Chrissie Hynde took a long, hard road to rock & roll stardom, but when her band, the Pretenders, finally broke through in 1979, they wasted no time, growing from promising newcomers on the British music scene to major international stardom with a pair of smash albums to their credit in a mere three years. But the Pretenders' meteoric rise came to a crashing halt in 1982, when drug abuse claimed the life of guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and forced Hynde and drummer Martin Chambers to dump bassist Pete Farndon, who would also succumb to an OD in April 1983. Hynde was forced by circumstance to reinvent the Pretenders for their third album, 1984's Learning to Crawl, but if the new edition of the group lacked some of the spark of the band that made the first two LPs, through sheer force of will Hynde created a masterpiece…

Claude-Benigne Balbastre (1727-1799) published his first book of harpsichord pieces in 1759, nine years after a decisive move from his home city of Dijon to the metropolis of Paris. France had been inundated with Italian music and musicians for more than 50 years, and Balbastre’s style is inflected by the latest Italian trends, while remaining unmistakably and deliciously French.

Domenico Scarlatti’s well known keyboard sonatas (he composed over 600) influenced many composers who came after him – CPE Bach, Mozart, Clementi and Beethoven to name just a few. His father, Alessandro was a key figure in the late Italian baroque age. He composed a large amount of sacred music - cantatas, masses and oratorios but what is less known is his keyboard music. This album is the first recording of his keyboard music on a modern piano, revealing its grandeur, complex melodies and daring harmonic progressions.

Bireli Lagrene's debut on record is extraordinary in a couple of ways. He sounds like an exact duplicate of Django Reinhardt (no easy feat), an accomplishment that is more shocking when one realizes that he was 13 at the time. Already a virtuoso with complete control of his guitar, Lagrene (who like Reinhardt came from a gypsy family) romps through the swing-oriented set with a variety of lesser-known European musicians, including two rhythm guitars, bass, occasional piano, vibes, trumpet, and violin. Performances of such tunes as "All of Me," "I've Found a New Baby," and "My Melancholy Baby" are guaranteed to fool even experts on blindfold tests.

Inspired by their release earlier this summer of Mozart’s ‘Gran Partita’, performed by a Milanese wind ensemble of principals from La Scala, Brilliant Classics here takes the excellent opportunity to combine that brand new recording of the pinnacle of Mozart’s chamber music for winds with all the rest of his music in the genre, recorded for Brilliant back in the spring of 2001 by the wind soloists of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Thus we have the leading players from two renowned orchestras breathing life into the wind music that played such a large role in the career of the Viennese genius. Mozart’s chamber music for winds stems from the genre of Harmoniemusik: entertainment music that was in vogue in the second half of the 18th century named for the courtly wind ensemble of pairs of woodwinds plus horns, called Harmonie or Harmonieorchester in German-speaking countries. Its characteristic forms include the Serenades and Divertimenti. This was music that could be performed outdoors (due to the instruments’ power of projection) or at informal settings such as meals (where they could be heard over lively conversation) with the musicians entertaining either themselves or an aristocratic dinner party, the so-called Tafelmusik (music for the table). Hence, Mozart was called upon often to write such works, either by wind-player friends (fellow Freemasons) or by his employers for the enrichment of courtly life.

Seiji Ozawa had a fondness for more modern compositions; his efforts on this 1982 release showcase his versatility by recording one of the finest performances of The Four Seasons in history, and the standard by which many future recordings would come to be judged. With over 500,000 albums sold since its release, it’s no wonder that this recording would be chosen as one of the initial four vinyl releases by Craft Recordings. Pressed on 180-gram vinyl and pressed by Optimal in Germany.

