Composer – Born in the Bohemian village of Nechanicz, Vanhal (1739-1813) became a leading composer in Vienna and one of the most popular throughout Europe during his lifetime. As with most Classical era composers, his stock fell dramatically after his death. However, the Naxos series of Vanhal symphonies reveals an expert composer of elegance and hard-driving rhythms with a wealth of melodic invention.

Chet Baker was a primary exponent of the West Coast school of cool jazz in the early and mid-'50s. As a trumpeter, he had a generally restrained, intimate playing style and he attracted attention beyond jazz for his photogenic looks and singing. But his career was marred by drug addiction.

One of the seminal documents of the progressive rock era, a record that made its way into the collections of millions of high-school kids who never heard of Modest Mussorgsky and knew nothing of Russia's Nationalist "Five." It does some violence to Mussorgsky, but Pictures at an Exhibition is also the most energetic and well-realized live release in Emerson, Lake & Palmer's catalog, and it makes a fairly compelling case for adapting classical pieces in this way. At the time, it introduced "classical rock" to millions of listeners, including the classical community, most of whose members regarded this record as something akin to an armed assault. The early-'70s live sound is a little crude by today's standards, but the tightness of the playing (Carl Palmer is especially good) makes up for any sonic inadequacies…

An icon, transcending through popular music creates a true legend. Here are 5 CDs packed full of none other than the best musical legends of the past 40 years. This is not one to miss. NOW Legends features an all-star cast including Elton John, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Amy Winehouse, Tom Jones and many more.

Iron Fist is repositioned as a vital snapshot of Motörhead at a crucial period when they found themselves caught in the tornado ignited by success and, in true Motörhead style, careered into their next phase at such velocity it transcended logic or reason to become this trio’s final kamikaze joyride. Forty years later, with fall-out long dissipated and a proper mastering job that avoided it at the time, Iron Fist sounds like prime Motörhead with the gloves and seat-belts off. For sheer velocity, it could be fastest of them all, the ferocious title track earning such an accolade in Kerrang! in its tribute spread to Lemmy after he passed away. By 1982, punk had been and gone, the new wave of heavy metal sounded squeaky and cliched next to its grubby godfathers and, while still trouncing all opposition, Motörhead retained that essential ability to laugh at everything, including themselves as they made lightning raids on every sense and orifice with everything cranked to overload. The Iron Fist album; brand new remaster created from the original tapes, deluxe 24 page, 2CD mediabook. Includes a full live show from Glasgow Apollo released for the first time, plus previously unreleased album demos.

Franz Schubert composed fifteen string quartets during his short life: an astonishing diversity in this most exclusive chamber music combination from which only three popular works are usually heard in the concert hall. With Schubert’s Quartet in D minor “Death and the Maiden“, the Mandelring Quartet have recorded one of the most significant string quartets since Beethoven. It is a dramatically turbulent work, with variations on Schubert’s own song “Death and the Maiden“ as the intimate heart of the work.

In some ways, the Sweet epitomized all the tacky hubris and garish silliness of the early '70s. Fusing bubblegum melodies with crunching, fuzzy guitars, the band looked like a heavy metal band, but were as tame as any pop group. It was a dichotomy that served them well, as they racked up a number of hits in both the U.K. and the U.S. Most of those songs were written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, a pair of British songwriters who had a way with silly, simple, and catchy hooks.

André Grétry's Richard Coeur de Lion, or Richard the Lionhearted, lay neglected until 2019 when a production by the Opéra Royal de Versailles was mounted. This album is taken from that performance, and it's very well recorded indeed. The opera was quite well known in its time and was even performed in the young U.S. (in Boston, in 1796), and it's a great find, a real crowd-pleaser as much today as at the end of the 18th century. The story is based on a probably imaginary tale of an episode during Richard's return from the Crusades, when he was imprisoned in Linz, Austria. A trouvère singer named Blondel who serves the king realizes his predicament, sneaks into the prison disguised as a blind fiddler, and touches off an action-packed sequence of events with a romance involving the prison governor, a grand party, and a visiting Flemish countess whose troops rescue Richard in the end.

With a body of work spanning nearly seven decades, England's Deep Purple are bona fide classic rock royalty. Along with Cream, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin, they defined hard rock and early heavy metal. Though their lineup has constantly evolved, Deep Purple effectively made music a career for guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, bassist Roger Glover, vocalists Ian Gillan and David Coverdale, and organist/composer Jon Lord.

