The mandora is a lute instrument that gradually disappeared with the advent of the guitar and has been completely forgotten since around 1820 - until today. The lutenist Jakub Mitrik has set himself the goal of reviving this instrument and its repertoire with this CD. The development of the mandora was a reaction to the baroque lute, which became increasingly complicated to play and had up to 14 courses of strings. It is tuned in a similar way to the later guitar and has six strings, the lower five of which are double-stringed. The mandora was particularly popular in monasteries, especially among the Benedictines. There, the mandora was valued as a solo and chamber music instrument due to its handiness and versatility. The archives of these monasteries also contain a very varied repertoire specially tailored to the mandora, which Jakub MitrIk and his Biber Consort present here for the first time. This is chamber music in a wide variety of formations, in which the mandora takes on the role of a fully-fledged partner that goes far beyond mere basso continuo accompaniment. With his selection, MitrIk presents a multi-coloured and sensitively performed CD programme that reflects the lightness of the late Baroque and early Classical periods and allows musical life in the monasteries outside the liturgy to shine in an unusual light.

A collection of 66 tracks and approximately 4 hours and 6 minutes of masterpieces by the famous pianist Richter. Schumann: Piano Sonata No. 2-3rd Movement, "Butterfly" from "The Clown at the Vienna Carnival", Handel: Keyboard Suite No. 2, Mozart: Violin Sonata No. 31-2nd Movement (Oleg Kagan), Mozart/Grieg: Piano Sonata No. 16 (2 Pianos) (Leonskaya), Beethoven: Violin Sonata "Spring"-2nd and 3rd Movements, and more.

Total of 42 tracks, approximately 3 hours and 42 minutes. Sarah Chang is known as one of the most fascinating and talented performers of her generation, with astonishing musical insight, technical virtuosity, and emotional range. She recorded exclusively for EMI Classics from the beginning of her career, from 1992 to 2009. This is a collection of her best performances. Vivaldi: Winter, Autumn, Spring, Summer, Violin Concerto in G minor, Op. 12 No. 1, Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy, Massenet: Meditation from Thais, Dvorak: Piano Quintet, Franck: Violin Sonata, Ravel: Violin Sonata No. 2 - 2nd & 3rd Movements, Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 - 3rd Movements, etc.

A collection of great performances by the renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman. 33 tracks, approx. 3 hours and 18 minutes. Debussy/Altman: The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, Debussy/Dushkin: Petite Suite - Minuet, Vivaldi: Summer - 3rd Movement, Bach: Sonata for Solo Violin No. 1 - 3rd Movement, Kreisler: La vie dell'Amour, Elgar: Salut d'Amour, and more.

A total of 86 tracks, about 3 hours and 42 minutes of recording. A collection of masterpieces by conductor Hugh Wolff. Dvorak: Cello Concerto (Rostropovich), Haydn: Symphony No. 1 to 3rd Movement, Stravinsky: Suite for Small Orchestra No. 1 and No. 2, Copland: Appalachian Spring, Ravel: Ma Mère l'Oye, Bartók: Suite: The Miraculous Mandarin, Bach & Gounod/Arranged by Passatieri: Ave Maria (Hampson), and more.

Total of 53 tracks, about 3 hours 44 minutes. Alexandre Tharaud's original interpretation of piano performance, who has a fantastic way of manipulating the piano. In particular, the collection of short pieces recorded here allows you to find such picturesqueness. Satie: Three Gymnopédies No. 1, Debussy: In a Boat, Bach: Prelude in C minor BWV999, Khachaturian: Album of the Child, Volume 1, Op. 62 No. 1, Lully/Tharaud: From "The Townsfolk", Schubert: Moments Musicaux No. 3, Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words, Op. 67 No. 2, Gershwin: My Boyfriend, John Williams: Main Theme from "Schindler's List", and more.

Queen is the debut studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 13 July 1973 by EMI Records in the UK and by Elektra Records in the US. It was recorded at Trident Studios and De Lane Lea Music Centre, London, with production by Roy Thomas Baker, John Anthony and the band members themselves. The album was influenced by heavy metal and progressive rock. The lyrics are based on a variety of topics, including folklore ("My Fairy King") and religion ("Jesus"). Lead singer Freddie Mercury composed five of the ten tracks, lead guitarist Brian May composed four songs (including "Doing All Right", which he co-wrote with his Smile bandmate Tim Staffell), and drummer Roger Taylor both composed and sang "Modern Times Rock and Roll". The final song on the album is a short instrumental version of "Seven Seas of Rhye," the full version of which would appear on the band's second album, Queen II.

Beat the Border is the second studio album from Ugandan artist Geoffrey Oryema. It was released in 1993 through the Real World label. Notable collaborators to Oryema on this album include Jean-Pierre Alarcen (Lead guitar), Brian Eno, Manu Katché and Ayub Ogada. The album evokes the spirit and culture of Africa for those who live in first world countries.

