Iqbal Paperback – July 1, 2005

Dr. Ebbett produced the two volume UK singles collection in 2005 and according to the announcement made at the time of its release: It features the A and B sides of every regular issue British 45 rpm record the Beatles releases during their time together. This set is sourced entirely from 7 inch vinyl records – some of them being the original first-issue Parlophone 45s, some from the vinyl boxed set released in the 1970s…

The late '60s and early '70s didn't yield many (as far as we know) unreleased studio recordings of completed, otherwise unavailable Rolling Stones songs. But it did produce a wealth of fairly interesting alternate/working versions and song embryos that never got polished off, sixteen of which are presented on this compilation. As the title Sweet Black Angel implies, many are from that murky early-'70s period when the Stones were working, in fits and starts, on Exile on Main St., and several of these tracks are different versions of songs that ended up on that album…

The Talich have set down the Quartets on three occasions: for Supraphon in 1990, and for Calliope in 1985 (with Kvapil's excellent account of Book I of On an Overgrown Path as coupling) and 2004 (with the Schulhoff). It is the latter which has been reissued here.

Right now the music of Alessandro Scarlatti is getting more attention than ever before, but musicians are still very selective in what they are performing. One part of Scarlatti's oeuvre that is widely neglected is his keyboard music. Alexander Weimann is not the first to pay attention to this genre: the Italian keyboard player and director of the Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini, devoted a disc to the genre. But Weimann is the first to plan to record it all. He writes in the booklet, "as a composer for the keyboard, Alessandro Scarlatti … deserves the same respect that we show for his vocal works."

Whether he had to leave Germany because of a fatal duel, whether he had to leave Italy because he married his teacher's daughter, whether he settled in France because he wanted to protect his publishing rights, whether any of the many rumors about Franz Ignaz Beck (1734-1809) are true or false, it is good to have his set of Six Symphonies, Op. 1, available on disc. Composed sometime in the 1750s and published in 1758, Beck's three-movement symphonies are strongly imagined and successfully realized essays in a form that had only just come into musical existence.

Eine weitere ausgewählte Kammermusik von Ries, die dem Komponisten wieder eine neue Bewertung seitens cpo sichert! Jetzt starten wir eine Edition mit seinen Streichquartetten – eine Gattung, die im Werk von Ries eine einzigartige Stellung einnimmt. Er komponierte 26 Quartette, von denen er allerdings nur elf drucken ließ, die übrigen 15 blieben ungedruckt, wobei die beiden jetzt eingespielten Quartette zu den ungedruckten gehören. Das ältere WoO 10 entstand gegen Ende von Ries' Wiener Lehrzeit bei Beethoven, jedoch sind in der Komposition keine Einflüsse von Beethoven mehr spürbar, das zweite Quartettt WoO 37 entstand 1827, im ersten Jahr seines Frankfurter Aufenthaltes, es ist das drittletzte seiner Quartette.

The intelligence, sensitivity, and innate musicality distinguishing violinist James Ehnes' terrific unaccompanied Bach carries over to his first volume of the composer's sonatas with harpsichord. What immediately strikes you is the ideal balance between Ehnes and harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour–not just sonically speaking, but in how they effortlessly proportion their phrases and perfectly synchronize trills, turns, and other ornaments. Beauséjour's discreet and effective registrations complement the subtle variations in Ehnes' tone, especially in slower, sustained writing (the quicker-than-usual A major sonata's Andante is a good example).