Alison Balsam

At the time of writing, this CD has been on the market for 22 years, and it must be said from the outset that its technical side does not and cannot match up with the standard of later high-bit recordings, nor indeed, to be honest, with the 80's recordings made, for example, by Andreas Glatt for the Accent label in Belgium: the instruments can, indeed, be clearly heard, but there would have been a good deal of room for more spacious use of stereo technology, and possibly the microphones could have been just that little bit nearer to the musicians.

It's been conventional wisdom for several generations that Solomon, great oratorio though it may be, contains a lot of deadwood; conductors have regularly cut some items and changed the order of others. (Even John Eliot Gardiner's excellent recording cuts about 30 minutes of music.) Leave it to Paul McCreesh to give us the complete score–and demonstrate that Handel's original structure makes plenty of sense and that every number is worthwhile.

These CDs contain all Bach’s extant concertos that feature a solo keyboard. Most were written in the 1730s and are thought to be arrangements of earlier concertos, many of which are now lost (though two will be recognized as Bach’s E major and A minor violin concertos and the sixth is an arrangement of the fourth Brandenburg). The fifth Brandenburg Concerto, with harpsichord, flute and violin soloists, dates from 1721 and is generally regarded as the first concerto for a solo keyboard instrument ever written. Bach made the keyboard part particularly brilliant and included a huge cadenza; he certainly knew how to establish a genre with a bang!

EMI Classics presents a magnificent collection that celebrates the life and career of English composer Gustav Holst. Containing an outside selection of Holst s greatest works including his most famous orchestral suite The Planets, the rare The Perfect Fool, as well as the Walt Whitman inspired Ode to Death. This 6-CD collector s edition provides a chance for all classical music aficionados to listen and experience his timeless compositions

The iconic singer Tom Jones performs with special guest and Grammy winner Alison Krauss. Jones performs signature songs “Delilah,” “It’s Not Unusual,” “Green, Green Grass of Home,” “Kiss” and “Thunderball,” as well as new material from his recent albums…

Considering that Max Richter's soundtrack work far outpaces the rate at which he releases his own albums, this Deutsche Grammophon collection of four of his earliest works is a welcome reminder of their magic. Retrospective gathers his instant-classic, Franz Kafka-inspired 2004 album The Blue Notebooks, which features the Tilda Swinton collaboration "On the Nature of Daylight" and introduced Richter's expressive mix of classical and electronic music to many listeners; the like-minded Songs from Before, which featured Robert Wyatt reading Haruki Murakami texts over Richter's sensitive, piano-driven compositions; 24 Postcards in Full Colour, an eclectic and emotive collection of ringtone-inspired miniatures; and Infra, a piece composed for the Royal Ballet and inspired in equal measure by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Franz Schubert's Winterreise. The collection also includes bonus tracks for each album, including a full orchestral version of "On the Nature of Daylight" and an essay by Paul Morley. Retrospective offers a wonderful way for fans to experience these albums to their fullest, and for newcomers to learn what all the fuss is about.