Finally available again on a reissue. French progressive rock collective Nine Skies have been weaving together their rock, jazz, classical and progressive influences for a number of years now – combining their acoustic instrumentation with deep, poignant and poetic lyrics featuring characters from modern city life.Their second album, Sweetheart Grips, released in late 2019, was a dense, complex and often heartbreaking exploration of a young soldier's experiences in World War II. This latest release, 5.20, is still recognizably Nine Skies, but overall more introspective and tender. They retain the plaintive, melancholic vocals and lyrical content, but the music is almost entirely acoustic on this occasion, yet has a layered depth, complexity and richness, with intertwining acoustic guitar and piano, complemented by strings, flute, saxophone and rhythmic percussion.

There are few World film composers that can boast the prolificacy of Piero Piccioni. Since the early 1950s Piccioni has been a truly innovative composer of film music. In the 1950s he composed under the pseudonym of Piero Morgan, and since his first soundtrack Il Mondo Le Condanna of 1952, many directors sought Piero Piccioni to score the soundtracks for their films: Luchino Visconti, Bernardo Bertolucci, Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Elio Petri, Francesco Rosi, Mario Monicelli, Alberto Lattuada, Alberto Sordi, Luigi Comencini, Antonio Pietrangeli, Lina Wertmuller, Tinto Brass, Dino Risi, are just some of the great directors for whom he scored more than 300 wondrous soundtracks. Swept Away, Le Mani sulla città’, Camille 2000, Colpo Rovente, The 10th Victim, Amore mio aiutami, More Than a Miracle, The Light at the Edge of the World, Puppet on a Chain, Lucky Luciano, Cristo si è Fermato a Eboli, Anna Karenina, Finché c’è guerra c’è speranza, Viaggio con papà, Fumo di Londra are just a few gems among many more. With great versatility, Piccioni incorporates jazz, funk, fusion, bossa, classical and contemporary 20th Century symphonic elements into his kaleidoscopic sounds which have been the lush sonic backdrop for everything from psychedelic, political, thriller, horror, romantic, comedy, western, classic novel adaptations, mythological, historic and epic film productions of the golden age of Italian and international cinema spanning four decades.

Deluxe digitally remastered and expanded two CD edition. Features nine previously unreleased mixes/different versions, six bonus tracks, and a 32-page booklet with a new essay, memorabilia, and photos. Founded in 1961 by George Kooymans and Rinus Gerritsen, Dutch rock band Golden Earring (or Golden Earring's, until 1969) started off as a beatband, experimented as a psychedelic quartet and finally became a heavy rock group.

Alison Balsom must be counted among the most popular classical trumpeters in the 2000s, as she's gained wide international recognition only since the turn of the century. Her first recording, Music for Trumpet and Organ, was issued in 2002, and her first major award came in 2006, when the jurors of the Classical BRIT Awards named her Young British Classical Performer. Balsom's repertory is broad, taking in a mixture of the standard repertory, original works, and arrangements. In 2020, she released the album Magic Trumpet on Warner Classics. Balsom was born in the English county of Hertfordshire in 1978.

Beethoven and Bebop, Debussy and The Doors, Mozart and Mash-Ups. Such pairings are strange, even improbable bedfellows, yet the pianist Friedrich Gulda, one of 20th-century music’s most capricious rebels, managed to connect the dots and bring these disparate musical worlds together throughout his life, to the delight of many and perhaps the disdain of others. Gulda signed to Decca as a teenager, and his first recordings (presented in this set for the first time internationally) are indicative of the repertoire he would continue championing to the end. His complete recordings on Decca are brought together in one edition for the very first time, 40 years after he recorded his last recording for the label, the Beethoven Concertos with the Wiener Philharmoniker and conductor Horst Stein.

The brilliant dynamism of Italian Baroque music is at its most virtuosic and thrilling in works featuring the solo trumpet, whether in original compositions or transcriptions. Albinoni’s astonishing ornamentations and the luminous dexterity of Vivaldi’s concerto both represent each composer’s distinctive character, heard alongside works by Corelli, Grossi, Zipoli, Baldassare and Torelli. Domenico Sarri’s Sinfonia a 5 is heard here in its world premiere recording. Thomas Reiner is an acknowledged exponent of this repertoire with his performance of German Baroque Trumpet Concertos (Naxos 8.551419) described as ‘first rate and spirited… an excellent protagonist’ by Fanfare magazine.

Even nearly 200 years after Beethoven's death, his music still has much to discover. Pianist Ulrich Roman Murtfeld presents on his new GENUIN Album a curated selection of piano works by the Viennese genius, including both rarities and famous pieces. He juxtaposes the magnificent "Waldstein Sonata" with the early Sonata in E-flat Major, op. 7, and the furious "Rage Over a Lost Penny" with the variation works on a "Swiss Song" and "God Save the King." Murtfeld’s refined and precise piano playing brings both new discoveries and great classics to light!

