Johann Baptist Strauss II, also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son (German: Johann Strauß Sohn), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas as well as a violinist. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as "The Waltz King", and was largely responsible for the popularity of the waltz in the 19th century. Some of Johann Strauss's most famous works include "The Blue Danube", "Kaiser-Walzer" (Emperor Waltz), "Tales from the Vienna Woods", "Frühlingsstimmen", and the "Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka". Among his operettas, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron are the best known.

Walter Gieseking was a German pianist known for his sensitivity and control of tone, color, and dynamics. His recordings of Debussy and Ravel remain an important legacy. He was born in Lyon, France in 1895, and his father was a respected doctor and entomologist. Gieseking started playing the piano when he was four years old and made remarkable progress, especially considering that he was largely self-taught.

Martial Solal was a French jazz pianist and composer, born 23 August 1927 in Algiers, Algeria - died 12 December 2024 in Versailles. He composed the scores to more then 40 movies including Jean-Luc Godard's A Bout de Souffle (Breathless) in 1960.

Charles Émile Waldteufe was a French pianist, conductor and composer known for his numerous popular salon pieces.

Born in Chambéry in 1976, Renaud Capuçon studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris with Gérard Poulet and Veda Reynolds. He was awarded first prize for chamber music in 1992 and first prize for violin with a special distinction from the jury in 1993. In 1995 he won the Prize of the Berlin Academy of Arts. Then he studied with Thomas Brandis in Berlin, and later with Isaac Stern. Invited by Claudio Abbado in 1997, he continued his musical experiences as konzertmeister of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester during three summers with Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Daniel Barenboim, Franz Welser-Moest and of course Claudio Abbado. In 2000 he was nominated “Rising Star” and “New talent of the Year” (French Victoires de la Musique), in 2005 “Soliste instrumental de l’année”, also by the French Victoires de la Musique, and in 2006 “Prix Georges Enesco” (Sacem).

Hot Space is the tenth studio album by the British rock band Queen. It was released on 21 May 1982 by EMI Records in the UK and by Elektra Records in the US. Marking a notable shift in direction from their earlier work, they employed many elements of disco, funk, rhythm and blues, dance and pop music on the album. This made the album less popular with fans who preferred the traditional rock style they had come to associate with the band. Queen's decision to record a dance-oriented album germinated with the massive success in the US of their 1980 hit "Another One Bites the Dust" (and to a lesser extent, the UK success of the song).

One Step at a Time is the eighteenth studio album released on April 21, 1998 on MCA Nashville Records by American country music singer George Strait. The album produced the singles "I Just Want to Dance with You", "True", and "We Really Shouldn't Be Doing This", which respectively reached #1, #2, and #4 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) charts in 1998.

The Silver Key is heavier, faster, but at the same more epic and melodic than their previous works. In the past the band was very often balancing between Power Metal and Heavy Metal, but here, there’s no doubt that we are talking about pure Heavy Metal. First few minutes of new album make it obvious that we’re dealing with worshippers of Metal gods such as Judas Priest or Iron Maiden, as the album is full of epic and catchy vocal lines, twin guitar leads, ripping solos and all of this with massive, yet very dynamic rhythm section. The band had very unique approach to songwriting and production which was almost like a tribute to the mentioned classic acts, but except that Crystal Viper decided to show their love for the Metal culture and its current state, and incorporated in their songs several new elements, characteristic for other subgenres…

The One That You Love is the sixth album by Australian soft rock band Air Supply, released in 1981. The album became their most famous and successful in their career. It reached No. 10 in the US Billboard 200 album chart and contained three top 5 hits: "The One That You Love" (#1), "Here I Am (Just When I Thought I Was Over You)" (#5) and "Sweet Dreams" (#5). The album was released after their major success with their previous album, Lost in Love, and multiplied the band's popularity through the first period of the 1980s.

