Chris Rea was a rock star with the sort of gravel voice that was ideally suited to singing the blues, or was he a blues star who occasionally lent his talent to performing rock. The Road to Hell & Back was his 28th album in total including five different greatest-hits compilations, but was his first live album. Recorded at various venues during his 2006 tour from Warsaw to Moscow and Plymouth, Oxford and Brighton, all the tracks show a tight, together band, the Fireflies led by Chris Rea, not in the best of health but enjoying performing to appreciative, sometimes too polite audiences, who applaud in all the right places (at the end of each song).

Following the celebration of his 40th year as a Columbia artist in 2007 and coinciding with his induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in March 2008, Cohen thrilled his fans by announcing his first tour dates in 15 years. He s gone on to play the most prestigious and beautiful venues in virtually every corner of the globe, mesmerizing and charming audiences with performances that were hailed as some of the best of his career. When legend Cohen takes to the stage, raved Ireland s The Independent (June 2008), it s no less than a cultural event of Biblical dimensions.

Live recording from the Bibliothekssaal Kloster Polling, 16-18 May 2008. Bonus: Bach and me – Documentary about Frank Peter Zimmermann

Mozart's greatest symphonies in classic performances by Karl Böhm and the Wiener Philharmoniker.
Böhm’s Mozart as experienced in these precious films is marked by youthful vigour and directness, as well as a lack of pathos and sentimentality. Every reading glows with profound love and understanding.
“Thanks to Bruno Walter’s exemplary performances, I grabbed on to Mozart and fell in love with him so much that I had only one wish: to conduct Mozart, Mozart, Mozart.” – Karl Böhm

As always, the challenge presented by this most traditional of concerts is to balance coherent and thoughtful exploration of the less familiar items in the catalog of 19th-century Straussian, Austrian, and central-European popular music with fresh readings of the chestnuts, including, of course, the obligatory last two encores on the program. In this case, Barenboim guides his audience, appropriately, through a travelogue of the Mediterranean and the East. Remarkably, 2009 marked the first time that Daniel Barenboim had ever been invited to conduct this event, perhaps a reminder of how seldom his commitments to Berlin and Chicago have allowed him to appear in this most southern of Austrian cities.

'I truly admire this orchestra and hope it becomes better known abroad,' confided Leonard Bernstein in 1989 to the audience in Rome's Auditorio Pio before his concert of works by Claude Debussy (1862-1918) with the prestigious 'Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia.' In the words of Rome's 'Il Giornale,' Bernstein served up a 'Debussy that is neither ethereal nor shapeless, but uncommonly vital, caught in the full light of noon.' The concert begins with 'Images,' Debussy's last orchestral work and one of his most colorful scores. It consists of three separate pieces: the rather doleful 'Gigues,' the 'Rondes de printemps,' which incorporates a French nursery tune, and 'Ibéria,' a vibrant homage to Spain, complete with tambourines and castanets.

Thanks to the surprising proliferation of Mahler’s music on DVD, there are multiple performances of this particular symphony with which to compare this new one (not least among them Bernstein’s and Abbado’s); there is also Boulez’s own previous performance with the Vienna Philharmonic, made a couple of months after this concert, available on one generous DG CD, to consider by way of comparison.

This live performance of piano solos featuring Mr. Cliburn was recorded in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in black and white and monophonic sound. This 77 minute DVD is one of 5 volumes available.

This is the DVD of the highly-anticipated Los Angeles Philharmonic Opening Night Concert on October 8th 2009, Live from Walt Disney Concert Hall, led by newly-appointed Music Director Gustavo Dudamel! A world-class pairing, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and their new Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, mark the start of their partnership with this concert, filmed live at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The program defines everything that is fresh and exciting about their collaboration: John Adams world-premiere composition, City Noir that steps back into the dark past of Los Angeles, and the all-embracing First Symphony by Mahler, the composer who launched Dudamel's dazzling international career.

Best of New Year's Concert DVD is the very first DVD collection of highlights of one of the most popular classical music events in the world; the famous annual New Year's Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic. This is a true "best of" in terms of the conductors: ranging from the legendary era of Willy Boskovsky in the 70's to the enthusiastically acclamation of this year's 2007 concert under the baton of Zubin Mehta, including unforgettable interpretations of Carlos Kleiber, Mariss Jansons, Seiji Ozawa and Lorin Maazel. It includes well-known hits of the Strauss family, like Blue Danube Waltz, Radetzkymarsch, Kaiserwalzer, Fr hlingsstimmen etc.

For many listeners, Henryk Szeryng would be the No. 1 choice for a recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto. His interpretation is technically flawless, emotionally involved, and deeply probing; it makes Jascha Heifetz, for example, sound slightly offhand. In this French-made video from 1962, the Paris Conservatoire is not the best possible orchestra, but it is more than adequate and Paul Paray is an excellent conductor.

This disc presents one of the 20th century's greatest and most distinctive pianists in music of two pianist-composers, Schumann and Beethoven, who were among his most treasured specialties. The playing is fluent, brilliant without ever being flashy, and phrased and accented with a totally unique flavor. Kempff has power to spare, but he uses it with a restraint that heightens its impact.

In February 2001 Abbado and the BPO were guests at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome to perform the Beethoven symphonies. For these, Abbado chose to use a new edition by Jonathan del Mar, which consists of existing manuscripts, and "corrections by Beethoven," which gave the conductor the opportunty to "throw new light on his reading, which takes a consistent and lucid approach to articulation, phrasing and dynamics." The conductor elected to use fewer strings, reducing the bass group in symphonies 1, 2, 4 and 8 to only three double basses and four cellos. He also uses only two horns in symphony 5, three in symphony 3. The result is an uncommonly transparent listening experience. And the performances are spirited to say the least, no dawdling here whatever. There always is a forward impetus to these dynamic performances which are magnificently executed by the orchestra.

One of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century, Emil Gilels (1916-1985) possessed a fearless technical facility and a highly cultivated tone control that freed him to follow his interpretive instincts. In this program, Gilels plays two masterpieces of the concerto repertoire: Grieg's Piano Concerto and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3. Both works are conducted by Paavo Berglund, leading the Philharmonia Orchestra in the Beethoven and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in the Grieg. Live performances, Finlandia Hall, Helsinki, 1983 (Grieg) /1984 (Beethoven). 86 min., Color, mono, 4:3, All regions.

Recital of the greatest pianist of our time Arcadi Volodos, which was held March 1, 2009 in Vienna at the Great Hall of the Vienna Music Society (Musikverein Wien).