Allebou Prelude

Three years as a Delphian artist have seen Sean Shibe record music from seventeenth-century Scottish lute manuscripts to twenty-first-century works for electric guitar, picking up multiple editor's choices and award nominations for each release, as well as the Royal Philharmonic Society's prestigious Young Artist of the Year accolade. Now he turns to the music of J. S. Bach, with three works whose obscure early performance history belies their status as repertoire staples for modern guitarists.

US dark melodic metal masters WITHERFALL release “Nocturnes and Requiems” on November 2nd, 2018. “A Prelude To Sorrow is a concept record, though not in the sense that most people have come to know the form. Ours is not a story where each song acts as a chapter. These songs are raw emotional reflections, composed in the witching hours under the influence of wine and sorrow, while watching and helping our friend fight and ultimately lose his battle with Lymphoma. Nocturnes and Requiems was dedicated to Adam after the fact. A Prelude to Sorrow is written specifically about his and our personal tragedy. The titles initials are an acronym for “Adam Paul Sagan”, He came up with Nocturnes and Requiems so we suppose it is kind of fitting that he also inspired this title. Hope he doesn’t come knocking on our door for royalties. We hope that this will be a fitting requiem for our friend and talented musician.”

Jack McDuff Big Band - Prelude (2003) {Prestige PRCD-24283-2 rec 1963-66}
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© 1963-66, 2003 Prestige / Fantasy | PRCD-24283-2
Jazz / Hard Bop / Soul Jazz / Organ

Prelude was a successful match of McDuff's small-combo organ jazz with big band arrangements by Benny Golson. In part, that was because the blend was well-executed, never fighting with or drowning out McDuff's organ. But it was also because the mixture made it stand out amidst the scads of organ jazz records being churned out in the early '60s. While a very young George Benson was in the core quartet on guitar, a dozen others supplemented the players, including trumpets, trombones, French horns, and saxophones.

Karim Shehata - Prélude - Selected Piano Works by Chopin, Rachmaninov, Debussy, Blumenfeld, Arensky, et al. (2019) {Genuin}
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© 2019 Genuin | GUIN 19653
Classical / Solo Piano

This sensuous and poignant release by pianist Karim Shehata, his second album on the GENUIN label, is more than just a prelude: it is a collection whose pieces flow into each other, comment, prelude and postlude so seamlessly that, without the booklet, it is hard to believe that these are exclusively preludes - pieces conceived as preparation for something essential. The list of composers is a "Who is Who" ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach to Olivier Messiaen. The young and yet already mature Karim Shehata plays all this with such ease and depth that one would like to rank him among the greats! Absolutely recommendable.

This little-known French band from Paris was formed in 1994 by bassist S. Fred, drummer Didier Pegues and keyboardist Philippe Benabes. In September of the same year Pascal Mocaer joins on bass and Fred switches permanently on vocals and keyboards, while Eric Savarino will complete the first line-up on guitars. The following year ADN had a good live activity, performing next to Galaad, Arkham and Cafeine, while in 1996 a sixth member was added, it was female violin player Elise Bruckert. Around this time the band members were feeling mature enough to compose material for their debut album, which was delayed several times due to the numerous line-up changes.

Much worthy English music issues from the atéliers of minor talents and has a cottage or "small beer" quality. Of course "small beer" (locally brewed) can put the grand variety to shame, and so too in music, where dedication within limitation can produce work of exceptional beauty and character. John Ireland is one such (a miniaturist extraordinaire); Gerald Finzi (1901-1957) is another. Finzi, although of Italian-Jewish extraction, was London-born and in many ways more English than his teacher Ralph Vaughan Williams.

2018 was branded as “Gewandhausjahr”: Gewandhausorchester celebrates its 275th birthday and the inauguration of Andris Nelsons as new Gewandhauskapellmeister.

Multiple Grammy Winner Andris Nelsons and his “superb” (The Guardian) Leipzig orchestra continue their acclaimed couplings of Bruckner and Wagner with Symphony No. 6, which Bruckner himself described as his “boldest” and “most brazen”, and Symphony No. 9, which Bruckner struggled with for a total of nine years until his death. The Symphonies are accompanied by the Wagner’s Prelude to his last complete opera, Parsifal, and the lovely Siegfried Idyll.