Soul Classics features 4 Sides of vinyl containing 41 tracks of the biggest soul legends including; Whitney Houston, Dionne Warwick, Bill Withers, The O’Jays, Luther Vandross, John Legend, Teddy Pendergrass and more.
The celebrations of ABBA’s 40th Anniversary year of 2014 continue with the latest release in the acclaimed ABBA Deluxe Edition series. In April of this year, Waterloo Deluxe Edition was released, attracting 4-star reviews in the music press, and in November, ABBA’s Spanish-language 1980 album Gracias por la música will receive the Deluxe Edition treatment. The original album has been expanded with 5 bonus tracks, plus a 40-minute DVD featuring vintage promo clips and previously unreleased television material. Gracias por la música Deluxe Edition will be released November 10, 2014.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the pianist’s death, EMI has brought out the largest and most comprehensive Cortot collection ever. The set offers nearly every commercial studio recording released under Cortot’s name on 78 shellac, vinyl LP, 45 rpm single, or compact disc, including unpublished takes already released on CD. To be sure, it is not quite “The Complete Cortot”. For example, the collection omits Cortot’s 1903 sessions accompanying soprano Felia Litvinne, plus a 1925 recording containing the second half only of Chopin’s First Ballade coupled on shellac with the same composer’s Second Impromptu. There is no broadcast material, either. However, we do get Cortot’s unpublished 1957 Chopin Preludes and Ballades, along with a few samples from the pianist’s long-rumored, unfinished Beethoven cycle recorded at the Ecole Normale in 1958/59
40 CD box set featuring concerts, quartets, divertimenti, symphonies, arias, opera scenes, famous overtures, sonatas and so much more.
The German soprano Elisabeth Schumann was one of the finest lyric sopranos of the 20th Century. She made her professional debut in Hamburg in 1909 and died in 1952, having given her last public concert the previous year. In 1985 the eminent vocal expert Alan Blyth wrote of her: "No artist so endeared herself to her public as Elisabeth Schumann. The charm of her manner is legendary; so is the attraction of her slivery voice and outgiving style. Whether in her operatic portrayals, her Lieder or her operetta offerings, she captivated her audiences."
With a beautifully economical piano style full of grace, depth, tone, and plenty of swing, Ahmad Jamal is simply one of the greatest pianists in the history of jazz, but he has been woefully underexposed, even as he has been a giant influence in the genre, on Miles Davis, for one, and Gil Evans, who flirted with Jamal's chamber jazz style. This set collects eight of Jamal's seminal albums, 1955's Chamber Music of the New Jazz, 1956's Count 'Em 88, 1958's Ahmad Jamal Trio at the Spotlight Café and Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing: But Not for Me, 1959's Jamal at the Penthouse, 1960's Happy Moods, and 1961's All of You and Standard Eyes, all in one package. Together they form perhaps Jamal's richest creative stretch, making this set a welcome delight.
Over 36 songs this fantastic collection presents more than two hours of Celtic-themed music, both vocal and instrumental. Blending highly traditional and boldly contemporary styles, we invite you to sample the very best in Celtic songs and melodies.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion is, along with the St Matthew Passion, without doubt one of the most important works he ever composed. It established a new tradition for Good Friday vespers in Leipzig, and with sublime skill Bach managed to retain a spirit of church worship while creating an almost operatic narrative that movingly depicts Christ’s trial, death, and ultimate apotheosis. Bach’s numerous revisions always demand a certain amount of scholarly decision-making, and this recording of the St John Passion uses the final 1749 version that not only draws on and reinforces the best of Bach’s original concept, but incorporates the additional movements of the 1725 version.