The World Of Krautrock Vol. 1 (1997). Once upon a time, all fairy tales start. And gave the recollections of the time as it still Kreidler motorbikes and wild music also 'Krautrock' called. The artists on the CD are represented, also at that time for good tones there provided Birth Control from Berlin and Guru Guru from the Heidelberg area. They have become legends for us at least. On the CD are found beside the already mentioned groups also Witthüser & Westrup with wonderful ballads.
The World Of Krautrock Vol. 2 (2006). Two CD's, with a total of eighteen tracks, bringing to you some quite diverse artists like some of the better known acts, Birth Control, Guru Guru, Mythos and Floh De Cologne. Then there are several lesser known / more obscure bands like Emtidi, Walpurgis (two cuts by them), Holderin and Annexus Quam…

Johnny Van Zant expressed his enthusiasm about the upcoming release: “50 years for Lynyrd Skynyrd… WOW! We are so grateful to the devoted fans for their support throughout the years of transitions and losses. Last year we lost the great Mr. Gary Rossington. We unknowingly were able to have captured his final performance with us. It’s bittersweet but what a special place to have had his final performance, the mother ship of music - The Ryman Auditorium!”

In her previous recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Nicola Benedetti displayed a varied repertoire that ranged from works by Vaughan Williams and Tavener to MacMillan and Szymanowski, which are not exactly eccentric choices but somewhat outside the usual programming for young virtuoso violinists. Yet the time has come for Benedetti to take on the blockbusters of her profession, and the violin concertos by Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky and Max Bruch on this 2011 release are central to the genre.

Nathan Milstein once described Sergei Prokofievs first violin concerto as: indeed one of the best modern violin concertos a brilliant piece, perhaps the finest of all Prokofievs works, while the second concerto was taken up by violinists such as David Oistrakh and Jascha Heifetz. Here the two works are interpreted by the Ukrainian-born Vadim Gluzman, who as many critics have remarked is firmly based in the glorious tradition of these and other virtuosos of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Until quite recently, the Faroe Islands were much better-known as a remote archipelago lost in the icy Arctic waters rather than a musical nation. Some may recall a Faroese tune used by Grainger in Let’s Dance in Green Meadows for piano duet and by Nielsen in his atmospheric, though rather slight An Imaginary Journey to the Faroes. Now, thanks to the tireless vitality of a Mighty Handful of Faroese composers (Kristian Blak, Atli Petersen, Pauli í Sandagerđi, Edvard Debess and Sunleif Rasmussen) whose music placed the Faroes on the contemporary musical map, things have changed considerably.

World premiere recordings of beguiling flute sonatas written on the cusp of the early-Romantic era in Germany.
Almost completely forgotten in our own time, Johann Christian Friedrich Schneider (1786-1853) once enjoyed substantial fame as a pianist, composer, teacher and musical organiser. He was born in 1786, 16 years after Beethoven, in the same year as Weber and the Brothers Grimm, and received his first musical education from his father. His talent was evident from an early age, as he learnt the piano and several other instruments. Breitkopf & Hartel published his Op.1, a set of piano sonatas, in 1804; he went to study in Leipzig, where he became organist of the Thomaskirche, and settled there for his 20s, giving the local premiere of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto in 1811.

Mari Takano, from the standard publicity photograph she uses, looks like a soccer mom ready to go out on a date with her husband, taking a phone call in the kitchen before she heads out the door. Nothing in the photo would give you the impression that Takano is a venturesome and fiercely original classical composer who has studied with Brian Ferneyhough and György Ligeti.

For Earth Below, the third studio album by British guitar legend Robin Trower was released in 1975 and is considered one of his most prominent works from his time as a solo artist after leaving Procol Harum. For Earth Below continued to build on the success of his previous album Bridge of Sighs, solidifying him as an arena touring artist in the States,reaching number 5 on the Billboard chart.

Released in late 1970 on the heels of two chart-topping albums, Hot Buttered Soul (1969) and The Isaac Hayes Movement (also 1970), Isaac Hayes and the Bar-Kays retain their successful approach on those landmark albums for To Be Continued, another number one album. Again, the album features four songs that span far beyond traditional radio-friendly length, featuring important mood-establishing instrumental segments just as emotive and striking as Hayes' crooning. Nothing here is quite as perfect as "Walk on By," and the album feels a bit churned out, but To Be Continued no doubt has its share of highlights, the most notable being "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'." The album's most epic moment opens with light strings and horns, vamping poetically for several minutes before Hayes even utters a breath; then, once the singer delivers the song's orchestral chorus…