Richard A. Clarke

Watching The Dark contains 3 CDs with 23 live, rare and unreleased tracks spanning the years 1969-1992. Also included is a 24-page booklet with photos, a complete biography and a selected discography. Includes liner notes by Greil Marcus, Joe Boyd and Leslie Berman. This three-disc set contains too many rarities and flouts chronology too blatantly to function as a simple best-of. Rather, it's an eclectic overview that dips deep enough into the archives to appeal to the hardcore fans that make up most of Thompson's audience while featuring enough classics to operate as a de facto "Greatest Hits" for those unfamiliar with the unjustly hitless guitarist/singer/songwriter. Previously unreleased live cuts display Thompson's unrivaled way with his axe ("Can't Win," "Calvary Cross"). Fans of Thompson's folkier side will delight at never-before heard traditional tunes like "Bogie's Bonnie Belle" and "Poor Wee Jockey Clarke." There are even some previously unheard Fairport tracks for those who've been in on Thompson's special gift from the very beginning. If you love Thompson, you must own this.

Despite her youth, Ellen Nisbeth has received acclaim both in her native Sweden and abroad and is one of the Rising Stars selected by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) for the 2017/2018 season. A former student of London's Royal College of Music, she hails from a family of Scottish origin and feels a particular affinity for the landscapes of Scotland, and for the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. For her first recital disc Ellen Nisbeth has devised an all-British programme which includes her own transcriptions of selected songs from Songs of Travel – Ralph Vaughan Williams's settings of poems by Stevenson. The songs intersperse the remainder of the programme, and one of them – Let Beauty Awake – has also lent its title to the entire disc. Together with the eminent pianist and chamber musician Bengt Forsberg, Nisbeth goes on to perform the impassioned Viola Sonata composed in 1919 by Rebecca Clarke – a well-known piece among viola-players, but deserving of a wider audience.