Seven new compositions and six composers from Latvia representing the young and middle generation - this is the balance sheet of the Sharp Green album by the Atomos Saxophone Quartet. It features a variety of composers with roots in academic as well as non-academic music, but all are united by their willingness to surrender to the adventurous spirit of Atomos, which has encouraged them to explore the possibilities of the sound of a saxophone quartet.

The art of Shakespeare was a recurring fascination for Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. In addition to two operas and numerous settings of songs and sonnets, he wrote 11 Shakespeare Overtures which here receive their first ever complete recording. Deploying all the resources of the symphony orchestra, these are some of the twentieth century's most dramatic and tuneful orchestral works, spectacular evocations of Shakespeare's greatest plays.

Helen Schneider has spread herself out during her career, studying classical piano in her youth; singing blues, rock, and pop; performing in various musicals; and finally turning to standards a few years prior to the making of this CD. There's little doubt that she is a trained singer, as she always hits her notes and enunciates clearly, yet this album leaves little lasting impression, compared to many singers who have covered these well-known works.

Because it is a 1995 release, this "Best of" CD should not be confused with something of broader scope. Its 12 songs are culled from a mere two CDs, "Illusions" (1986) and "Cross Currents" (1987), released on the Denon label. There is no material from the six CDs Eliane put out on Blue Note subsequent to "Cross Currents" and before this CD. She has, of course, released a tremendous amount of material since 1995.

Blockflötenkonzerte von Telemann, Graupner und Schultze Die Blockflötistin Dorothee Oberlinger gilt mittlerweile als "Star im Bereich der Alten Musik" (rbb). Für ihre erste CD bei dhm – "Italian Sonatas" – wurde sie mit dem Echo Klassik 2008 als "Instrumentalistin des Jahres" ausgezeichnet. Nach der letztjährigen hochgelobten Produktion mit Werken von Telemann erscheint nun ihre neue CD mit deutschen Blockflötenkonzerten des Barock.

These two CDs were originally recorded and released by naïve in the mid 1990s; recorded out of numerical order, sonatas 5, 6 and 2 are on the first disk, while 1, 3 (in which a violin replaces one of the oboes) and 4 are on the other. Both sets involve a theorbo and deep string bass (contrabbasso on CD1 and violone on CD2), all played by different players. The wind soloists are constant (and what a stellar line-up – Paolo Grazzi and Alfredo Bernardini on oboe and Alberto Grazzi on bassoon); Manfredo Kraemer is the violinist.

"This CD is dedicated to two exceptional people who are tragically death these days: Alberto Bollini, intelligent and ironic, and Maurizio Botto, great "country man". Both young, they have left a deep and indelible mark in who knew them. Hello Alberto. Hello Maurizio."

143 IS A PARTY AND EVERYONE IS INVITED! Katy Perry has officially launched an exciting new era with the long awaited sixth studio album, 143. Katy set out to create a bold, exuberant, celebratory dance-pop album with the symbolic 143 numerical expression of love as a throughline message. The result is a sexy, fearless, return to form for the multifaceted musician with an album jam packed with the empowering, sexy, and provocative pop anthems you've come to love. This is an album with a lot of heart and a lot of BPM. Get ready to pop off!

Few rock artists have been more influential without achieving superstardom than Lou Reed. While he flirted with mainstream success between 1970 (when he left the Velvet Underground) and 2013 (when he succumbed to liver disease), he most often played to a large cult following that only occasionally expanded into mainstream visibility. However, his songwriting – unusually literate and often embracing themes that flouted society's conventions, especially in terms of drugs and sex – broke fresh ground that other artists would follow, and his willingness to confront his audience made him a vitally important precursor to the punk revolution of the mid- to late '70s. (He often said that his goal was to apply the freedom and creative sensibility of literature to rock music.) Reed was not as celebrated as a guitarist, but the energetic report of his rhythm playing and the noisy grace of his leads and solos made him a hero to musicians who valued passion and feel over chops.

Waylon Jennings If any one performer personified the outlaw country movement of the '70s, it was Waylon Jennings. Though he had been a professional musician since the late '50s, it wasn't until the '70s that Waylon, with his imposing baritone and stripped-down, updated honky tonk, became a superstar. Jennings rejected the conventions of Nashville, refusing to record with the industry's legions of studio musicians and insisting that his music never resemble the string-laden, pop-inflected sounds that were coming out of Nashville in the '60s and '70s.

The Lao Tizer Band returns with AMPLIFY, their explosive new album! The project was recorded and filmed LIVE at Hollywood's legendary EastWest Studios, with an all-star cast led by keyboardist, composer and producer Lao Tizer. The record includes 5 sizzling vocal tracks featuring platinum-selling American Idol star Elliott Yamin, plus 4 adventurous instrumentals penned by Tizer. Also appearing are GRAMMY-winning saxophonist Eric Marienthal (Chick Corea), guitarist Chieli Minucci (Special EFX), drummer Gene Coye (Hiromi, Santana), famed percussionist Munyungo Jackson (Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder) and many others. This release marks a major evolution for the group with elements of jazz, funk, R&B, soul and jam-band influences, accentuated by a super-tight horn section. Videos were produced for all tracks by Andy LaViolette, best-known for his work with Snarky Puppy.

James Bowman must surely be the finest vocal interpreter of Purcell today. His grasp of sentiment, his sense of timing, and his enunciation, are unsurpassed…

The Portuguese school of Renaissance composers is only just beginning to be explored. It came to maturity relatively slowly, and when it finally did, in the first half of the seventeenth century, much of the rest of Europe had moved on to a new musical world. Only countries on the edge of the continent – especially England, Poland and Portugal – continued as late as 1650 to give employment to composers who found creative possibilities in unaccompanied choral music. Even so, very few of these composers remained completely untouched by the experiments of Monteverdi and the new Italian Baroque school, so that their music became a fascinating hybrid, looking forward and back, often unexpectedly introducing twists and turns to what otherwise might be taken for pure ‘Palestrina’.

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields was founded in 1959 by Sir Neville Marriner and a group of London’s leading orchestral players. Originally formed as a small conductorless string group, it spearheaded the 1950’s Baroque revival.

MAGNIFICENT BROADCAST FROM THE CURE’S FIRST EUROPEAN TOUR • Formed in Crawley, West Sussex, in 1978, from the ashes of their forerunner Easy Cure, by Robert Smith, Michael Dempsey and Lol Tolhurst, the Cure’s debut album, Three Imaginary Boys was issued in May 1979. It was this along with several early singles that placed the band in the post-punk movement which had sprung up in the United Kingdom that same year. An early demo-tape found its way to Polydor Records scout Chris Parry, who signed the Cure to his newly-formed Fiction label - distributed by Polydor - in September 1978. ‘Killing An Arab’ the Cure’s first single came out in December ’78. • 1979 found the band touring the UK frantically, and they put in the odd European festival date during the summer months too. On December 10th The Cure travelled across to continental Europe to play their first show there in Utrecht that night, followed by a gig in Eindhoven on the 11th. • The following evening, they took the stage at Amsterdam’s magnificent Melkweg venue for a concert that remains a firm favourite among fans. Recorded for live FM radio broadcast across the Netherlands, the show has nevertheless never been issued on CD previously. That all changes however with this new release which captures the entire set the band played that cold winter evening more than 40 years ago