Acine Octubre 2012

This project is based on Israel in Egypt, one of the best-known and most popular oratorios by Georg Friedrich Handel, and has been created on the basis of the common history and roots of three religions; Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Musicians from the (Western) European Baroque tradition (Baroque orchestra and choir), and hence from a Christian background, are joined by musicians from Jewish and Muslim backgrounds. The basic musical form of Handel’s oratorio and its narrative structure remains untouched, for the most parts.

Hermann Max and the Rheinische Kantorei set out on new paths toward the interpretation of Bach's motet cosmos. The present CD also includes the Motets BWV Anh. 159 because Bach scholarship has come to regard these works, long ascribed to Johann Christian Bach, as compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach as they clearly bear his musical signature.

These three pieces are specimens of music written for the theatre in the Netherlands in the baroque era. They are very different in character, though. The largest work, with music by Carolus Hacquart, was composed for the celebrations of the Peace of Nijmegen of 1678 which brought the war between France and the Netherlands to a close. It is not known whether it was ever performed in the form which the composer had in mind.

On October 6, 1953, RCA held experimental stereophonic sessions in New York's Manhattan Center with Leopold Stokowski conducting a group of New York musicians in performances of Enesco's Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1 and the waltz from Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin. There were additional stereo tests in December, again in the Manhattan Center, this time with Pierre Monteux conducting members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In February 1954, RCA made its first commercial stereophonic recordings, taping the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Charles Münch, in a performance of The Damnation of Faust by Hector Berlioz.

"Childhood's End" sees Ulver re-interpret classic Psychedelic tracks from the late 1960s. The album includes Ulver's unique versions of tracks from The 13th Floor Elevators, Electric Prunes, Jefferson Airplane, The Pretty Things and more. The Sunshine era gets the "dark music" treatment!

The Future Sound of Jazz series is an underated collection of the finest leftfield jazzier flavours from the West German label Compost Records. After the collections trips recently through all areas of dance music , and the most recent messy excursion to disco on volume 11. For volume 12 it's back to a jazzy edge. For FSOJ 12 there's a concoction of future be-bob, house, drum and base, hip -hop, pop, afro- funk, African drum beats,to Nordic Electronic jazz , chilled electronica vocals to Blue note flavoured bossa nova and disco, what a sizzling amalgamation! The collection is on the downtempoe scale of predominantly instrumentals that may take some time to digest.