Dramatis

When Montserrat Caballé sang her first aria, "Com'è bello", there was a perceptible change in atmosphere. It seemed for a moment that everyone had stopped breathing. What registered, of course, was an acute awareness that there was singing of a most unusual sort. It had , to put it simply, the quality of greatness […]. What emanates from Caballé's throat can best be described as total purity - purity in the sense of majestic power and natural expresiveness. John Gruen, Herald Tribune, about the debut of Caballé as Lucrezia Borgia, Carnegie Hall, 1965.

This is a 1975 concert version conducted by Eve Queler, with the Orchestra of the New York City Opera and the Brooklyn College Chorus and an absolute dream cast. As Leonora, mezzo Shirley Verrett (before she went up to soprano) just shines with a richness of tone and dramatic conviction that has to be heard to be believed. Steven Muni, Amazon.com.

In the U.S., Gary Numan is remembered as a one-hit-wonder, while back home in his native England, he continued to crank out hit after hit and became a superstar in the process. His icy space-age persona and sound may be forever associated with early-80's British new wave (Flock of Seagulls, early Duran Duran, etc.), but he was the originator, and today seems pretty darned original. Numan was a scholar of the David Bowie Ziggy Stardust-era, and used Bowie's space alien approach as a starting point. While retaining his futuristic lyrics, Gary stripped Ziggy's sound free of the distorted guitar riffing and posturing, and replaced it with clinical synthesizers and a standoffish stage persona. His music also gives off a paranoid vibe at times, as evidenced on the hits "I Die: You Die" and "Are 'Friends' Electric?" But Numan's songs can also sedate you ("Down in the Park"), while other times sneak up on you (the unexpected punk rocker "Bombers"). And of course there's his sole U.S. hit, "Cars," which sounds like a not so distant ancestor to fellow futuristic weirdos Devo.

Pergolesi’s comic opera Lo frate ’nnamorato (The Brother in Love) from 1732 was his ticket to the Royal Chapel in Naples. Its huge success was due to the beautiful score, showing Pergolesi’s talent for opera compositions, and the exquisite Libretto by Gennarantonio Federico. Lo frate ‘nnamorato especially owes its wit and exuberance to the comic resources of improvisational theatre, which is refl ected in the narrative structure and relationships between the dramatis personae. Love triangles, marriage plans that come to nothing, intrigues and more lead the opera along to the unsuspected outcome.

Prog/Folk/Rock from the Murky depths of Cumbria. Aided by a merry band of misfits, Gandalf's Fist are your new favourite Cult band waiting to be discovered! Gandalf's Fist draw on their mutual love for classic rock bands such as Pink Floyd, The Who, and even the likes of Iron Maiden. Gandalf's Fist is a British band from Maryport, Cumbria. Their music is influenced by 1970s progressive/psychedelic rock. The group formed in 2005, and built their reputation through various airplay by national radio with the help of several interviews in the "Classic Rock presents Prog"- Magazine, they cemented their reputation by playing at the "Second Stage" of Planet Rockstock in Great Yarmouth in December 2013, despite being a "initially studio only" project. They were featured in the TOP20 of Geoff Barton's 2013 Critic's choice in PROG Magazine Issue #41 lately.

Although frequently classified as an oratorio, C. P. E. Bach's Auferstehung und Himmeelfahrt Jesu is really a cantata. There are no named dramatis personae and it is evident from Emanuel Bach's own comments that he intended the work to have a partly didactic function. He also considered it, in his own words as "pre-eminent among all my vocal works in expression and in the composition". The author of the text was Karl Wilhelm Ramler, an important poet of the German Enlightenment whose texts had earlier attracted Telemann. Ramler and Bach engaged in a close collaboration over the Auferstehung and between Bach's setting of it in 1774 and the eventual publication by Breitkopf in 1787, composer and poet entered into a lively correspondence concerning the details and shape of the cantata. The first performance took place in Hamburg in 1778 when it was warmly received. Many subsequent performances were given culminating in three directed by Mozart in Vienna.

Although Druid's future seemed promising, the band failed to record more than two albums, leaving only 1975's Toward the Sun and 1976's Fluid Druid to their name. In 1995, BGO packaged both albums as a two-disc set, saving fans the hassle of locating each album separately. Druid is guided by lead vocalist Dane, who harbors a voice that is both high and sharp, but manages to customize it with the surrounding instruments. Both albums contain lush, relaxing harmonies with simple articulation and a free flowing folk-infused style that's illuminated by the keyboard and Mellotron applications. With parallels arising to that of Yes in Druid's musical composition, the songwriting isn't as intricate or as sensational, but it is delicately poetic and even romantic at times…

Belgian band Mindgames influences are to be found in the whole progressive rock history. Element of Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Marillion and too many others to mention can be found in here. The band grouped in 1997 but it took 2 years until they entered the recording studio to shape their first recording demos. The rehearsals for their debut album took the next three years until the album was ready, in 2002, and was finally released in 2003. This output was carefully structured with mid-long pieces and three epics. It's a very sophisticated music, precisely played and perfect balance between energy and softness. Strong melodies, multiple rhythm changes and a nice instrumental colouring of the songs are warp and woof on "International Daylight", an album that achieved a great success among the lovers of Symphonic Progressive.

Most of us come to the Saint John Passion knowing the Saint Matthew Passion first. The bigger and more elaborate Saint Matthew, which came along three, or possibly five years later (there is controversy about the date), has tended to cast a shadow in which the earlier work is swallowed up, and this has been so ever since Mendelssohn's Saint Matthew performance in 1829 marked the beginning of the public rediscovery of J.S. Bach. (The professionals had never forgotten.) But if the Saint John is smaller in scale than the Saint Matthew, it is hardly the lesser work in quality, though it would of course be silly to claim that the master of the Saint Matthew Passion had not learned from the experience of setting Saint John. But the most interesting differences between these two towering attestations of faith are differences in intention. Read Matthew 26-27, Mark 14-15, Luke 22-23, and John 18-19, and you get four tellings of the last days in the life of Jesus that differ in tone, emphasis, and detail…