The Mountain Bride

Having gotten familiar with each other and the public on Wonderland, Clarke and Bell aim their sights higher with its follow-up, a more distinct all-around album. Flood once again mans the production boards, helping bring out Clarke's greater number of individual touches and approaches to great effect. It can be the queasy synth whoosh on "Don't Dance," the chunky pseudo-guitar blasts on lead track and single "It Doesn't Have to Be," or the funhouse keyboards on the title song, a cautionary environmental tale, all testaments to Clarke's ever-strengthening pushback of synth-pop's presumed sound and cliches. Bell in turn is finding more to do with his voice, his breathy crooning more seductive and affecting, while his high-volume calls to musical arms generally avoid hyper-ear-piercing levels in favor of general appeal…

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and during World War II he conducted at the Berlin State Opera. Generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, he was a controversial but dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate, he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.

Jennie is a twelve-year-old girl living with her parents in extremely rural mountain country. Her schoolteacher, Miss Carol, though a mountain girl herself, has gone off to be educated and returned in hopes of stopping the tradition of child marriage which permeates the culture. Jennie's father Ira is a good man who tries to protect Miss Carol from the men who threaten her if she doesn't call off her crusade. One of these men, Jake Bolby, has his eye on little Jennie and plots to make her his bride.

This boxed set of Grieg’s complete orchestral works is a celebration of the composer’s rich and multi-faceted aesthetic. Grieg was an idealistic humanist whose music and writings underlined a harmony between humans and nature. The sense of nostalgia and ‘postcard lyricism’ often associated with him belies the wild energy also present in his music – its primeval force, pessimistic emotions and tempestuous Romanticism. Thanks to Bjarte Engeset’s carefully researched and widely admired performances, Grieg’s complex musical universe can here be appreciated in full.

With this new release, Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra continue their series exploring Polish music for Chandos. This is the second volume in the survey of orchestral works by Karol Szymanowski. The first was well received by critics and the public alike. A review in BBC Music read: ‘Chandos’s [Polish series] reaches impressive heights… Gardner shows how he has become one of the finest non-Polish interpreters of Szymanowski.’