Andrea Pirlo4

Born in Bologna, Giovanni Battista Vitali (1632–1692) spent all his life between his birth city and Modena, where he moved in 1674. There is something noteworthy in this geography of the composer: Vitali’s move from Bologna, then part of the Papal States under the administration of Rome, to the smaller but significantly more secular and artistically stimulating Modena, under the rule of the splendid Este family, is suggestive of a desire to achieve greater expressive freedom. All composers must tackle the dilemmas of their times, and Vitali’s legacy is his ability to use his great skill to achieve that ideal synthesis between tradition and innovation.

"Serenade to the Dawn" is an SACD release featuring works by Burkhard, Haug, Rodrigo, Bozza, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Villa-Lobos. Andrea Lieberknecht and Frank Bungarten present some of the most enthralling compositions of the twentieth century for flute and guitar. Beautifully recorded and finely played, this is something new and exciting from MDG.

It’s easy to identify the classical guitar with Spanish repertoire. After all, Andrés Segovia, who revived the fortunes of the instrument in the early decades of the 20th century after long neglect, was a Spaniard. This does not do justice, however, to the major contribution made to 20th-century guitar repertoire by a number of national schools, among which the United Kingdom’s is particularly outstanding for the quantity and quality of the pieces. This album offers a significant sample of music for solo guitar by four important composers: Cyril Scott, Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten and William Walton.

A unique concept: the complete piano music by Petrassi and Dallapiccola on 2 CDs.

Amore is the eleventh studio album by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, released on 31 January 2006, for the Valentine's Day season. This album features a remake of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love"; "Because We Believe", the closing song of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, which Bocelli wrote and performed; "Somos Novios (It's Impossible), a duet with American pop singer Christina Aguilera; and his first recording of Bésame Mucho, which eventually became one of his signature songs. Amore debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, which at the time was Bocelli's highest chart position in America yet. It went on to sell 1.66 million copies in the United States and was certified Platinum. Bocelli was the seventh best-selling artist of 2006, in the United States, and was also certified Gold and Platinum in several other counties.

If the little world of jazz wasn't exactly slow to pick up on the outstanding talent of Andrea Motis — the great Quincy Jones in person told us all about her in 2012 when she was 17 (he'd invited her on stage at the Barcelona Festival) — there's no question that the 2017 release of Emotional Dance, her first real album as a leader on the prestigious Impulse! label, suddenly took the career of this young Catalan singer-trumpeter into another dimension altogether.