Alexander Melnikov returns to Rachmaninoff with an exploration of the poetic world of the Variations on a Theme by Chopin. He travelled to Lake Lucerne to record this album on the master’s own piano at Villa Senar, Rachmaninoff’s last summer home. To accompany this eminently lyrical music, he joins forces with the luminous soprano of Julia Lezhneva and invites us to discover some of the Russian composer’s most beautiful songs from this period of intense creative ferment.

Following his exploration of Spain with the music of Federico Moreno Torroba (BIS2725), Franz Halász now takes us to Brazil with the complete works for solo guitar by Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra announce their upcoming album with star pianist Yuja Wang performing Shostakovich’s two piano concertos. The recordings are part of Nelsons' and the BSO’s award-winning decade-long Shostakovich project to mark the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death.

Over the years, Robin Trower has garnered a select group of fans and aficionados for what can be described as his own unique guitar soundscape. Armed with a Fender Stratocaster and crafting his own style, which has earned him comparisons to Hendrix, he has been astounding audiences for over 50 years. This live performance from the Seattle West Studios on August 13th, 1973, broadcast on KOL-FM radio, features tracks from the two Robin Trower Band debut albums, Twice Removed from Yesterday and Bridge of Sighs. Discover for yourself the roots of his post-Procul Harum signature sound and enjoy this remastered radio broadcast.

Oscar Peterson defined the modern mainstream jazz piano style, with albums such as Night Train and We Get Requests providing a template for all other jazz piano trios to follow.

Mississippi John Hurt's mid-'60s performances were usually distinctive and sometimes staggering. His guitar work was crisp, attractive and frequently brilliant, although his vocals were the real hook. Hurt's narratives, storytelling ability and general communicative powers were at their peak on this two-CD set, which has languished in a vault for nearly 30 years. Hurt covers such traditional numbers as "C.C. Rider" and "Staggerlee" with vigor, plays several originals, sometimes shifts to gospel, and does everything in an unassuming way that nevertheless grabs your attention. The set's treasure is a 31-minute interview with Pete Seeger in which Hurt lays bare his life, times and personality, doing so in the same steady, casual, gripping fashion that underscored his singing and playing.

Hailed as one of the most important musicians in America in the 20th-Century, legendary conductor Leonard Bernstein conducts the momentous collection of Beethoven’s nine symphonies in this impressive 6 CD boxset for Sony Classics. Recorded whilst Bernstein was at the peak of his musical capabilities during his famous spell as director of Music at the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Beethoven symphonies provide the listener with an array of emotions, from the serious nature of the Fifth Symphony to the Third ‘Eroica’ Symphony, to the Fourth Symphony ‘Pastorale’ and to the passionate ninth, the ‘Chorale’. This collection of works by the most well-known classical music composer of the most famous and important works in classical music makes this boxset a ‘must-have’ for the classical music lover.

The second album of this Danish group has very similar sound textures as found from their first album. They are emphasizing acoustic, carefully constructed harmonies, analogue organs and beautiful singing melodies for painting lush feelings to being paired with upright rock'n'roll passages. In addition of the more delicate and dynamic parts, there are also some quite straightforward and more unimaginative moments here, like the track "Classified Adds" - A symptom of filler-track syndrome, which was diagnosed already on their first album. The beginning of the fourth tune "Late Night Woman Blues" returns back to more ethereal feelings, morphing as a traditional blues number with acoustic slide guitars and amplified rhythm guitars…

Re-creating the romance of a bygone era, violinist and conductor André Rieu emerged in the late 1980s as a latter-day Waltz King, specializing in light classics and Viennese salon music. Rieu came from a suitably musical family: his father was the conductor of the Limburg Symphony Orchestra and a conductor at the Leipzig Opera, and most of André's brothers and sisters are professional musicians.

A close friend of Franz Liszt, yet a conservative who resisted the innovations of the progressive school, János Végh composed in an accessible style that looked backwards to the early Romanticism of Schubert and Mendelssohn. Some of his orchestral, chamber, vocal, and keyboard works were published in his lifetime, and the ever-helpful Liszt even transcribed some of his music. But the three string quartets performed by the Authentic Quartet for this Hungaroton release were discovered in manuscript and this is their first recording.

Fray manages to bring new life to work by composers old and new. He's much more than a mere virtuoso. His playing always has bags of personality: its warmth and passion and grace and power don't just invest the notes and chords he plays with depth, but perform that most difficult trick for any interpreter to pull off: he makes the listener feel these pieces have never been heard before.

The intense-looking trio of pianist Frank Braley and violin-cello brother duo Renaud and Gautier Capuçon has made a critical splash with innovative performances of standard chamber-music repertory in which they move confidently as a unit despite whatever unorthodoxies they may be propounding. Schubert's pair of trios, filled out with two shorter single movements for piano trio to make two short discs, offers a good introduction to their revisionism. In the Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat major, D. 929, the listener will immediately be struck by the brisk tempo of the opening movmement – although it doesn't go beyond what the tempo marking of Allegro indicates, it's a good deal faster than the languid, lyrical tradition that has grown up around this work and around Schubert in general.

Hoist the sails, sharpen your cutlasses, and fill your tankards - Alestorm is back with their brand-new album, The Thunderfist Chronicles! The Scottish party pirates return with their eighth album, containing eight new anthems packed with blistering riffs, wild shanty-driven melodies, and utterly ridiculous lyrics - taking the high seas of metal to new depths.
The Thunderfist Chronicles arrives as the successor to Alestorm’s epic seventh studio album, Seventh Rum of a Seventh Rum, which peaked at #5 on both the US Current Hard Music and Top New Artist Albums charts, #7 on the German Album charts, and many others. After the release of last year’s Voyage of the Dead Marauder EP and a journey of extensive touring, the pioneering pirate metal band returned to their ship and once again teamed up with Lasse Lammert of LSD-Studios (Gloryhammer, Wind Rose) for production, recording, mixing, and mastering of The Thunderfist Chronicles…

This album has an interesting concept, alternating four original blues with five adaptations of melodies from classical works by Bach. The Modern Jazz Quartet had long been quite adept in both areas, and despite a certain lack of variety on this set (alternating back and forth between the two styles somewhat predictably), the music is largely enjoyable. Vibraphonist Milt Jackson, pianist John Lewis (doubling here on harpsichord), bassist Percy Heath, and drummer Connie Kay were still all very much in their musical prime during the 21st year of the MJQ's existence.