Haefs, Gisbert Alexander 03 Alexanders Erben

David Alexander was a Welsh singer and entertainer. He made his debut at a local social club where he worked and toured much of the United Kingdom, also working as an entertainer at Pontins. He released his first album So Many Ways on his own label in 1975. Initial pressings were on the North West Gramophone label but later pressings and a string of other albums, singles and EPs throughout the late 70's, 80's and early 90's were released on his ACE Recordings label. In 1980, Alexander again recorded for EMI with a single "Come Home Rhondda Boy" on Columbia and a self titled album on their budget One-Up label. An updated version of that album was released on ACE.

As a composer of orchestral music, Alexander Scriabin is best known for his last two idiosyncratic symphonies, the Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, which are essentially symphonic poems, not symphonies in the conventional sense. The Symphony No. 1 (1900) and the Symphony No. 2 (1901), however, are more recognizable as symphonies in their multiple-movement forms, and their durations are comparable to the expansive symphonies of Scriabin's contemporary, Gustav Mahler. They also share the post-Romantic tendency toward Wagnerian harmonies, rhapsodic melodies, and lush orchestration, which, in Scriabin's case, were developed to express heightened emotional states and mystical transcendence. This 2016 double SACD by Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra presents each of the symphonies on its own disc, and the high-quality multichannel sound is ideal for bringing across the subtle nuances of tone color and the shifting of dynamics that are characteristic of his style.]

If you're already a fan of Russian music of the Imperial Age, you already know at least the name Mily Balakirev, the living link between Glinka, the father of Russian music, and Mussorgsky, Borodin, and Rimsky-Korsakov, the composer who sacrificed much of his composing time to his pupils and part of his life to his insanity, but who nevertheless turned out indubitable masterpieces in several genres. The First Symphony and the symphonic poem Tamara are probably his best-known orchestral works, but his best-known single work in any genre is certainly his Islamy, the piece of pseudo-ethnic, super-virtuoso sex-dance music that Russian pianists still occasionally trot out as an encore.

Pianist Monty Alexander's "Ivory And Steel" group combines together bop-based jazz with Jamaican calypsoes and West Indian rhythms. On this quite enjoyable set, Alexander utilizes both Othello and Len "Boogsie" Sharpe on steel drums, either Marshall Wood or Bernard Montgomery on bass, drummer Marvin "Smitty" Smith and the hand drums of Robert Thomas Jr. Alexander contributed four of the rhythmic originals which are joined by some Jamaican folk songs (including "Sly Mangoose"), Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" and a couple of obscurities. The accessible results are often memorable.

Agricola was praised by his contemporaries for the bizarre turn of his inspiration, and his music likened to quicksilver. By the standards of the period this is a highly unusual turn of phrase, but remains spot-on. The Ferrara Ensemble anthology, the first ever devoted to the composer, focused on the secular music, both instrumental and vocal, precisely the area covered by Michael Posch and Ensemble Unicorn in this most satisfying disc. Where there's duplication (surprisingly little, in fact) the performances compare with those of the Ferrara Ensemble, although the style of singing is very different. The voices are more up front and less inflected, perhaps the better to match the high instruments with which they're sometimes doubled. But the tensile quality of Agricola's lines comes through none the less, as does the miraculous inventiveness and charm of his music. Further, much of what's new to the catalogue really is indispensible, for example Agricola's most famous song, Allez, regretz. Unicorn keeps its improvisations and excursions to a minimum, and the music is the better for it. It really is a must-have.

ATMA Classique presents the debut recording of Le Nouvel Opéra, a Montreal-based company under the artistic leadership of soprano Suzie LeBlanc, with music director Alexander Weimann and stage director Marie Nathalie Lacoursiere. Their inaugural recording features Antonio Caldara’s oratorio La Conversione di Clodoveo, Rè di Francia — a work the company first performed in Potsdam in 2005, celebrating the the milennial anniversary of Christianity in Germany.

A fine straight-ahead jazz saxophonist, Eric Alexander grew up in the state of Washington. He initially attended Indiana University, studying classical music as an altoist. However, he soon discovered jazz, switched to the tenor, and transferred to William Paterson College in New Jersey. After graduating, he moved to Chicago and gained important experience touring with Charles Earland while also becoming a fixture in local clubs. In 1991, Alexander placed second at the Thelonious Monk Institute's saxophone competition, finishing just behind Joshua Redman…

Eric Alexander has had many opportunities to record as a leader for several different labels, though producer Tetsuo Hara, owner of the Japanese label Venus, has become a huge fan, recording him almost any time he travels to New York City. This 2008 session finds the tenor saxophonist with several musicians with whom he is very familiar, including pianist Mike LeDonne, bassist John Webber, and drummer Joe Farnsworth (the latter two who play with Alexander in the co-op band One for All)…