This second instalment in the ongoing complete Ferdinand Ries symphony cycle with the Tapiola Sinfonietta and conductor Janne Nisonen includes the composer’s 4th and 5th symphonies. Although numbered as the composer’s fifth, the D minor symphony dates from 1813 and was his second symphony to be completed. The symphony was Ries’ debut with the London Philharmonic Society which was to be an important influence in his career for the next eleven years after he had settled in the city. The first performance of the symphony was a major success and, according to a review, ‘This [symphony] is one of those works which announce the genius of its author.’ Ries was being favourably compared to the likes of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Ries’ Symphony No. 4, Op. 110 was composed in London in 1818 but, for reasons unknown, did not achieve a similar success to that of his 5th Symphony.

Mirare presents another fine recording by the talented ensemble Les Ombres, led jointly by group members Margaux Blanchard and Sylvain Sartre. Baroque music combines violence and gentleness, unity and plurality. This disc dedicated to the myth of Semele and Icarus combines music by Marin Marais, André Cardinal Destouches and George Frederic Handel.

First off, Kenny Wayne Shepherd was 33 years old at the release of this album, so he’s not a kid playing hot guitar anymore, he’s a grown man doing it. And he does play a hot lead guitar – that, in a nutshell, is what he does. But over the years he’s also learned that the blues isn’t just about blazing lead licks, it’s also about letting the song say its say – and on Live! In Chicago he does that. This is a concert full of songs and not just a bunch of guitar leads broken up by someone singing for a bit. Shepherd is also fully aware of the history of the blues and he honors some of his heroes here by playing with blues legends like Hubert Sumlin, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Bryan Lee and Buddy Flett and he doesn’t step all over them with his guitar playing – he supports them. The concert grew out of the tour Shepherd put together in support of 10 Days Out: Blues from the Backroads project, a DVD/CD documentary that featured Shepherd traveling around the country on a ten day trip interviewing and playing with icons from the blues world, including the surviving members of Muddy Waters' and Howlin' Wolf's bands, making this show, recorded at the House of Blues in Chicago, a kind of culmination.

Swedish composer Ture Rangström (1884–1947), a contemporary of Sibelius and Nielsen, was largely self-taught and defiantly independent in his approach to symphonic composition. Though well versed in counterpoint and sonata principles, Rangström largely rejected these techniques in favor of his own, which emphasized content over form, and drama over development. While there’s no doubting the dramatic and narrative power of the music, the lack of true counterpoint (his themes are not harmonically interrelated or contrasted, but rather blatantly juxtaposed) makes them ultimately unsatisfying as symphonies but perfectly suitable, as, for example, film scores, or as multi-movement symphonic poems (poets were his main inspiration).

This is a superb collection comprised of Billie Davis' singles for England's Decca Records, most of them dating between 1967 and 1970 (with four tracks from her 1963 stint with the label), and augmented with a handful of tracks from her self-titled 1970 album. It's all superb girl group-style pop, with a distinctly American, soulful edge and even an occasional psychedelic intrusion, highlighted by her spirited rendition of "I Want You to Be My Baby" and her impassioned version of "Wasn't It You," among other tracks. There's not a loser in the bunch and, in fact, the songs all show an amazing consistency despite origins as different as Joe Cocker, Carole King, Ian Anderson (yes, she covered "Living in the Past"), and Neil Diamond. Strangely enough, the appending of the four early Decca sides at the end of the CD is sort of jarring, throwing listeners back to an earlier (though still eminently enjoyable) era of British pop/rock. The sound is excellent throughout and the CD comes with an excellent career overview on Davis.