Anna Politskaja

Constantly in search of eclectic and meaningful programmes, the soprano Anna Prohaska here celebrates ‘life in death’. An ambitious programme, conceived with Robin Peter Müller and his ensemble La Folia, which takes us on a journey across the centuries and through many different countries, with French chansons of the Middle Ages (including one by Guillaume de Machaut), seventeenth-century Italian pieces by Luigi Rossi, Francesco Cavalli and Barbara Strozzi, German composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Dietrich Buxtehude, Christoph Graupner, Franz Tunder) and the English luminaries Henry Purcell… plus John Lennon and Paul McCartney. A musical and spiritual quest that even takes in a detour to North America with a universally known song by Leonard Cohen.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Naples’ fame as a musical centre attracted travellers, composers, instrumentalists and virtuoso singers alike. Among the aspiring musicians, the most highly-trained and sought-after were the castrati, promising boys aged between 8 and 12 who were subjected to an operation intended to preserve the exceptionally pure timbre of their treble voice. Forever virginal beings whose superhuman voices mesmerized their listeners they were nicknamed angiolilli, ‘little angels’, and sang in the most important churches and theatres of ‘Castrapolis’, a term coined to describe the southern capital and its high concentration of castrato sopranos.

Franz Liszt was not an organist. On the organ he never acquired anything like the level of virtuosity that distinguished his pianism; his pedal playing in particular remained limited. Nevertheless, Liszt regularly appeared at the organ, even during his years as a travelling piano virtuoso. His earliest performance probably took place in the Swiss city of Fribourg in 1835. In 1839 he played in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, in 1843 in St Peter and Paul in Moscow and in 1845 in Mulhouse in Alsace.

The Ghost Ship (2CD): The beauty and brilliance of the piano - a double CD of virtuoso and Romantic music by Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Liszt, Skryabin, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns and many more.

The pure polyphonic quality of J.S. Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias cannot be overstated – simple yet bursting with ideas, they offer an agile introduction to late-baroque musical forms and imitative writing in general, while retaining a cantabile feel. These exquisite miniatures, transcendent of the didactic purpose to which they were relegated for too long, provide an orderly and at once concise and comprehensive survey of Bach’s soundscape. The purity and density of their musical substance, distilled in a sort of abstract and universal language, has naturally encouraged numerous arrangements from the 19th century onwards for vast array of other instruments.

Citing the likes of Debussy, Captain Beefheart, and Nina Simone as her main influences, it's clear from the outset that Anna Calvi isn't your average, run-of-the-mill singer/songwriter. She may have been tipped for success by everyone from the broadsheet music press to Brian Eno, but her blend of sultry blues-rock and dark, mysterious flamenco is a million miles away from the chart-friendly output of her fellow Sound of 2011 nominees. Her self-titled debut, therefore, is unlikely to reap the same commercial rewards as the likes of Jessie J and Clare Maguire, its uncompromising, gothic, David Lynch-esque nature certainly won't spawn any bite-size TV ad soundtracks or airplay favorites your mom can sing along to. But in a music scene dominated by female solo artists, Calvi's romantic but often sinister ten songs certainly helps her to stand out from the crowd. Opening track "Rider to the Sea," sets the scene immediately, a brooding instrumental whose atmospheric twanging guitars would provide the perfect score should Quentin Tarantino's much rumored Kill Bill 3 ever come to fruition.

This new Traviata belongs near the top of the fine recorded versions of the opera despite a serious vocal problem in the middle. The great news is in the casting of the two lovers: Rolando Villazon's Alfredo is just about perfect. He sings with handsome, shaded tone, great attention to the text–his anger feels as real as his grief and passion–and absolute freedom throughout the range.

Echoes, Spaces, Lines collects Trans-Millenia Consort, Plot Zero, and Spectre, the first three albums by the late West Coast composer, healer, and medium Pauline Anna Strom. Exploring all corners of the multiverse through transpersonal form and freedom, Strom’s first three albums share a singular sensibility, different streams flowing from the same oracular font. Echoes, Spaces, Lines establishes Strom’s rightful place in the canon of great synthesists. Restored and mixed from the original reels by Marta Salogni, newly remastered, and adding Oceans of Tears, a fully realized but previously unreleased album exclusive to the physical editions of this box set, these are the first official reissues and the definitive encapsulation of Pauline Anna Strom’s prolific and visionary early work. This four LP box set includes a 12-page booklet containing liner notes, an unearthed interview with Strom, and unseen ephemera.

As an instrument from Italy, one that was exotic and evocative of Mediterranean atmospheres, the mandolin was very much in fashion in France until the end of the Century of Enlightenment: a fact also confirmed by many iconographic and musical sources. Pizzicar Galante, an ensemble that stands today as a benchmark for the interpretation of the galant literature for mandolin and continuo, has been acclaimed for the “finesse, creativity and spirit” (Olivier Fourés, Diapason) and “communicative energy” of its performances (Sébastien Llinares, France Musique). For its second recording with Arcana, it offers a compilation of the finest music played during the veritable “golden age” enjoyed by the mandolin in Paris from the 1760s to the Revolution. It is a rare and unexplored repertoire in which the dazzling virtuosity of Anna Schivazappa, a specialist in historical mandolins, dialogues with the beguiling and charismatic voice of Marc Mauillon.