The Thirteen Assassins Jûsan Nin no Shikaku (1963) + [extras]

The Art of Noise‘s 1987 album In No Sense? Nonsense! is reissued as a two-CD deluxe edition in November 2018. Gary Lagan had left after In Visible Silence leaving Anne Dudley and J.J. Jeczalik to continue as a duo. Dudley recalls, “At that time, we were meeting new people, doing adverts and films and things. There was lots of new input. These adverts generated other new tracks. They would evolve and we’d agree they were good ideas. And we’d ask each other what would happen if we did this, this and this? So that kept everything evolving.” The reissue features newly-remastered audio including bonus seven-inch and 12-inch mixes including collaborations with Paul McCartney (the Art of Noise ‘Spies Like Us’ remix) and Duane Eddy (‘Spies’). Additionally, there are 22 unreleased recordings from the sessions, taken from the original master tapes.

Though it appears in the aftermath of their dissolution in 2014, and the deaths of both actual Allman brothers, Duane and Gregg, this 50th anniversary retrospective box set is arguably the only career overview of the band one can call representative. Arranged over ten LPs or five compact discs, Trouble No More examines in depth each incarnation and stage of the pioneering rockers. It convincingly formulates the argument that no other American band accomplished more musically (especially live) by seamlessly marrying rock, blues, jazz, and R&B to each other and to extended improvisation. This set compiles 61 Allman Brothers Band classics, live performances, and rarities – including seven previously unreleased tracks – all painstakingly remastered, with and a hefty 88-page book full of photos and a lengthy historical essay by ABB historian John Lynskey that recaps all 13 incarnations of the band's lineup.

… you get here is perhaps the best of all worlds: a major symphonic work idiomatically played by a first-rate virtuoso orchestra under the hands of a conductor whose contact with the work looks back to the symphony's very creation, captured in vivid, realistic sound none of the russian maestros mentioned above could ever aspire to.

This is an excellent Mahler Ninth. It does not feature the tortured anguish of Bernstein (Sony & DG), the elegant pain of Giulini (DG), or the stately gloom of Walter (Sony), but, like Libor Pesek (Virgin Classics), it successfully straddles more than a few fences. But "straddling fences" does not imply it's middle-of-the-road–it is, in fact, more middle-of-the-night. Dohnányi often makes inner voices turn disruptive, yet coaxes the strings to sound both sweet and eerie in their heavy use of portamento; and he is scrupulous in extracting just about every last meaningful detail in this monumental work.

The Third Symphony is in a more conventional three movements: Luttes, Voluptes and Jeu Divin. The same interpretative qualities apply as to the first two numbered symphonies. The Jeu movement moves a long at a smartish clip. Muti makes a good case for the work although its thematic material is rather slender. Outstanding work again from the Philadelphia brass choir.

The five movement Second Symphony is gloomily introspective but Muti again propels it along. There are some Rachmaninov-like moments in the allegro and wistfulness in the andante. Much of the doom carries over from the Manfred / Francesca tribute from Tchaikovsky and ploughs inexorably forward in the earlier symphonies of Miaskovsky. The Maestoso has a straining grandeur which takes a little from Glazunov - say in the finale of the Eighth symphony.

Symphony No. 5 is widely considered as the finest among the nine numbered symphonies of Anton Bruckner, and ranks among his most famous works.
In their first recording on Chandos for almost ten years, the Residentie Orchestra The Hague here performs the work under its chief conductor, Neeme Järvi, who has conducted the symphony with orchestras across the globe, and is recognised as one of the key interpreters of it.

Founded in 1981, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century consists of approximately fifty-five musicians from all over the world. The orchestra is specialised in the music of that era and the musicians play on period instruments or copies of them. This spectacular rendition of Beethoven’s „Symphony No. 3“, live recorded at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, has won them international acclaim. Beethoven originally dedicated the „Eroica“ (1804) to Napoleon, who at the time was re-drawing the map of Europe as comprehensively as this epic symphony was to re-define the architecture of music. It was only belatedly that the composer realised that ‘heroes’ with absolute political power easily turn into tyrants and tore up the dedication.