe White Light/White Heat box set. At this point, there’s very little live material left from the John Cale-era of the group, at least that anyone knows about. But one of the strangest, most fascinating treasures of Cale’s time with the Velvets still remains in the hands of bootleggers: “Sweet Sister Ray.”

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozená's collection of vocal solos (plus a few instrumental tracks) from the early Baroque, Lettere Amorose, "Love Letters," is a delight. The recital includes some familiar pieces like d'India's Cruda Amarilli, Monteverdi's Sì dolce è il tormento, and Sanz's giddy dance, Canarios, but consists largely of repertoire that's more obscure but no less engaging. Merula's lullaby chaconne Hor ch'è tempo di dormire is a jewel, gorgeously idiosyncratic and deeply emotional. Caccini's erotic Odi, Euterpe, 'I dolce canto could be mistaken for mature Monteverdi at his most mischievous, but it dates from 1601 or 1602, when Monteverdi was at an early stage in his career. A real standout of the album is Strozzi's L'Eraclito amoroso: Udite amanti, which alternates sections of extravagantly expressive recitative with a ravishingly lyrical chaconne. Kozená easily has the technique to make the music glow and the dramatic gifts to bring it movingly to life. Her sharply characterized interpretations of the songs make each of them seem as fully realized and potent as a short operatic scene. Her voice has the burnished warmth of a mezzo, but can gleam when she soars into her upper register, and throughout she maintains an exquisite purity.

Fabrizio Bosso, Paola Folli and Lorenzo Cimino are the special guests of the fourth album - also on vinyl - of the Milanese quartet, the flagship of Luminol Records. A spiritual journey through progressive, jazz and fusion for a band with an international scope, which relaunches the idea of ​​music as an antidote to homologation Delta: freedom of expression and great music for Ujig!