The Salomon's beautiful playing of these important masterpieces make this set indispensable. The dedication, beauty and vitality of the interpretations are of the highest order … a Haydn monument as important to the 90s as the one by the Pro Arte was to the 30s.
The Salomon's beautiful playing of these important masterpieces make this set indispensable. When Haydn completed his Opus 20 String Quartets in 1772 he was in his fortieth year and was on the brink of international fame. Since 1761 he had been in the service of the Esterházy family at their castle in Eisenstadt, east of Vienna, or, after the mid-1760s, mainly at the palace of Eszterháza, over the present-day border with Hungary on the other side of the Neusiedlersee.
Brooklyn, NY's crossover legends Life of Agony formed in 1989. They perfected their angst-filled hardcore/heavy metal hybrid along the way, obtaining a devoted audience in the process. Their first studio album, River Runs Red, was similar to their stage show at the time – straight-up energy and aggression in a hardcore/thrash format, with shards of heavy metal cutting through at times, and the group toured extensively upon its release. Once the tour was completed, LOA went directly back into the studio to work on their next album, 1995's Ugly, which signaled a complete overhauling of the band's signature heavy-duty sound. The album resembled the sounds of the alternative stars of the day, especially Stone Temple Pilots, and it wasn't greeted favorably by the record-buying public. LOA were still able to retain their audience, and the resulting tour was a success, as they opened for the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Korn, Type O Negative, and Anthrax…
Notwithstanding one or two isolated exceptions, it wasn’t until the mid-Sixties that independent female voices really began to be heard within the music industry. The feminist movement naturally coincided with the first signs of genuine musical emancipation. In North America, Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie emerged through the folk clubs, coffee-houses and college campuses to inspire a generation of wannabe female singers and musicians with their strong, independent mentality and social compassion, while the British scene’s combination of folk song revival and the Beatles-led pop explosion saw record company deals for a new generation of pop-folkies including Marianne Faithfull, Dana Gillespie and Vashti Bunyan.