All Helmchen’s recordings for the PentaTone label have been award winners. The romantic and virtuoso piano concertos by Mendelssohn never became as popular as his violin concertos but are of just as high a calibre. Helmchen regularly works with Philippe Herreweghe and this collaboration has resulted in a very special album.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, as part of his regular duties as kapellmeister in Hamburg, composed 19 passion settings, alternating the four Gospel texts so that a new setting of a given text appeared once every four years, as his predecessor Georg Philipp Telemann had done. Until the discovery of the Berlin Sing-Akademie collection in Kiev in 1999, all that remained of this considerable body of work were bits and fragments of individual pieces, most of them extant because they were used in other contexts.

For her first solo recital on harmonia mundi, Christiane Karg, alongside her faithful partner Malcolm Martineau, presents an incursion into the most intimate aspect of Mahler’s music: the songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn take us to the heart of the composer’s creative process, as do the songs from his youth and the later Rückert-Lieder. Intimate? Yes, for two of these pieces (including the famous Das himmsliche Leben from Symphony no.4) are accompanied here by . . . Mahler himself, thanks to the achievement of the incredible Welte-Mignon piano rolls, which, at the very start of the twentieth century, captured his playing far better than any other recording device of the period could.

Die 90er Hits sind heute alles andere als vergessen – Für viele waren die 90er (musikalisch) das beste Jahrzehnt überhaupt. Manche Lieder sind schon langsam in Vergessenheit geraten und andere sind immer noch sehr bekannte und beliebte 90er Lieder. Die folgenden Hits der 90er werden dich auf eine Zeitreise in das Jahrzehnt voll mit Eurodance, weiten Klamotten, Nachmittags-Talkshows und Seifen-Opern entführen. Entdecke vergessene Schätze und finde Songs zum Neu entdecken oder für die nächste 90er Party.

This collection celebrates the twelve months running up to the release of the album Hunky Dory in December 1971 via home demos, BBC radio sessions and live and studio recordings.
Contains 48 previously unreleased tracks/demos from the period, and new alternative mixes of 'Hunky Dory' tracks by original co-producer Ken Scott.Two books accompany 'Divine Symmetry', a 100-page hardback book featuring exclusive memorabilia and photos alongside a 60-page replica composite of Bowie’s notebooks from the era featuring handwritten lyrics, costume drawings, recording notes and set lists.

Light Verse arrives April 26th, and it's Iron & Wine's seventh full-length overall and fifth for Sub Pop Records. Fashioned as an album that should be taken as a whole, it sounds lovingly handmade and self-assured as a secret handshake. Track by track, it's equal parts elegy, kaleidoscope, truth, and dare. Light Verse was recorded with engineer and mixer Dave Way at his studio Waystation high up in Laurel Canyon (with an additional session at Silent Zoo Studio with a 24-piece orchestra), with a host of talented musicians joining Beam: Tyler Chester, Sebastian Steinberg, David Garza, Griffin Goldsmith, Beth Goodfellow, Kyle Crane, and Paul Cartwright. And, Fiona Apple joined Beam on vocals for the duet "All In Good Time."

The term beatnik with its implied allusion to Communism was to inspire fear and loathing in every God-fearing, white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant the length and breadth of 1950s America when it emerged with the disillusionment felt by many young people in post-WWII America who had begun to realize the futility of war, the emptiness of materialism and the brutality of organized religion. In 1943 New York, three men came together and formed the most potent underground art phenomenon of the post war world. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs would, between them, create the notion of youth culture, without which rock & roll and all that followed in its wake would be unthinkable. This 5 CD box set celebrates the Beat Generation, the art it produced and the influences from which it borrowed. Disc One & Two - The Complete Jack Kerouac; The three albums Kerouac recorded in the late 1950s plus bonus cuts. Disc Three & Four - Beat Generation Jazz; Two CDs featuring the jazz that inspired the Beat Generation. Disc 5 - Diggin' The New Breed; Featuring Interviews with the Beats themselves, plus the testimonials of fellow writers, friends and lovers.

The new Dolby Atmos and 2024 mixes provide fresh and immersive perspectives on this classic album and were made by Zappa using the original tapes. In the liner notes, Zappa says: “It’s one of those records where I think, ‘How did they come up with this?’ It’s got classical influences in the guitar and the keyboard, but then it’s got the blues and there’s little bits of funkiness. And you have this singer who has the most killer voice. All these things come together in a way where it doesn’t sound like commercial music, yet people got really excited about it. It’s a fascinating recipe.”

Eurythmics were one of the most successful duos to emerge in the early '80s. Where most of their British synth pop contemporaries disappeared from the charts as soon as new wave faded away in 1984, Eurythmics continued to have hits until the end of the decade, making vocalist Annie Lennox a star in her own right, as well as establishing instrumentalist Dave Stewart as a successful, savvy producer and songwriter. Originally, the duo channelled the eerily detached sound of electronic synthesizer music into pop songs driven by robotic beats. By the mid-'80s, singles like "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and "Here Comes the Rain Again" had made the group into international stars, and the group had begun to experiment with their sound, delving into soul and R&B. Collection includes: Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) (1983); Touch (1983); 1984 (For The Love Of Big Brother) (1984); Be Yourself Tonight (1985); Revenge (1986); Savage (1987); We Too Are One (1989).