The Story of My LIfe stands out among latter-day Irma Thomas albums not only because she gives a consistently excellent performance, but because the record boasts three new songs from Dan Penn, who wrote some of the greatest soul songs of the '60s. While his new songs ("Hold Me While I Cry," "I Count the Teardrops," "I Won't Cry for You") aren't quite as strong as his best, they are nevertheless wonderful contemporary soul numbers, and they help make the record, the remainder of which is comprised of covers and slightly weaker new numbers, one of Thomas' best latter-day albums.

Largely known and admired for his large orchestral scores – including fifteen symphonies to date – the Finnish composer Kalevi Aho has actually written in a wide variety of genres, including chamber music and opera. He did arrive at the organ via the orchestra, however: in 1993, when composing his Eighth Symphony, he decided to let the organ feature in it as a solo instrument. Although he integrated it into the orchestra, it was also provided with three interludes between the separate movements. Encouraged to recast these into a solo work for the instrument, Aho composed a brief introduction for each interlude, functioning as a short summary of what had appeared before it in the course of the symphony. Behind the Three Interludes, and indeed the symphony, there lies a powerful experience of nature: a mid-summer journey on the Arctic Ocean, when everything, in the absence of night, was ‘bathed in an endless blue-tinged light’. Although composed 14 years later, the Symphony for Organ also owes its existence to the Eighth Symphony. After having played the organ part in a 2005 performance of that work, the Finnish organ virtuoso Jan Lehtola approached the composer urging him to write a big, multi-movement work for solo organ.

Recorded in the midst of Robert Smith's tenuous tenure with Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Top is arguably the most hedonistic record the Cure ever produced. Essentially Smith and Lol Tolhurst working with studio musicians (this being the period when the Cure's lineup was never assured), it's an album obviously recorded under stress, drink, and drugs. More wildly experimental musically than anything before it, it laid the foundations for the Cure's pattern of unpigeonholable albums that were to erase their reputation built by Pornography and eventually culminating in Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. That said, it's still very much a Cure record. Heavy on the percussion and quaint keyboard effects that were so big in the '80s, the melodies ("The Caterpillar," "Shake Dog Shake") are unmistakably Robert Smith…

The "storyteller" concept was ideal for aging singer/songwriters, letting them run through their back catalog and illuminate the origins of their best-known songs with stories and anecdotes. Ray Davies essentially invented the concept on his promotional tour for his semi-fictional memoir X-Ray, and his concerts were so successful, they eventually provided the basis for the VH1 series Storyteller. It also led to Storyteller, his first solo album since the soundtrack to Return to Waterloo. Like that album, it has a sound very similar to the Kinks – which shouldn't be surprising, since Davies was the musical force behind the band – but it's considerably more engaging than Return to Waterloo.

Saxophonist and composer John Surman has, in his nearly 50-year career, played and recorded in as many settings as one might imagine. Whether it's experimental free music, rockist fusion projects, large ensembles, solo, duets, concept recordings, you name it. His ECM tenure has been a fascinating one. That said, no matter how far afield his explorations have taken him, the place he always returns to, is playing jazz - some might meritoriously argue the point that no matter what he does, jazz lies at its root. Brewster's Rooster is indeed a pretty straight-ahead jazz date. Accompanied by guitarist John Abercrombie, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and bassist Drew Gress. The sound on the recording, while contemporary, does hearken back to the heady days of ECM in the late '70s. Seven of the nine cuts here are Surman originals, the two covers are an utterly gorgeous reading of "Chelsea Bridge"…

Numerous superlatives apply to the craft that the Dear Hunter's Casey Crescenzo has perfected on his ambitious six-part Acts series. On penultimate installment Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional, Crescenzo continues the epic story of the titular character (aka "The Boy") that ominously ended in Act IV with the protagonist at the mercy of the main antagonist, the Priest/Pimp. The narrative remains dense and there's a lot to unpack (multiple callbacks to early motifs and melodies abound), but ultimately, it's a rich experience for those willing to take the plunge. For outsiders, this may seem daunting, but fortunately, the music is as rewarding as the complex events layered within, with tastes of Sufjan Stevens, Radiohead, Arcade Fire, and Silverchair providing just a few reference points…