This cycle of "O" Antiphons is part of the Christmas Vespers ceremony, centered around the Magnificat. In the present case, they are heavily troped, and end with a liturgical motet in a more triumphant mood.
The music itself it thoroughly isorhythmic, and heavily syncopated. The pieces form a true cycle, linked by both a sequence of modality and motivic figures. This is the most elaborate sacred section of the huge Turin manuscript (Torino, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS J. II 9), the one source for the Cypriot repertory.

Franco Fagioli lavishes his "extraordinary agility and richly upholstered voice" (Gramophone) on Leonardo Vinci, the Neapolitan composer who influenced Handel and many later masters of Italian opera. Fagioli is joined again by Il Pomo d'Oro led by Zefira Valova, the superb period-instrument ensemble on his previous album. Veni, Vidi, Vinci features seven world premiere recordings from the Neapolitan composer, unearthed for this great recording.

At the heart of this programme of Beethoven songs performed by Ian Bostridge and Sir Antonio Pappano is the song cycle 'An die ferne Geliebte' (to the distant beloved). Bostridge describes it as 'the distillation of Beethoven as a lover'. Among the other items are the rapturously lyrical 'Adelaide', the sombre 'In questa tomba oscura' and a selection of Beethoven's settings of folksongs from the British Isles, which elicit the participation of violinist Vilde Frang and cellist Nicolas Altstaedt. 'When we all play together,' says Pappano, 'it's like a family making music at home.'

The blend between the voices is finely controlled, the tone mellow and the tuning spectacularly accurate, giving rise to an organ-like sonority that is genuinely thrilling,” wrote Gramophone magazine, praising the Hilliard Ensemble’s four singers, who excelled in an extraordinary variety of music over a 40-year career. This seven-CD collection extends from the Middle Ages to the Baroque, offering music by composers from England, France, Flanders and Germany.

Whether it was the immediacy of recording or some other unexplainable element, Bauhaus always thrived when doing British radio appearances, with no less than five of the 18 tracks collected here seeing official release by the band on singles or albums during its first lifetime. That one of these was Bauhaus' biggest-ever British hit, the completely and perfectly over-the-top rendition of Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust," is further testimony to the band's success at the Beeb. The five show appearances here, including both John Peel sessions and guest spots with other DJs, make for an excellent sampling of the band in many different guises, from obscure rarities to redone versions of some of Bauhaus' most successful songs.

Thorough retrospective with 32 of the best tracks she cut for the Bell, Big Tree and RSO labels, including all of her U.S. chart hits for these labels: her top five collaboration with Chris Norman, 'Stumblin' In', plus 'She's In Love With You', 'I've Never Been In Love', 'If You Can't Give Me Love', 'Can The Can' and 'All Shook Up'.

Thousands on a Raft is remembered as much for its cover as anything else – a picture of a model Titanic and a model Concorde sinking in a puddle, as rafts of toast ferry thousands of baked beans to the shore. Musically it was some good jazz-rock, with the emphasis not always on Brown's vocals and elliptical lyrics, as Jim Mullen's "Highland Song" offered an inventive, lengthy instrumental as the disc's centerpiece. The title cut has a Pink Floyd edge, surprising given Brown's predilection for jazz and blues, but it works well in the context. Guitarist Mullen is co-writer throughout, while the rhythm section of Rob Tait and Steve Glover swing rather than plod.

When Fran Healy sings "Why did we wait so long" on "Mother," the opening song on Travis' seventh album, he could be addressing his band, which spent nearly five years between 2008's Ode to J. Smith and its 2013 follow-up, Where You Stand. The extra time off has done the band some good. Toward the end of the 2000s, Travis started to sag under their own weight, as the group slowly grew more ponderous, and while it certainly can't be said that Where You Stand is effervescent, it is more nimble than either Ode or The Boy with No Name, and it boasts a greater variety of tempos and textures, as well.

Michael Chapman is often cited as one of the unsung heroes of the British folk music community, but that tends to shortchange the eclecticism of his approach. While the melodic sense of British folk plays a large part in Chapman's music, one can also hear much of the "American Primitive" sound pioneered by John Fahey, and like Fahey in his later years, Chapman has a strong taste for experimental sounds, and all of these elements make themselves heard on The Polar Bear, the third in a series of free-form releases Chapman has recorded for Blast First Petite.