Never one to relegate particular instruments to merely supporting roles, Hindemith composed his String Trio No. 1 (1924) with an eye (and ear) toward complete equality among the parts. The Trio is written in an almost constantly contrapuntal texture that makes much use of canon and fugue techniques; virtually the only instances where a homophonic texture is evident are those that mark important structural divisions of the movements. Though much of the music has an atonal feel, Hindemith provides a sense of direction by establishing tonal centers as points of momentary resolution. Typical of Hindemith's music of the early 1920s, the Trio is marked by a bracing, energetic spirit. The String Trio No. 2 strongly contrasts with its predecessor, the String Trio No. 1 (1924), which is marked by a strong feeling of atonality. When Hindemith wrote the present work nearly a decade later, his style had evolved somewhat. The Trio No. 2 is built on standard Classical forms but incorporates Hindemith's personal sense of tonality, in which any note or chord may be related to a given tonal center; the music has a refreshing, non-Romantic sound.

When The Omega Syndicate burst onto the scene in 2004 with their exhilarating debut “Analogue Waves” they quickly made quite an impression and many friends into the bargain. In a UK scene often accused of being lacklustre and amateurish, The Omega Syndicate have flown in the face of any such criticism with their exciting and dynamic fresh sounding take on the traditional Berlin School sound. Although they are creating long tracks with synths, sequencers and Mellotrons, what they produce is wholly original and while it can be said firmly and squarely to be “Berlin School”, it doesn’t always sound like a clone of Schulze or Tangerine Dream.

2018 debut album, by prodigious keys player, composer and producer Joe Armon-Jones, is buoyant, celebratory and welcoming. With a background in jazz, he draws from influences in dub, hip-hop and soul. Different traditions are infused and commingled together. Soulful brass arrangements are colored with carefully-tuned atmospherics; individual flashes of brilliance are bound into the album's bigger picture. He's part of London's young, jazz-influenced music scene. Drawn from that same close-knit circle, the album features the likes of Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia and Oscar Jerome. It's playing with those - along with Ezra Collective, which he co-founded, and touring with the likes of Ata Kak and Pharoahe Monch - which has honed his playing and grown his ideas. It's made for a record with an unmistakable depth. He draws on deep musical understanding, making music which is warm and has a feeling of joy. A document of his vision for bringing together his different influences, it's also a testament to hard-earned, head-turning musical virtuosity.

Nine tracks of the Basie band in its prime playing music composed and arranged by Quincy Jones - that should be enough to tell you this is a superb album. All nine of the originals are virtually forgotten today but are very well-played by this veteran band. Although Frank Foster was still in the band, Eric Dixon (on tenor and flute) was starting to assert himself as a major solo voice while trumpeter Snooky Young has a few strong spots.

Although it has been clearly established for which instruments the Musical Offering and the Art of Fugue were intended, the Musical Offering has continued to be the object of realisations for other instruments, such as Anton Webern's orchestrated version of the Ricercar à 6. Here Cindy Castillo marks the completion of a new organ in the German baroque style by Dominique Thomas in the church of Saint-Loup in Namur with her own realisation of this work, a monument to the late Baroque style.

José de Nebra was to Spanish opera what Rameau was to French opera, both pioneer and architect of the revival of the genre in the eighteenth century. His pastoral melodrama ‘Venus y Adonis’ is recorded here for the first time almost 300 years after its premiere, by Alberto Miguélez Rouco and his ensemble Los Elementos.The result of a meticulous reconstruction by the conductor, a specialist in the composer, this recording allows us to rediscover both the splendour of Nebra's work and the singularities of the exuberant Hispanic Baroque, which is still too little known. Sung exclusively by women, ‘Venus y Adonis’ blends Italian style and traditional Spanish turns of phrase (the aria ‘Calquiera mozuela’, which combines fandango, zarambeque and castanets), with numerous borrowings from zarzuela. Based on one of mythology's most illustrious subjects, the work juxtaposes comedy (the duet of “chickens”) and seriousness, with more sensitive arias, such as the moving farewell aria by Adonis (Natalie Pérez).

A few of these small choral gems are well known to amateur choirs, and Poulenc's secular choral pieces are more often presented one at a time on choral albums than in the groupings in which they were originally included. Francis Poulenc: Secular Choral Music offers the composer's very first choral piece, the Chanson à boire for men's voices (1922), but most of the music here dates from either the late '30s (the Petites voix, for female or children's voices, and Sept chansons) or the World War II era (Un soir de neige), the folk-song settings entitled Chansons françaises, and the ambitious Figure humaine, whose final number, "Liberté," was dropped in sheet music form over French cities by Britain's Royal Air Force. Someone once described Poulenc as "part monk, part hooligan," and these a cappella choral works give evidence of both tendencies. The Chansons françaises are cheerful pieces with just a shade of extended harmony, almost French counterparts to Bartók's folk song settings, while the more serious pieces, such as "Un chien perdu" (A Lost Dog), from the Petites voix, have a mystical tinge that links them strongly with Poulenc's better-known sacred choral music.