The Dubliners were an Irish folk band founded in Dublin in 1962 as The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group, named after its founding member; they subsequently renamed themselves The Dubliners. The line-up saw many changes in personnel over their fifty-year career, but the group's success was centred on lead singers Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew. The band garnered international success with their lively Irish folk songs, traditional street ballads and instrumentals.

Edmund Wylfing (ca. 844-870), a Saxon king of East Anglia, virgin and martyr, was the the first patron-saint of England. The Italian ensemble La Reverdie brings to life again his story through a medieval liturgical drama, in three parts: life, passion and miracles.

As the celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethovens birth approaches, and following a much-admired version of the Diabelli Variations (Alpha 386 Gramophone Editors Choice), Martin Helmchen has decided to record his complete piano concertos in the company of musical partners with whom he has a special affinity, Andrew Manze and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. They devote this first volume to the Concertos nos. 2 and 5, giving lovingly polished performances of these two masterpieces of the piano repertory. Composed even before Concerto no. 1, the Second Concerto was premiered in Vienna in 1795, when Beethoven was only twenty-five years old, but underwent several revisions before being published in its final version in 1801.

Atalanta (HWV 35) is a pastoral opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel composed in 1736. It is based upon the mythological female athlete, Atalanta, the libretto (which is in Italian) being derived from the book La Caccia in Etolia by Belisario Valeriani. The identity of the librettist is not known. Handel composed it for the London celebrations of the marriage in 1736 of Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son of King George II, to Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. The first performance took place on 12 May 1736 in the Covent Garden Theatre.