Daniil Trifinov's, Silver Age, recorded w/ Valery Gergiev & the Mariinsky Orchestra, recalls a time when Russia's composers, poets, & artists were among the most original anywhere in the world. It illustrates the artistic audacity & brilliance of a turbulent era in the country's history w/ works by 3 of its most pioneering composers: Scriabin's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in F sharp minor Op.20, Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor Op.16, & Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrushka.

Jan Nigges ist der Flötist des jungen Ensembles "Four Times Baroque", welches für sein erstes Album bei deutsche harmonia mundi gleich als Newcomer des Jahres einen Opus-Klassik-Preis gewann. Für diese Aufnahme bei dhm hat er sich mit einem Ensemble aus befreundeten Musikern und der Sopranistin Sibylla Elsing zusammengefunden, um Werke von Telemann, Händel, Fasch und Pez aufzunehmen.

Antonio Cesti's Le disgrazie d'Amour is a comic opera from 1667 that played very well in its day, though not as well as his slightly later Il pomo d'oro, which proved the defining smash of Cesti's short career. Time enough has passed to expunge the repertoire of anything that may have served as a hit to Cesti in the past, and sometimes performing groups have an excellent grasp of what opera from a composer to revive based on the quality of a work itself, rather than its perceived popularity at a given time. Carlo Ipata and Auser Musici's Cesti: Le disgrazie d'Amour on Hyperion is an excellent example of that.

Jefferson Airplane's first live album demonstrated the group's development as concert performers, taking a number of songs that had been performed in concise, pop-oriented versions on their early albums - "3/5's of a Mile in 10 Seconds," "Somebody to Love," "It's No Secret," "Plastic Fantastic Lover" - and rendering them in arrangements that were longer, harder rocking, and more densely textured, especially in terms of the guitar and basslines constructed by Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady. The group's three-part vocal harmonizing and dueling was on display during such songs as a nearly seven-minute version of Fred Neil's folk-blues standard "The Other Side of This Life," here transformed into a swirling rocker. The album emphasized the talents of Kaukonen and singer Marty Balin over the team of Paul Kantner and Grace Slick..

Mindy McCready's debut album, Ten Thousand Angels, elevated her into Nashville's music spotlight and established her as a promising singer. Born and raised in southern Florida, McCready (born Malinda Gayle McCready) graduated from high school at the age of 16 with the intention of beginning her musical career early. Following her graduation, she took a part-time job in her mother's ambulance company and began concentrating on performing her music.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of Fanny’s 1970 debut album. For the first time, a group of women (sisters June and Jean Millington, Alice De Buhr and Nickey Barclay) wrote and sang their own songs, played their own instruments and, perhaps most importantly, rocked just as hard as any male band out there. And, as the first all female band signed to a major label (Reprise) and with superstar producer Richard Perry at the board, these four women became perhaps L.A.’s biggest “buzz band,” landing repeated bookings at the Whisky-a-Go-Go with a who’s who of rock’s glitterati in attendance. But, without a reference point with which to review them, the rock press was less than kind, often dismissing them as a novelty act. Fanny would have to become that reference point, and so they did for the generations of female rockers to come after them, from Joan Jett to Girlschool to Courtney Love and beyond. They were truly the Godmothers of Chick Rock.