The new album from Der Musikalische Garten features no fewer than four world premieres and once again offers fascinating insights into the expressive diversity of the 18th century. The focus is on three secular cantatas by Carl Heinrich Graun and the world premiere recording of an undiscovered overture by his brother Johann Gottlieb Graun. Soprano Isabel Schicketanz impresses in the vocal works with technical brilliance and sensitive text interpretation, supported by the lively orchestral sound of the ensemble Der Musikalische Garten, which achieves enthusiasm and esprit with a small ensemble.

The performances are as musically alert and stylish as one has come to expect from this ensemble. Németh adopts sensible tempos throughout, giving the opening overtures a due sense of occasion in the dotted opening passages while obtaining fresh, pointed playing in the dance movements.

Album «Pièces pour Clavecin» (1995) is a renowned recording of keyboard works by German-Danish baroque composer Dietrich Buxtehude, performed by the celebrated Italian harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini. Released on the Astrée Auvidis label, the 63-minute album features expressive renditions of Buxtehude's suites, toccatas, and canzonas.

British rock group Procol Harum began life as a psychedelic band and evolved into one of the leading acts in art rock and prog rock, all without changing much about their essential approach. Lead singer and pianist Gary Brooker gave the group their trademark sound with his downbeat vocals and lush melodies, while primary lyricist Keith Reid added words that often pondered the unpredictability of fate in songs like "A Whiter Shade of Pale," "A Salty Dog," and "Conquistador." Their music was executed with keen skill and passion, and the band was also one of the first to experiment with large-scale orchestration, as well as performing on-stage with a full symphony ensemble. 1967's Procol Harum featured their first and most enduring hit, "A Whiter Shade of Pale," and 1969's A Salty Dog is widely regarded as their masterpiece…

Following a chaotic sprawl of messy concept albums in 2012, Green Day returned to form in 2016 with the serviceable Revolution Radio. Hearing the band get back to their three-chord punk roots was refreshing, if the songs sometimes leaned generic. With their 13th studio album, Father of All…, the trio take an aggressive about-face into high-energy glam punk with the most danceable songs they've produced in their 30-plus-year run. Kicking off with the stomping title track (both the song and album also known as "Father of All Motherfuckers" in their uncensored form), Green Day inject a plethora of unfamiliar elements into their sound. Falsetto vocals, handclaps, and a chorus full of grimy hooks land the song somewhere between a speedy reworking of the two-chord riff from Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" and the most club-ready bands of the early-2000s rock revival…

Roland Pöntinen’s generously filled and beautifully engineered recital features three of Szymanowski’s most exotic and harmonically daring middle-period works together with a handful of Mazurkas that were composed near the end of his life. The Swedish pianist gives very persuasive accounts of these later more emotionally restrained pieces projecting their melodic lines with great sensitivity without disrupting their natural dance-like flow. his sense of forward momentum works particularly well in the more capricious movements of the Masques such as ‘Tantris le bouffon’ which is delivered with almost Bartókian stridency.

Composer Pino Donaggio teamed with filmmaker Brian DePalma to forge one of the most memorable collaborations in cinema history, writing a series of suspenseful, hauntingly atmospheric scores evoking Bernard Herrmann's landmark work for Alfred Hitchcock.

Though born in New Jersey, smooth soul diva Madeline Bell enjoyed her greatest success in the United Kingdom (where she began living in 1963), and her first album, 1967's Bell's a Poppin', is a thoroughly enjoyable example of British pop record-making at its most poised and professional. Bell had a world-class voice and sang supper-club soul in the manner of Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield (the latter of whom was a friend of Bell's and often used her as a backing vocalist); those looking for Southern soul grit will be disappointed, but Bell's a Poppin' is a marvelous example of the British equivalent of Brill Building pop. The arrangements are clever and sophisticated, the musicians are spot-on throughout, producer John Franz adds just the right amount of polish without rubbing away the personality of the music, and Bell's vocals tell a story just beautifully, boasting smarts and understated passion while maintaining a firm sense of control and balance throughout.

La Femme Dietrich's career lasted several decades, and when she inked a deal with Decca Records in 1939, her first recording assignment was to produce an album of her "greatest hits," so already pervasive was her fame. This 16-track collection rounds up selections recorded over a 25-year period between her signing to Decca and her later recordings for Dot and Kapp, all of which parent company MCA-Universal now owns. Besides the definitive, elegant orchestral reading of 'Falling In Love Again', Marlene also puts her pipes and personality to other hits like "The Boys in the Backroom" and "You've Got That Look (That Makes Me Weak)" from the movie Destry Rides Again, as well as a batch of classy readings of "You Do Something to Me," "You Go to My Head," and uncharacteristic, almost surreal 1957 rock & roll stabs at "Near You," and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" and the campy spins of her final single in 1965, "If He Swing By the String" and "Such Trying Times." All in all, a great little career overview to add to the pop vocal side of the collection.

Another example of superb programming, Piotr Anderszewski's Chopin recital on Virgin is brilliantly conceived and masterfully executed. Concentrating on the compoer's late works, Anderszewski's program starts with two sets of Mazurkas played with supple sensitivity and sympathetic poetry, builds through the last two Ballades played with dramatic intensity and terrific technique, climaxes in the last two Polonaises played with heroic grandeur and tremendous virtuosity, and closes with the tender and intimate Mazurka in F minor as an encore. Anderszewski's technique is imperious, his tone is sensual, his performances are emotional, and his interpretations are magisterial. Individually, each performance is strong and vital. Taken all together, the whole disc is more than the sum of its parts. Virgin's sound is warm but a bit close and sometimes a little too immediate.