Leva From Bo From Nr.51, 2016

Released on what would've been Jeff Healey's 50th birthday, Heal My Soul is the first collection of unheard original Healey material released in 15 years. These recordings were left incomplete at the time of Healey's death, so it was up to his estate to complete the tapes, and the efforts are relatively seamless: it all sounds like it dates from somewhere in the early 2000s, a period arriving after his hits but before he started exploring hot jazz. In other words, it's guitar-heavy blues-rock, where the songs are sometimes nicely constructed ("Baby Blue," "I Misunderstood") but sometimes feel like vehicles for tasty licks. Because Healey isn't around to spin out more of these tasty licks, there's value to this – his solos and riffs are vibrant, elastic, and alive – but the record is best understood as a testament to his talent assembled by family for his fans to cherish.

In the past few years, the Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz has repeatedly raised public awareness with CD releases at Christmas time, with top-quality musical discs for grants for important cultural buildings and their preservation. A CD was released in 2016, which in the blurb promotes such funds for the restoration of the Friedenskirche in Potsdam. The listening enjoyment of this CD ranges from Handel's water music to an excerpt from Bach's "The Art of the Fugue", ie the baroque musical work, through romanticism, and R. Schumann represents the "reverie" from the children's scenes to Camille Saint-Saen's "The Swan" "from the carnival of animals. A wonderful compilation that invites you to listen and donate.

Bach revised his Johannes-Passion regularly: he returned to it over a period of twenty-six years, from 1724 to his death. It is the version hallowed by tradition, established by the Kantor a year before his death, that is presented on these CDs. But the 1725 version, equally outstanding musically, has also been recorded complete and can be downloaded as a bonus in high-resolution sound. Comparison of the two versions reveals the underlying meaning of this matchless Passion.

Das im Jahr 2010 begonnene Bach-Projekt mit dem Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks unter Leitung von Peter Dijkstra findet seinen Abschluss mit der Gesamtaufnahme der Messe h-moll, die im April 2016 im Herkulessaal der Münchner Residenz aufgenommen wurde. Damit umfasst es nun die vier Gipfelwerke Bachs – die drei »protestantischen Oratorien« sowie die »große katholische Messe« – in einer herausragenden künstlerischen Qualität, mit renommierten Vokalsolisten und begleitet von hochkarätigen Ensembles der historischen Aufführungspraxis: drei Werke entstanden in Zusammenarbeit mit Concerto Köln, ein weiteres mit der Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.

The Bruckner recordings on this second volume of the Michael Gielen EDITION were made principally with the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg. This enables the listener to follow the orchestra's development over the years, culminating in their outstanding 2013 performance of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony.