Solo lute music flourished in large parts of Europe in the first half of the 16th century. In Italy, its most important early exponents were Francesco Spinacino, Joanambrosio Dalza, Vincenzo Capirola and Francesco da Milano. The leading lutenists in France were Albert de Rippe and Guillaume Morlaye. Germanys composers of unaccompanied lute music were Hans Judenkünig, Hans Newsiedler and Hans Gerle. The second half of the century brought new composers to the fore: in Italy, Vincenzo Galilei, Giovanni Antonio Terzi and Simone Molinaro; in Germany, Hans Newsiedlers son Melchior above all.

Renowned space rock band Hawkwind are celebrating their 50th anniversary. Taking November 2019 to tour nationwide in celebration of both their legendary past and their recent triumphs, they played a host of their most successful songs to packed crowds each night.

The Mnchner Philharmoniker are continuing to open up their vast archives, giving listeners the opportunity to enjoy one of the richest collections of recordings by legendary artists. This recording of Mozart's 'Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 26' allows listeners to relive a remarkable concert evening with Friedrich Gulda as conductor and soloist at once.

Esoteric Recordings is pleased to announce the release of a newly re-mastered and expanded 3CD clamshell box edition of the classic live album, “Live at Carnegie Hall” by RENAISSANCE. Released in 1976, the double album documented a series of sold-out concerts at the Carnegie Hall in New York City staged in June 1975, which saw highly gifted vocalist Annie Haslam, Michael Dunford (acoustic and electric guitars), John Tout (keyboards, vocals), Jon Camp (bass, acoustic & electric guitars, vocals) and Terry Sullivan (drums, percussion) joined by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Regarded as one of the finest live albums of the era, the album featured such classic tracks as ‘Ocean Gypsy’, ‘Carpet of the Sun’, ‘Mother Russia’, ‘Can You Understand’, ‘Song of Scheherezade’ and ‘Ashes Are Burning’ and is regarded among the finest works by Renaissance.

The best R&B compilation of 2019 with Justin Timberlake, Destiny's Child, & Alicia Keys.

The long overdue and much requested reissue of “Trapped And Unwrapped”, the debut and only album recorded by the 80’s Scottish band, Friends Again.

Facce d’amore, ‘Faces of love’ follows Jakub Józef Orliński’s first solo album, Anima Sacra, which moved Gramophone magazine to announce that “This is a voice with a big future.” It brings a switch from the sacred to the personal and passionate. As the Polish-born, New York-trained countertenor says, the programme – which includes eight world premiere recordings – comprises “operatic arias that tell a story, showing a musical picture of a male lover in the baroque era – not only the positive side, like joyful or reciprocated love, but also anger or even madness.” Spanning some 85 years of the baroque period, the arias on Facce d’amore are by Handel, Cavalli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Bononcini, Conti, Hasse, Orlandini, Predieri and Matteis. Orliński is again partnered by the instrumentalists of Il Pomo d’Oro and their Principal Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev.

Born Lester Rallingston Collins, this trumpeter had already settled on the more casual stage name of Shad Collins when in his late teens he joined the band of Charlie Dixon, at that time featuring the remarkable vocalist Cora La Redd. From here he moved to a combo led by pianist Eddie White, staying with him for several years until hired by drummer Chick Webb's outfit in 1931. Throughout the '30s, the trumpeter worked with top-notch leaders, among them the superb arranger and reed player Benny Carter and the big bands of Don Redman and Count Basie. In 1940, he returned to the Carter camp, and was then associated with Freddie Moore and an excellent sextet led by tenor saxophonist Lester Young the following year.

Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen wrote his first three string quartets in 1959 and his 14th and last in 2013, three years before he died. This first volume in a new cycle comes from an ensemble coached by Tim Frederiksen (he who gave us the Nightingale Quartet) at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. The Nordic Quartet gave their graduation performance at the Academy last autumn.

Caroline International have announced the reissue of Iggy Pop’s long-lost classic Zombie Birdhouse, which is due to be issued on 28 June 2019. A heady concoction of drones, Afrobeats and freeform lyrics, the album was Iggy’s 6th solo studio album and represents him at his freewheeling best. It will be released officially on vinyl and CD for the first time since the original Chris Stein produced release on Animal Records in 1982.

Goose has announced the coming release of their first official live album, Alive and Well. The album is comprised of recordings from various 2019 performances.

In the course of his illustrious career, Fabio Biondi has nurtured a remarkable empathy with Italian music from across many centuries, but strikingly so with the early Baroque violin sonata repertory, the development of which was dramatically propelled into the future by Arcangelo Corelli with his Op 5 collection. It is this empathy possessed by Biondi which has inspired the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome (from its bowed instrument collection) to make him a loan of the precious 1690 “Tuscan” violin made by Antonio Stradivari, for this Glossa recording.

Expanded 2CD Edition of 1988 original album release. First ever “expanded” re-issue for this fabulous and much underrated 1980s pop album.