Ayumi Hamasaki Five (2011)

Duty is the third studio album by Japanese recording artist Ayumi Hamasaki. It was released on September 27, 2000 by Avex Trax. Upon the album's release, it was met with favourable reviews from music critics. Critics highlight individual songs as stand out tracks, and found the album a memorable effort within the Japanese pop genre. Duty became Hamasaki's third studio album to reach the top spot on Japan's Oricon Albums Chart. The album has sold over three million units in Japan, making this her best selling studio album as of today. Five singles were released from the album. Two of the singles, "Seasons" and "Surreal", topped Japan's Oricon Singles Chart, while the former sold over 1.3 million units in Japan.

The fifth and final volume in Universal's massive John Coltrane: The Impulse! Albums in the Originals series, contains five recordings, all issued posthumously between 1970 and 1973. Two of these, Transition and Sun Ship, feature Coltrane's classic quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones. Of the remaining albums, two are live recordings – Live in Seattle and Concert in Japan – the remaining one being the infamous Infinity.

A fresh and open music, delicate and space-conscious, is shaped as drummer Thomas Strønen and Ayumi Tanaka, previously heard in the ensemble Time Is A Blind Guide on Lucus, resurface in a new trio with clarinettist/singer/percussionist Marthe Lea. The group first came together at Oslo’s Royal Academy of Music, where for two years the players would meet each week for exploratory music making. Strønen: “We always played freely- drifting between elements of contemporary classical music, folk music, jazz, whatever we were inspired by. Sometimes the music was very quiet and minimalistic: playing together generated some special experiences.” The spontaneous spirit of the music is reflected in the trio’s debut recording, which was made at the Lugano radio studio and produced by Manfred Eicher. With the exception of the title piece, based on a traditional Norwegian tune, the music on Bayou was collectively created in the moment.

Subaqueous Silence, pianist Ayumi Tanaka’s leader debut for ECM – following critically acclaimed releases with Thomas Strønen (Lucus, Bayou) – is a strikingly original statement. Tanaka met bassist Christian Meaas Svendsen and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen shortly after arriving in Oslo a decade ago and they have been developing their musical language together, exploring the implications of Ayumi’s compositions. Deep interest in the work of Norwegian improvisers prompted Tanaka’s move to the West, but she also speaks of a growing awareness of her own cultural roots; there is an ascetic rigour in her playing, as well as a sense of space suggesting affinities with Japanese classical music.

It was Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen and Album fur die Jugend that inspired Tchaikovsky to start composition on his Children’s Album in 1878. He dedicated the set to his nephew Vladimir Davidoff (Bobik) who was 7 years old.‘For a long time I have been saying to myself that it would be a good thing to contribute, within the limits of my powers, to the enrichment of the piano literature for children, which is rather poor. I would like to compose a series of very easy little pieces with attractive titles like Schumann did’ he wrote to his patron Mme von Meck.

This excellent live recording served as my introduction to the wonderful Italian-flavoured progressive rock of PFM back in '74. The songs represented are all superlative, and the musicianship is amazing…

Famous for his innovative operas – Orfeo ed Euridice, Alceste, and Armide – Christoph Willibald Gluck is virtually unknown as a composer of instrumental music, and his attributed symphonies and overtures are among his most obscure works. Indeed, this 2011 release on CPO by Michi Gaigg and L'Orfeo Barockorchester almost stands alone in introducing these early symphonies, which show the fluidity of symphonic form as it developed out of the Baroque opera overture into the familiar Classical shape. With as few as two and as many as four movements,

The Afflatus Quartet’s second album features classical repertoire by Beethoven and Mozart. The distinguished ensemble members create a rich, full sound on this wonderful disc…