Renowned Schubert interpreter Ian Bostridge revisits Winterreise, the greatest of all song cycles, on his first PENTATONE album. Bostridge presents this masterpiece together with pianist, conductor and composer Thomas Adès, who bases his profound accompaniment on a fresh engagement with the original manuscripts. Winterreise is the epitome of Romantic melancholia, written by a composer aware of his fatal illness but at the height of his creative powers. It is the first installment of a trilogy of PENTATONE recordings comprising the major Schubert song cycles. After Winterreise, Die schöne Müllerin and Schwanengesang will follow. Ian Bostridge is one of the most celebrated tenors and lied interpreters of his generation. Thomas Adès is best known as a composer but demonstrates his extraordinary skills as a song accompanist on his first PENTATONE recording.

After the enormous success of Vivaldi’s earlier collections La Stravaganza and L’Estro Armonico, his publisher Estienne Roger was eager to capitalise on the composer’s soaring popularity. With that in mind, Op.7 was published in 1720 containing 12 new concertos, ten for solo violin and two for solo oboe. However, it seems unlikely Vivaldi either authorised or approved of this publication, and recent research has even discovered that the authenticity of the concertos is doubtful, with at least the two oboe concertos certainly not by Vivaldi. The concertos may not bear the traditional Vivaldian hallmarks, with movements simplified or moved around, but they are still a worthy tribute to the composer, whether penned by the ‘Prete Rosso’ himself or not.

On 2008's Broken Grid, his first album under the group name Solar Fake, German synthesizer player and singer Sven Friedrich covered Radiohead's "Creep," one indication of his musical taste. A more telling one comes with the cover he's chosen for the second Solar Fake album, Frontiers, a version of Talk Talk's 1984 hit "Such a Shame." Friedrich's all-synthesizer dance-rock sound is very much rooted in ‘80s antecedents, including not only Talk Talk, but also, and especially, Depeche Mode, who are evoked in the opening song, "Under the Skies."

Sven Friedrich has done it again. A side project of the vocalist for Zeraphine and Dreadful Shadows. Sven Friedrich is holding Solar Fake's debut album, Broken Grid, to the same standards as the rest of his music, but in a very different way.

Valensia is back with the old style. It's a great album for those who like the Valensia of the first two CDs. This fifth album again is a gem. It contains songs he wrote when he was young as well as songs from the past few years. Very melodic, cozy, cheerful, melancholy music for the enthusiast.

After 'Another Manic Episode' released in 2015, Solar Fake are back with their new album 'You Win. Who Cares?'. To me, this is one of their darkest albums in terms of lyrics and you can literally feel that they put a lot of strong emotions in it. Frustration, sadness and mere anger are beautifully woven into melancholic and sometimes quite aggressive lyrics, accompanied by those typical Solar Fake beats intertwined with bittersweet piano chords.