Conventional wisdom holds that the Beatles intended Abbey Road as a grand farewell, a suspicion seemingly confirmed by the elegiac note Paul McCartney strikes at the conclusion of its closing suite. It’s hard not to interpret “And in the end / the love you take / is equal to the love you make” as a summation not only of Abbey Road but perhaps of the group’s entire career, a lovely final sentiment. The truth is perhaps a bit messier than this. The Beatles had tentative plans to move forward after the September 1969 release of Abbey Road, plans that quickly fell apart at the dawn of the new decade, and while the existence of that goal calls into question the intentionality of the album as a finale, it changes not a thing about what a remarkable goodbye the record is.

If it feels as if Honk treads familiar ground, it's because it does. Arriving seven years after the career-spanning Grrr! – a compilation available in a variety of iterations, all spanning from the earliest years to the 2010s – Honk focuses squarely on the music the Rolling Stones made after leaving London/Decca, a catalog that now resides with Abkco. In other words, its ground zero is "Brown Sugar," a staple that arrives just after "Start Me Up" kicks off the double-disc set. Such sequencing indicates how Honk bounces through the years, letting the '70s sit next to the '80s, finding space for latter-day songs that only showed up on previous greatest-hits albums (there have been five since 1984), and shining the spotlight on such excellent latter-day cuts as "Rough Justice."

On 100 discs (99 CD & 1 DVD), this box presents the complete oeuvre of Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert on Archiv Produktion. Purcell, Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Haydn and Mozart are the focus of the repertoire. Numerous recordings such as the Brandenburg Concertos, Corelli's Concerti Grossi or the symphonies of William Boyce are among the milestones of recording history. A Bach album from the ensemble's early days is released for the first time on CD, as well as the never-published Dead March from Handel's "Saul". A 184-page booklet with essays by Trevor Pinnock and Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, the director of the Royal Academy of Music, as well as numerous photos and documents complete the extensive portrait.

A 'tour de force' of thrilling orchestral playing and brilliant audio engineering, Antal Dorati's mono recordings are collected for the first time. Newly remastered, this collection comprehensively documents a golden era in American classical recording and most of these vividly-characterized recordings appear on CD for the first time."has to be heard to be believed … is it possible to exceed this in the art of reproduced sound?" The New Records.

A 'tour de force' of thrilling orchestral playing and brilliant audio engineering, Antal Dorati's mono recordings are collected for the first time. Newly remastered, this collection comprehensively documents a golden era in American classical recording and most of these vividly-characterized recordings appear on CD for the first time."has to be heard to be believed … is it possible to exceed this in the art of reproduced sound?" The New Records.

Kurt Masur's achievement is defined above all by his relationships with two orchestras exemplifying vastly different traditions. Having spent some 20 years as Kapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, which traces it's roots to the 15th century, he became the transformational music director of the New York Philharmonic, an embodiment of the New World. Through all this, his musical integrity remained consistent. As the New York Times wrote: "He brought to the podium the ardent conviction that music-making was a moral act that could heal the world." Masur himself put things more simply: "My goal is meaningful playing… What counts is to be able to communicate the composer's meaning to the audience… When I conduct Beethoven, I wouldn't like to replace Beethoven. He should be in your mind, not me." This 70CD set consolidates the entirety of the catalogues that Masur built for EMI and Teldec between 1974 and 2009.

Terms such as “fastidious”, “intimate” and “quietly nuanced” have long been applied to the immensely respected Ingrid Haebler’s interpretations. She was a “purist” in the best sense of the word and has often said that she always sought to convey the essence of the music and the structure and the message of the work, without anything to disrupt it. With an imposing discography, Haebler was regarded by many as Philips’ “house pianist”. Decca now proudly presents her Complete Philips Recordings on 58CDs in tribute to this rare and special artist.

When the British pianist and composer John Taylor died suddenly in 2015, his 1990s work in a trio with the former Weather Report drummer Peter Erskine and bassist Palle Danielsson was treated as something of an afterthought in such a rich career. But the Erskine-led group had a unique sound and repertoire (Taylor’s chemistry of romantic pastoralisms and jazz drive was a key influence), and a rare collaborative alertness. This box packages all four of their ECM recordings between 1992 and 1997. Taylor’s darting, jig-like Clapperclowe sounds wonderful here with Erskine’s warm-toned pattering behind it; the drummer’s faintly Jarrettish On the Lake is a ballad highlight; Taylor’s devotion to Bill Evans’ ambiguously romantic harmonies surfaces frequently…

This Japanese box set contains three consecutive entries in King Crimson's live and studio archival releases. The specific volumes in question are the tenth, 11th, and 13th from Discipline Global Mobile's Collectors' Club mail-order-only series covering Live in Central Park, NYC '74, the pre-Krim Discipline: Live at Moles Club, 1981, and the last gasp of the '90s double-trio incarnation on the Nashville Rehearsals, 1997. The July 1, 1974, concert in Central Park was the final King Crimson performance by the '70s quartet. While the recording is very good - not great - the group's spirited musical antics more than make up for any lack of audio fidelity. With the notable exception of "21st Century Schizoid Man," the band draws primarily from material on the Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black, and Red albums, respectively…

Maria João Pires “shapes and colours every phrase, and with immaculate taste, and she makes sure the phrases end as eloquently as they begin,” wrote Gramophone in 1974. “She conveys not just the details but the relevance of every note to the whole … Best of all, she communicates everything she has discovered about the music, and it is worth having.” This Portuguese pupil of Wilhelm Kempff, Pires was one of the artists who defined the Erato label in the 1970s and 1980s. This 5-CD box gathers together the recordings she made over the period from 1976 to 1985 and it reflects the consistent focus of her repertoire, with its special emphasis on Austro-German composers of the Classical and early-Romantic periods. Embracing solo works, piano duets and concertos, it contains works by Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven, but also by Bach and Chopin.

Esoteric Recordings label is proud to announce the release of the very first 4CD collection of every album and single track recorded by the legendary Atomic Rooster between 1970-1974. Sleeping for Years is a clamshell boxed set anthologising all the recordings made by the band on the classic albums Atomic Rooster, Death Walks Behind You, In Hearing of Atomic Rooster, Made In England and Nice n’ Greasy and on such hit singles as Tomorrow Night and Devil’s Answer.
Atomic Rooster was formed by former Crazy World of Arthur Brown members Vincent Crane (Organ, Piano, Keyboards) and Carl Palmer (drums). Their self-titled first album was recorded in 1970 with Nick Graham on bass, vocals & flute, but the band soon splintered when Carl Palmer departed to join ELP…

Chess Blues is a superlative four-CD box set featuring important tracks by all the main stars of the label (Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson), as well as much previously unreleased material. A well-done retrospective of Chicago blues in its heyday, as recorded by America's greatest blues label, Chess.

This three-disc box contains a trio of entries from King Crimson's archival series. Housed within the Collectors' King Crimson, Vol. 3 (2000) are Live in San Francisco: The Roar of P4, The VROOOM Sessions, 1994, and Live at Summit Studios: Denver, 03/12/1972, respectively. After the fraKctilization of King Crimson's mid-'90s double-trio lineup, Robert Fripp (guitar) formed various "projeKcts" involving all six members; however, not necessarily at the same time. Live in San Francisco: The Roar of P4 features the fourth mini-Crim (aka ProjeKct Four) at the 7th Note Club in the city by the Bay. This all-instrumental and highly experimental aggregate features the collective efforts of touch guitarist Trey Gunn and electronic and acoustic percussionist Pat Mastelotto, guitarist Fripp, as well as bassist and Chapman stick player Tony Levin…