Anyone familiar with the industrial metal band's dark sense of irony should take one look at the title of Rammstein's 2009 album Liebe Ist Für Alle Da ("Love Is There for Everyone") and conclude that this one is a mean monster. Combining the tightness and punch of their 1997 album, Sehnsucht, with the musicianship and elaborate textures of their later work, Liebe Ist Für Alle Da is a grand achievement, skillfully dividing its time between razor sharp metal rockers like "B********," or the opening theme song "Rammlied" and nostalgic cabaret pieces that conjure the spirits of Weil and Brecht at a goth club. The best of the latter is the naked and haunting closer "Roter Sand," but little touches of a sinister yesteryear are everywhere, like the fake vaudeville music in "Haifisch," or the soundtrack strings of "Wiener Blut," which are eventually overcome by a guitar-crunching juggernaut…

Between 1640 and 1720 the immigrant German Düben family produced three generations of Capellmeisters at Sweden’s wealthy and fashionable Royal Court, where they amassed a huge collection of printed music and manuscripts.The meticulous cataloguing of this collection at Uppsala University has allowed Spiritato’s Kinga Ujszászi to fulfil the ensemble's avowed aim of exploring a vast and little-known repertory. Of particular interest to the group was music that appears to show the first collaborations of the royal Capelle with the separate trumpet corps, bringing trumpets into the context of courtly music and allowing the players to push the boundaries of their instruments and skills.

The Scriabin Mystery is brought to vivid life by acclaimed French pianist Vincent Larderet and celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Russian composer. Making his AVIE debut, Larderet presents a comprehensive survey of the scope of Scriabin’s output and the evolution of his style, from his early, post-Romantic works influenced by Chopin and Liszt, through to the modernism of the 20th century in his final works. His harmonies famously coloured by his synesthesia, Scriabin’s craft was a revolutionary fusion of freedom of expression underpinned by a sense of unity and geometric proportion, his psychologically complex constructions infused with incandescence and mysticism.

Following on from their highly successful disc ‘A Winter’s Tale’, viola virtuoso Roger Benedict and renowned pianist Simon Tedeschi present a new studio album reimagining masterpieces by Debussy and Ravel for the rich, mellow tone of the viola – the ‘melancholy dreamer’, as Berlioz described it. With its wistful sound, the viola gives a new and fresh character to these pieces, which, even now, seem radical in their conception.

Lodestar Trio blaze a trail with their unprecedented ‘baroque meets folk’ repertoire. With renewed interpretations of baroque classics (Bach, Lully, Couperin…), folk tunes and new compositions, they push the boundaries of their mystical and magical Scandinavian string instruments. With Max Baillie on violin, Olav Luksengård Mjelva on Norwegian Hardanger fiddle and Erik Rydvall on Swedish nyckelharpa, they skilfully showcase the dexterity of each instrument, bringing out new qualities, whilst paying tribute to the roots of a much-honoured musical period.

Odradek Records is delighted to present the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos performed by Artur Pizarro and the Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal under the baton of Julia Jones. This is a recording not to be missed: Artur Pizarros interpretations are renowned internationally for their insight and nuance, and this album represents for Pizarro and his fellow musicians a very personal labour of love, especially when overcoming the obstacles of the pandemic in order to record together. The majesty, power and innovation of the Beethoven Piano Concertos is contrasted with a selection of solo pieces by Beethoven; Romances and Rondos that round off the release with irresistible intimacy. On this recording Artur Pizarro plays Bechstein grand pianos kindly provided by Bechstein. Artur Pizarro has recorded a series of highly-acclaimed albums with Odradek, including the complete Rachmaninov piano music, and Lebensreise, a disc of music by Robert Schumann, for which Pizarros playing was praised as: soft as velvet, but muscular and virtuoso if necessary technique and virtuosity are unconditionally at the service of the composers intentions (Klassiek Centraal). Pizarro also performed the Poulenc Piano Concerto with the Beethoven Philharmonie and Thomas Rsner on the album Couleurs, praised in Gramophone magazine: Pizarro seems delighted to meet the score on its own terms, turning in a performance of considerable sensitivity and subtlety.