This extraordinary CD features an interesting chapter in music history that has given rise to many a speculation: Ludwig van Beethoven’s only opera, Leonore, in the world-premiere recording of the version of 1806.

Giuseppe Cambini has had a bad press for almost two centuries: Mozart told tales of his jealousy and intrigue, and the sheer size of his output – at least 600 instrumental works, a dozen operas, and more – has prompted further suspicion (there is nothing worse than being facile). He composed almost as many string quintets as Boccherini (with whom he played as a young man) and even more quartets, and he wrote nearly 100 works in the fashionable Parisian form of the time, the symphonie concertante.

If you've never really experienced Mike Bloomfield just letting loose and playing ripping and inspired guitar, this is a darn good starting point. Recorded live in 1976 and 1977 by producer Norman Dayron at the Old Waldorf nightclub on Bloomfield's home turf in San Francisco with a hand-picked band, the results are startling to say the least. Bloomfield plays with assurance and authority throughout, exploring new ideas with each new chorus from his guitar, arguably at his best since his early Butterfield/Dylan days. He plays a lot of slide guitar here, too, and tracks like "Bad Luck Baby," "The Sky Is Crying," "Dancin' Fool," and "Buried Alive in the Blues" showcase his mighty talents with the bottleneck, taking the lessons learned firsthand from Robert Nighthawk to places new and wild. Bloomfield was never much of a singer, and everybody from old pal Nick Gravenites to bassist Roger Troy to drummer Bob Jones ends up handling all the vocals on this disc…

This is the japanese version of Kraftwerk - Concert Classics. Various versions seem to exist. With transparent and with black jewelcases. On the back and front of the case a blue sticker is attached. Therefore transparent jewelcase have another cover with the Autobahn logo in blue on black. When the CD was released in 1998 a Japanese press release is said to state that the concert was recorded in Dallas Broncos Bowl on 1/5/1975. However latest investigations to a series of recordings from Denver clearly indicate this recording coming from a 20/05/1975 gig in Denver.

Emboldened by the enthusiastic response to the muted Nothing Like the Sun and reeling from the loss of his parents, Sting constructed The Soul Cages as a hushed mediation on mortality, loss, grief, and father/son relationships (the album is dedicated, in part, to his father; its predecessor was dedicated to his mother). Using the same basic band as Nothing Like the Sun, the album has the same supple, luxurious tone, stretching out leisurely over nine tracks, almost all of them layered mid-tempo tunes (the exception being grinding guitars of the title track).

Taking the hard rock inclinations of Generation Terrorists to an extreme, the Manic Street Preachers delivered a flawed but intriguing second album with Gold Against the Soul. Inspired by Guns N' Roses, the Manics decided to rework their working-class angst as heavy arena rock; they seize upon the latent politicism of Guns N' Roses' tortured white-trash metal, interpreting it as a call to arms. Since the Manics are more intellectual and revolutionary than the Gunners, Gold Against the Soul burns with inspired, if confused, rhetoric.

New York Times - "…The [Pièces de Clavecin - Book I] has all the energy and bright self-advertisement of a composer in his early 20's….The [Book II] represents a composer of solo music at his most inventive….Mr. Haas is very good indeed…"

Trilogy is a box set by the German musical project Enigma. This set includes the first three studio albums by Enigma, MCMXC a.D., The Cross of Changes, and Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi!, which comprises their artistic output from 1990–1996. A worldbeat dance fixture of the late 20th century and beyond, having sold tens of millions of albums worldwide, Enigma was formed in 1990 by Bucharest native Michael Cretu. The project is based in Ibiza, Spain, where Cretu has lived and recorded since the early '90s. With its 1991 hit "Sadeness," Enigma brought the new age fascination with Gregorian chants and old-world culture to the clubs; the resulting single was both unique and irresistible.

Vivaldi's many cello concertos are performed here with consummate taste and superb musicality by Roel Dieltiens and the Ensemble Explorations. Dieltiens plays with a rich tone and a light touch and his robust virtuosity and enthusiastic sympathy for the music are irresistible. The seven members of the Ensemble Explorations – five strings plus lute or guitar and organ or harpsichord – play with a sense of cooperation, which leaves this music sounding as concertos from the period should, which is to say more like chamber music.

If Everything Must Go found Manic Street Preachers coping with Richey James' sudden, unexplained disappearance, its follow-up, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, finds them putting the tragedy behind them and flourishing as a trio. Wisely, the group builds on the grand sound of Everything Must Go, creating a strangely effective fusion of string-drenched, sweeping arena rock and impassioned, brutally honest punk. Since the band never writes about anything less than major issues, whether it be political or personal, it's appropriate that their music sounds as majestic and overpowering as their pretensions.

30: Very Best of Deep Purple is a 1998 compilation album by English rock band Deep Purple, celebrating 30 years of the successful band. There are two CD versions of the album, a single CD and a double CD. The vinyl version was a double LP printed on purple vinyl, and the tracklisting was identical to the single CD version. The single CD version concentrates on the greatest hits of Deep Purple through the years, and contains mostly edited single versions of the songs, for example "Child in Time" which was over ten minutes long in its original form on the album Deep Purple in Rock.

The music of Scottish late-Romantic Sir Alexander Mackenzie is now becoming much better known thanks to the earlier Hyperion recording of his orchestral music, the reception of which had the critics scratching their heads wondering why such attractive music remained neglected for so long. 'Another hugely enjoyable Hyperion rescue act' was how Gramophone received this record, issued a year ago.