With 1984's Discovery, Mike Oldfield seems to be back on track, utilizing the vocal power of Maggie Reilly and the drum playing of Simon Phillips to create some rather appealing selections. "The Lake" is a simply gorgeous instrumental inspired by Switzerland's Lake Geneva, the location in which the album was recorded, while "To France" is a powerful pop/rock tune based on the life of Mary, Queen of Scots. Both Reilly and Barry Palmer share the vocal duties throughout the tracks, signifying Oldfield's subtle emergence into a more pop-infused atmosphere. "Tricks of the Light" is a wonderful instrumental that relies on the keyboard to give it energy, while even so-so efforts like the title track and "Poison Arrows" come off as upbeat and inspired.

Released just as punk was taking hold on the public's imagination in America and making groups like Jethro Tull seem like dinosaurs on their way to extinction, Bursting Out became a seemingly perpetual denizen of the cutout bins for years afterward. However, it happened to be a good album, a more-than-decent capturing of a live Tull concert from Europe. The sound is remarkably good, given the group's arena rock status at the time, and the repertoire is a solid representation of the group's history, going all the way back to "A New Day Yesterday" from their second album and up through 1978's Heavy Horses, with stops along the way for "Bouree," "Aqualung," "Locomotive Breath," "Cross-Eyed Mary," and a compact reprise of Thick as a Brick. Some of these tracks work better than others – the tendency here is to play loud and hard, and sometimes that just doesn't translate well on record; seeing "Locomotive Breath" probably worked better than hearing it.

In 1803 Beethoven received a piano from Erard Frères in Paris. Why had he been so keen to own a French instrument and how did it inspire him, both as a pianist and a composer? The answer may lie in these performances on a new replica of Beethoven’s French piano, created as part of a unique research project. Placing the iconic “Waldstein” and “Appassionata” sonatas alongside equally grand pieces by two of his Parisian contemporaries, they reveal an unfamiliar French aspect to Beethoven’s genius.

Arthur Grumiaux (1921-1986) was never a technical daredevil and his playing has been described as being "for conoisseurs only." Indeed, his style was quite refined and his repertoire tended towards pieces that which suited his musical gifts. His Beethoven Concerto and Sonata recordings and performances are most definitely among the best ever done of those works. This large set of 30+ smaller pieces (with a couple larger ones thrown in) focuses on Grumiaux's ability to touch the listener and indeed there is a thread of imperturbable calmness that runs through this recording upon a casual listening. This discing on Philips came out around 1996, presumably to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death. I'll just touch on a few of the highlights of this 2 CD set. In all of them, we hear Grumiaux at his best - polished and radiant, with Istvan Hajdu as the competent piano partner for all of the numbers.

Lynyrd Skynyrd's 2000 compilation All Time Greatest Hits suffers from the same ailments that plague many compilations of its time, but there is one problem in particular that hurts it: instead of offering all of the "all time greatest hits" on one disc, the compilers pulled their punches, overlooking a few big songs while occasionally substituting live or acoustic versions for the original studio versions. That means that this is a Skynyrd compilation without the famed original recording of "Free Bird" – a live version is here instead. It doesn't really matter that it's a good version, taken from 1976's One More from the Road, or that the live version actually charted in the Top 40; nor does it matter that "All I Can Do Is Write About It" is a good acoustic version originally released on the eponymous 1991 box set, because this is a collection made for a general audience. It should, therefore, have the versions that a general audience knows best. Apart from that, and the usual nitpicking over songs that should have been included ("Workin' for MCA," "Don't Ask Me No Questions," etc.), this remains a solid collection, containing most of the Skynyrd material that a casual follower could want.

This disc juxtaposes two significant Russian works for violin and orchestra, each written by a composer with a close relationship to Tchaikovsky, and each dedicated to the great violinist and pedagogue Leopold Auer. These two concertos are both formidable display pieces, designed to show off Auer’s transcendental technique. Ilya Gringolts, acclaimed as one of the great young violin virtuosos of today and lauded for his debut recording on Hyperion, dazzles in this repertoire, ably supported by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov.

Joseph-Hector Fiocco's music is remarkable for its quality, richness of invention and the liveliness that characterizes it all. With a somewhat surprising coherence it achieves a fusion of French and Italian aesthetics, as regards both harmony and melody. His infectious melodies give the listener the impression of knowing them already; singability is always paramount, and the lines are supple and elegant. Now and then a passage is reminiscent of Vivaldi, Pergolesi or Couperin. Yet the firm, inspired pen of Fiocco confirms his stature as a composer of the first order, with a highly personal language full of sensuality and light. Nicolas Achten and Scherzi Musicali deliver a second volume devoted to Fiocco's motets, after a 2011 release which was awarded a Diapason d'or Decouverte and IRR Outstanding.

Unlike previous collections Epic has assembled, the double-disc The Very Best of Meat Loaf draws not only from his recordings for the label, but it also licenses his '90s comeback recordings for MCA. Which means, of course, that the 20-track collection is, indeed, the "very best" of Meat Loaf. Not all of his charting hits are here – "What You See Is What You Get," his 1971 single with Stoney, is absent, as is "I'm Gonna Love Her for the Both of Us," the only hit he had between the two Bat out of Hell albums – but all of the key album tracks from the two blockbusters are here, along with highlights from the sequels to the sequel, which means everything that anyone but a die-hard Meat Loaf fan could want is on this collection: ("Paradise by the Dashboard Light," "Two out of Three Ain't Bad," "You Took the Words Right out of My Mouth," "Bat out of Hell," "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)," "Rock & Roll Dreams Come Through," "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are," and a remix of "Life Is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back").

Rory Gallagher's solo debut picks up where On The Boards left off - it's a solid, but significantly less raucous, blues rock outing with ten original tunes that were far more than skeletons for his incisive Strat picking. "Laundromat," "Hands Up," and "Sinner Boy"'s distinctive riffs were early concert favorites, but the album's ballads were some of Gallagher's strongest. "For the Last Time," "Just the Smile" and the acoustic "I'm Not Surprised" mixed strains of Delta blues with strong melodic sensibilities into songs of rare poignancy, especially for an artist who was best known for his scorching leads. In this respect Gallagher was an early model for Eric Clapton, whose solo career followed a similar path.

Although it ran parallel with the back-to-basics feeling that permeated the early '70s, Good Dog Banned arrived at a distinctive strain of organic rock that was much more joyous and good-timey than many of their musicians-in-arms. Their one stab at rock & roll immortality, Good Dog Banned seems oblivious to any sense of anger at the "failure" of the '60s dream to take complete effect as of 1971. Whereas some '60s expatriates were decrying the cultural revolution, Good Dog Banned were singing "Things Ain't so Bad," heading down to the river and drinking wine. There is no nostalgia, no cynicism present. The band was untethered, ingenuous. Perhaps it could be viewed as rose-colored hippie denial, but in retrospect, the pure, unselfconscious charisma and the lack of piety that Good Dog Banned inject into their only effort makes it seem less of its time than other bands of this ilk…