Harpsichord and recorder player Corina Marti is internationally recognized for her ‘strikingly superior’ and ‘expressive’ (Toccata) interpretations, and ‘infallible’ (Diapason) technique.Her extensive discography of repertoire ranges from the fourteenth-century istanpitte and intabulations to – and beyond – the chamber music and solo concertos of the High Baroque and reflects the breadth of her musical interests and technical skills.She leads a full life as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher, travelling regularly across Europe, both Americas, and the Middle and Far East.She has appeared with numerous early music ensembles and orchestras (including Hespèrion XXI, Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera Italiana and Helsinki Baroque Orchestra) and is artistic co-director and founding member of La Morra, an award-winning Late Medieval and Early Renaissance music ensemble which ‘never fails to keep the listener’s attention alive’

Around 1680, Dieterich Buxtehude composed Membra Jesu Nostri, a cycle of seven cantatas combining mystical medieval poetry and lyrical excerpts from the Old Testament to venerate the wounds of Christ. In 2021, Swiss composer Xavier Dayer echoes this with Afin que le lion féroce ne l’attaque pas. He joins the five singers and ten instrumentalists of Membra Jesu Nostri with a modern wind quintet, questioning in his own words the protective force of the artistic and contemplative gesture, in the interweaving of sonorities between ancient and modern instruments and human voices.

The Orchestre symphonique de Montreal and its Music Director Rafael Payare celebrate Arnold Schoenberg's 150th birthday with a recording of two of his late-Romantic masterworks: Verklarte Nacht and Pelleas und Melisande. Both pieces are based on stories evolving around love, jealousy, acceptance and forgiveness, and showcase Schoenberg's expressive harmonic language and scintillating, multifarious orchestration. The album booklet features unique photography and paintings by Arnold Schoenberg, sketching a vivid picture of this extraordinarily versatile artist. After their acclaimed PENTATONE recordings of Mahler's Fifth Symphony (2023), as well as his Ruckert-Lieder and Strauss's Ein Heldenleben (2024), Payare and the orchestra further explore this late-Romantic repertoire that fits them like a glove.

In 1822, the young Donizetti was engaged by La Scala to compose an opera. Chiara e Serafina was the outcome and the librettist was Felice Romani, a refined scholar but a notoriously slow and touchy worker. Consequently, Donizetti had barely twelve days to compose the whole work. Because of the incoherent plot, which concerns Don Meschino and his daughter Chiara who are kidnapped by Algerians, and the villainous Don Fernando who schemes to marry the nobleman’s younger daughter Serafina, the result was a fiasco. Donizetti’s music, however, is characterful and profuse with delightful duets, trios and ensembles.

"For me, whenever I play the Bach suites, all of a sudden I find myself visualising Giacometti's hands incessantly moulding the earthen clay until a face appears. Getting to grips with the Bach suites is very closely related to that sense. You have to dig deeply into the string to give birth to the phrase, to make sure it breathes correctly: a phrase that is perpetually becoming, endlessly making and remaking itself. I waited a long time before recording these suites. Then one day, or rather one night, I began.Then there was my meeting with Sarah Moon. When I first felt my longing to record the Bach suites, I dreamt constantly of her images; because whenever I look at them I think of the creation of the world, the separation of the waters, the earth appearing, all before the beginning of history."

Vince DiCola is a musician / songwriter from Pennsylvania and relocated to LA in 1981 to advance his career. This proved to be a wise move. Vince grew up listening to bands such as Genesis, Yes and ELP so progressive rock was high on his list of influences. In the early to mid-eighties Vince was involved in some well-known film scores such as "Staying Alive", "Rocky IV" and "The Transformers: The Movie" and his song writing abilities shone through at a very early stage. Fans may also remember Vince's collaboration in the 1990's with Doane Perry (Jethro Tull) and Rick Livingstone (Agent) on the highly regarded "Storming Heaven" release.

Raise the Roof is the second collaborative studio album by British singer-songwriter Robert Plant and American bluegrass-country singer Alison Krauss. The album is scheduled to be released on November 19, 2021, by Rounder Records and Concord Records. In 2007, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss released Raising Sand, one of the most acclaimed albums of the 21st Century, which reached #2 on the UK album chart, generated multi-platinum sales, and earned six Grammy Awards including Album and Record of the Year. It was an unlikely, mesmerizing pairing of one of rock's greatest frontmen with one of country music's finest and most honored artists. Now, after 14 years, they return with Raise the Roof, 12 songs from a range of traditions and styles that extend this remarkable collaboration in new and thrilling directions.

Some bands turn into shorthand for a certain sound or style, and Pink Floyd belongs among that elite group. The very name connotes something specific: an elastic, echoing, mind-bending sound that evokes the chasms of space. Pink Floyd grounded that limitless sound with exacting explorations of mundane matters of ego, mind, memory, and heart, touching upon madness, alienation, narcissism, and society on their concept albums of the '70s.