Heaven knows, the Scotsman born Donovan Leitch was ripe for ridicule, even when he was hitting the charts with regularity. He was the ultimate flower child, and his airier pronouncements made cynics want to tighten up those love beads around his neck. Listening to Troubadour, however, it's striking how versatile, melodic, and agreeable most of his material sounds decades after "Mellow Yellow" has faded into a jaundiced yellow. Clearly under the sway of Bob Dylan early on in his career, Donovan nevertheless was capable of directing his reverence into something as enchanting as "Catch the Wind." Amping up as the '60s progressed, he assembled a series of psychedelic-pop classics, including "Season of the Witch," the "Hey Jude"-like sing-along "Atlantis," and the uncharacteristically driving "Hurdy Gurdy Man" (the latter features three-quarters of what was to become Led Zeppelin providing stellar support). This two-disc anthology may be more Donovan than some desire, but the booklet, seven previously unreleased tracks, and expansive perspective it provides makes it a more-than-worthy overview for those who take their paisley folk-rock with a beatific smile.

Don McLean's final album for United Artists was a musical tour de force, and the best self-contained account of the full breadth of McLean's talent. Recorded live in England, in Manchester, Bristol, London, and Oxford, the 26 songs encompassed not only the artist's best-known work, but also many of his personal favorites, among them works by other composers (including Bob Dylan's "Masters of War"). All the songs are done solo by McLean on acoustic guitar and banjo, performing in a loose, freewheeling style more appropriate to a folk performance at a small club than a rock concert – except that McLean was doing these performances to tens of thousands of people at a time. He ranges freely across his repertory, including a loose yet sincere rendition of "American Pie" and a stunning version of "Till Tomorrow" (his encore), through "The Arkansas Traveller" and "Homeless Brother" to "Castles in the Air," the last in a version that makes the studio recording seem cold and sterile.

On this, Charlie Daniels' second release, there are obvious signs of a bright future for the guitar- and fiddle-playing hillbilly rocker. Along for the ride is Joel "Taz" DiGregoria, Charlie's longtime bandmate and keyboard wizard. Taz even takes lead vocal duties on one song, "Billy Joe Young," and his ivory tickling is a highlight of this historical Southern rock document. Daniels rocks with the intensity of a downbound train on "Great Big Bunches of Love," and on his cover of the Jerry Lee Lewis chestnut "Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee." A true Southern poet, Charlie Daniels is seen here in the infancy of his artistic development, but even at this early stage, the poet is alive and well.

Johann Christian Bach's sonatas belong so much to the domain of the fortepianist that we forget how terrific they can sound on the harpsichord; they are by turns rhythmically engaging, almost jazzy, witty, sparkling, and expressive. By most accounts Bach played both instruments with equal facility and did not leave us a stated preference for one over the other, indeed if he had one. Sophie Yates has done very well to remind us with her superb Chandos recording Johann Christian Bach: Six Sonatas, Op. 5, that the London Bach need not be heard on fortepiano to be experienced to his best advantage; one may make the case that Bach's sonatas benefit to some extent from the brightness of the older instrument. Yates is the first artist to record Bach's Op. 5 as a set on the harpsichord; the only other complete recording of Op. 5 has been done on fortepiano, yet these sonatas are most commonly heard individually or mixed up with the later, "Welcker" Sonatas, Op. 17. Although they are difficult to individually date, Bach's Op. 5 was published in 1766 and all six are thought to date from his first four years in London; in her notes, Yates correctly observes the impact of Thomas Arne on Bach's style and of the general English approach to melody. Luckily in Bach's case the Italian manner had already held sway for some time by his arrival in London in 1762, so the learning curve was not a tough road to hoe for the Padre Martini-educated master.

Over the first half of the sixteenth century this Flemish composer was one of the key figures in Western music, instrumental in the development both of the madrigal and of church music fro double chorus. From 1527 until his death he was maestro di capella at St Mark’s in Venice, but this music dates mainly from his earlier years, when he achieved nine setting of the Mass. This splendid offering from Summerly and his Oxford Camerata is the only one available, a magnificent ‘parody mass’, using as its base a motet by Jean Richafort, a piece included here as a prelude. Willaert’s setting rises to a sublime conclusion in the extended Agnus Dei, in flowing polyphony. The Magnificat and Ave Maria offers inspired music too, performed with equal freshness and dedication. Vividly atmospheric sound.

Although the works of Josquin DesPrez (cl440-1521) are better known today than those of any other fifteenth-century composer, his biography remains shrouded in uncertainties. The general outlines –- his birth in the area of northern France that produced so many composers of the day, his travel to Milan, Rome and Ferrara, and then his return to the north at the end of his life - are clear. But, his connections to the Court of France, to the Provençal court of King René, to the court in Hungary, and many other details about his life remain contested or simply unknowable.