The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria And Sicily And of His Brother Duke Robert Guiscard

Brother Jack McDuff recorded an enormous number of albums during the '60s, so it can be difficult to figure out where to start digging a little deeper into his output (which Hammond B-3 fans will definitely want to do). 1967's Tobacco Road stands out from the pack for a couple of reasons. First, unlike many of his groove-centric albums, it's heavy on standards and pop/rock tunes (seven of nine cuts), which make for excellent matches with McDuff's highly melodic, piano-influenced style. What's more, about half of the album finds McDuff leading a large ten-piece ensemble arranged and conducted by J.J. Jackson, including a soulful horn section that sounds straight out of Memphis or Muscle Shoals (though this was recorded at Chess studios in Chicago)…

In the late 16th century when vocal polyphony was developing into the excesses of the late Italian madrigal and the powerplay of multi-choir writing in Venice, Victoria, in Rome, chose to write his 18 Tenebrae settings with the simplest texture imaginable: four voices with internal sections for just two or three parts. These perfect miniatures force the question: how can so little mean so much? Victoria’s austere yet profoundly moving setting of the Responsories for the services of Tenebrae (shadows) is one of the great classics of Renaissance music. In this new recording sung by solo voices it is restored to the low pitch and voicing intended by the composer. These perfect miniatures are interspersed with nine of Christopher Reid’s heart-rending poems from his 2009 collection and Costa Book of the Year winner, ‘A Scattering’, a moving collection on the dying and death of his wife.

This was the first and last time Pepper worked with Jordan, and came about as a result of Pepper's usual pianist, George Cables, being unable to make the dates at Club Montmartre in Copenhagen. To Pepper's dismay, Danmarks Radio decided to record the first gig of the Montmartre series. Pepper need not have worried – the show was a rousing success, with the band tackling a set of standards (and a couple of Pepper originals) with such verve and determination that relatively simple tunes turned into astounding solo workouts (there are several drum and bass solos to be heard on this record), the amazing highlight of which is a shot at "Besame Mucho" that rounds out to twenty-two minutes. Art Pepper was in the process of dying at the time this recording was made, but there's no lack of energy, no loss of vitality. A two-CD live jazz set that's well worth having and should not be overlooked.

Early in December 1787 Catherine II of Russia invited the famous composer to her court at St Petersburg where Italian opera was all the rage. A few days after his arrival the wife of the ambassador of Naples and Sicily died and Cimarosa was asked by him to compose a Requiem Mass for the funeral. Composers did not need to bother about being original in those days and Cimarosa could draw easily on a common stock of melodic ideas, but, nevertheless, his Mass is well shaped and certainly not a mere puce d'occasion.

Charles II's formal Restoration in 1660 marked both an end and a beginning: the end of England's republican experiment and the beginning of a long process of monarchical reconstruction; and with a politically accident-prone king on the throne, Charles's public relations machine could never rest. Purcell joined its small team of composer operatives just as the wave of Stuart propaganda swelled massively, and he surfed the wave with breathtaking panache, from his first court ode – the simple but rousing Welcome, Vicegerent of the mighty King – to the ambitious Fly, bold rebellion involving verse settings in up to seven parts and a six-part chorus.