Berlin

Berlin reached their commercial peak – and their creative low point – with "Take My Breath Away" in 1986. While it's really not a bad song, the Top Gun hit removed the group from their new romantic roots, straying into adult contemporary territory. Master Series is an enjoyable career summary that collects nearly every track from Berlin that is worth collecting. Like many American new wave groups, Berlin was a superb singles band, but their albums were somewhat inconsistent. And their earliest work is the best, especially MTV classics like "Masquerade," "Dancing in Berlin," and "The Metro." On the naughty "Sex (I'm A…)," singer Terri Nunn shocked pop radio years before Madonna with its pornographic moans and groans and racy lyrics. "The Metro" encapsulates Berlin's affection for European new wave music with its somber, swirling synthesizers and sad, cold-as-ice vocals. The spiteful "No More Words" rips away the saccharine layers of "Take My Breath Away".

This brand new CD edition has been remastered from original master tapes and has now been expanded with a number of essential bonus tracks, including the original 12” dance remixes of No More Words and Dancing In Berlin, along with a rare remix of the single Now It’s My Turn.

Pentatone presents a new album full of world-premiere recordings of orchestral songs by Hans Sommer, sung by an excellent quartet of soloists – Mojca Erdmann, Anke Vondung, Mauro Peter and Benjamin Appl – together with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under the baton of Guillermo García Calvo. Sommer was a Liszt student whose operas were performed and praised by Richard Strauss, but sunk into relative oblivion due to his unusual career path and independence from major publishers. The songs were discovered recently and can finally be presented to the world. Focusing mostly on Goethe poetry, combining high Romanticism with folk styles, Sommer’s songs are colourfully orchestrated, harmonically audacious, and often highly dramatic and evocative.

In 1727, having just become a naturalised British subject, Handel was commissioned to write a set of anthems for the coronation of George II. Since he could hardly have expected ever to see a more majestic occasion, the composer took full advantage of it to put on a musical firework display of unprecedented splendour. The RIAS Kammerchor and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin give thrilling accounts of these flamboyant works – some of which are still used today at each new coronation!

Verdi was on a war footing with the Catholic Church from a very early age. It is true that he was brought up to believe in God, as was usual in Italy at that time, and it is no less true that his first music teacher, Ferdinando Provesi, was the organist at the Church of San Bartolomeo in Busseto, but when the then sixteen-year-old composer applied for the post of church musician in the town in 1829, his application was rejected – not because his musical abilities were in any way deficient but because he was regarded as a protégé of Antonio Barezzi, a local businessman with a reputation for his anti-clerical views. He fared little better when he submitted his first sacred works – a Laudate pueri, a Qui tollis and two settings of the Tantum ergo – in the early 1830s, when the Church authorities complained that the music sounded “theatrical, lascivious, bellicose and indecorous” . In short, it was hardly calculated to foster a sense of piety and devotion.

A major change of direction for Berlin, Count Three & Pray was an artistic triumph but a commercial disappointment. After making a name for itself playing very European-sounding synth pop, the L.A. trio recruited producer Bob Ezrin (known for his work with Alice Cooper and others) and unveiled a more hard-edged, guitar-oriented sound. From the rockin' "Trash" (which features none other than Ted Nugent – the last person one would expect to work with Berlin!) to the ballad "Pink and Velvet" (a tale of two heroin addicts' romance that is as poignant as it is disturbing), Count Three & Pray leaves no doubt just how much lead singer Terri Nunn and her colleagues were enjoying this radical change. But sadly, record buyers weren't ready for it. Despite the inclusion of the hauntingly pretty number one hit "Take My Breath Away" (included in the film Top Gun) the album didn't sell nearly as well as Pleasure Victim or Love Life. Geffen was bitterly disappointed, and Berlin soon broke up.

This brand new CD edition has been remastered from original master tapes and has now been expanded with a number of essential bonus tracks, including the original 12” dance remixes of No More Words and Dancing In Berlin, along with a rare remix of the single Now It’s My Turn.