It may seem paradoxical to expect versatility as a principal endowment from an ensemble that plays hardly any music composed before 1900, but after listening to the Arditti String Quartet one can only agree with the players' contention that the 20th-century repertory offers an unprecedented universe of stylistic variety.

If the Butterfield Blues Band's groundbreaking debut earned the respect of the group's elder influences, this one won over (and guided) the blues boys' psychedelic peers.

O, Yeah! Ultimate Aerosmith Hits is a greatest hits album by American hard rock band Aerosmith. A double-disc album, it includes 28 of the band's biggest hits in chronological order and spans the band's entire career up to 2002. Also included are two new songs, "Girls of Summer" and "Lay it Down"…

…On "It's Happening" Martijn plays melodic jazzfusion in a layed back manner. Great compositions that keep on getting better…

Perhaps this disc needs no explanation. Henri Dutilleux's Sur le même accord is a short piece for violin and orchestra that is, as the title suggests, based on one "chord", which Mutter rather more simply describes as an 'aria' (the piece's subtitle is 'Nocturne'). Indeed there is much lyrical writing that displays Mutter's expressive warmth that underpins this mysterious and yet illuminative work. Another Nocturne comes in the shape of Bartók's Concerto for Violin no. 2, but here it is a slightly uneasy one. The scherzoid interruption is magnificently light, the ending glorious. Mutter and Ozawa follow the twists and turns of the finale like a shadow, making clear in the process the correspondences with the Scherzando of the second movement. Finally, Stravinsky's Concerto for Violin commands a meticulous control, clarity of vision, and an attention-grabbing conviction that Mutter manages with sensitivity and nuance sufficient to maintain a masterstroke to the end.

This disc contains three pieces by Pierre Boulez with the composer himself conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. "Eclat" for 15 instruments (1965) continues Boulez's interest in aleatoric form. In this work consisting of a succession of elegant little motifs, the pitches, tempo, and dynamics are all predetermined, but the conductor can, on the spur of the moment, decide which motif he wants to signal next. "Multiples", meant to always follow "Eclat" to form a single piece "Eclat/Multiples", was begun in 1971 and is still unfinished. It is an expansion of the ideas of the first piece, lasting twice as long and with the added instrumentation of nine violas, a basset horn, and a second piano. It shows a much greater variety of rhythms, and much of the writing consists of tuttis against the isolated cells of "Eclat". "Rituel" for orchestra in eight groups (1974/75) was written in memory of Bruno Maderna, a Darmstadt figure who is nearly forgotten now but who was a close friend and inspiration to many composers who came of age in the 1950s. With its solemn pace and sad, mournful tones, the piece serves as a strong antidote to that usual conservative accusation that serialism "can't communicate anything."

The Variations for Orchestra and the Piano Concerto belong to two different decades and stylistic periods. The Variations, commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra and written in Rome in 1954-55, are a summation of the works Carter wrote after the stylistic breakthrough of the Cello Sonata of 1948. Aaron Copland once remarked on Carter's wide knowledge of the music of his time; the Variations are a monumental synthesis of many different kinds of modern music (and in an overt way that Carter never again attempted). There are not only surface resemblances to Schoenberg and Berg, but there is also Carter's closest approach to serial technique. Charles Ives, who died while Carter was composing the work, is invoked explicitly in Variation 7, and Ives's technique of superimposition is the basis of the whole work's texture and form. Also present in the music are the spirit of Debussy, particularly of La Mer and Jeux; the rhythmic experiments of Conlon Nancarrow and Henry Cowell; jazz (variation 8); and even the rhetoric of the Great American Symphony of Harris, Copland, and Schuman. In addition to these many stylistic strands, Carter also attempted to use all possible variation techniques, including an array of canonic and contrapuntal devices—Variation 2, for instance, is a free mensuration canon in which the size of intervals varies along with the rhythmic values.

Even though Elliott Carter has been well served by a small New York-based group of devotees, most notably the pianists Paul Jacobs, Charles Rosen, Gilbert Kalish and Ursula Oppens and the Composers String Quartet, no American conductor has yet become a strong proponent of his orchestral works. But in recent years, major European conductors, like Pierre Boulez, Michael Gielen, Heinz Holliger and Oliver Knussen, have championed Carter's orchestral music, giving it a fresh international perspective. Whereas Americans hear his music in relation to that of Ives and Copland, Europeans place it in the context of Ligeti and Lutoslawski. A number of new recordings by Europeans as well as Americans offer performances that challenge earlier ones and may change the critical evaluation of Carter's works. An earlier recording, an unedited single take made shortly after the work's premiere in 1970 by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, offered only a tantalizing glimpse of the music. Despite opening-night jitters, Bernstein conveyed the work's sweep and drama, urged on by Paul Jacobs's demonic piano playing. Under Boulez's helm, the work was chosen for the European tour by the Philharmonic, but was never recorded. His account, though much more detailed and polished, lost some of the urgency. Knussen's recording of Carter's Concerto for Orchestra with the London Sinfonietta offers the greatest revelations to date.