Classical Greats

Under one cover collection compilers gathered the greatest composers of all the classics I have never seen such a comprehensive, coherent, astonishing album of classical music like this. I think that the most passionate plays the greatest composers in the history enrich your rainy night for more than 3.5 hours without faltering on any note.

We announce the release of Christian Löffler’s album Parallels: Shellac Reworks as part of the DG initiative The Shellac Project. The German conceptual artist and composer reworks tracks by some of the greatest composers who ever lived, including J.S. Bach, Beethoven and Chopin and steps away from well-trodden paths to create his own interpretations of classical greats, opening up a welcome dialogue between past and present. Christian Löffler has become internationally renowned for his strain of emotional electronic music, and in bringing these illustrious composers into his realm he is not only paying tribute to them but also re-inserting their music into contemporary discourse: “I hope my interpretations reach out to people who wouldn’t usually listen to the old masters. There is so much strength, youth and wildness inside this timeless music.”

From Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin to Mahler and Bartok, European classical music has been a source of inspiration to numerous jazz musicians. The 19th Century compositions of the Strauss family are the subject of All That Strauss, which documents a New Year's 2000 concert by the Vienna Art Orchestra–one of Europe's most adventurous big bands. It is quite appropriate that this Strauss tribute concert was performed in Vienna and that the orchestra has Vienna in its name; for many classical greats have lived in Austria's largest city, including Johann and Eduard Strauss. While the Vienna Art Orchestra's love of the Strauss legacy is obvious, the band doesn't treat its compositions like museum pieces. Instead, time-honored compositions like "Donauwalzer," "Albion Polka," "Ein Morgen, ein Mittag, ein Abend in Wien" and "Lagunen Walzer" are given serious jazz makeovers, and arranger Mathias Rüegg sees to it that the orchestra takes a lot of chances with the material.

Some artists like to signal their pretension in a subtle way - James Murphy with his “Hello Steve Reich” remix of David Bowie’s “Love Is Lost”, for example. Others, however, just can’t help themselves. Chilly Gonzales (A.K.A Jason Beck) might be fall into the latter camp. His 2015 album, Chambers, has been in gestation since Solo Piano II, the sequel to the acclaimed - and innovatively named - Solo Piano I. This LP is similarly literally titled, as it is, in essence, a 12-track suite for a chamber ensemble - string quartet and piano, to be precise.
If you know anything about our man Gonzales, though, you'll know that things are never quite what they appear when he's around. All genres are permeable for this man: from the '90s indie-rock stylings of his first project Son to the Manic, and surreal rap of The Entertainist, he's pretty much tried it all…

The expanded 3-CD follow up to the iconic now out of print 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t be Wrong compilation, now features songs right up to the groups last album.

Claude Bolling is a classical pianist who demonstrated an affinity for jazz with numerous recordings in crossover settings. But this 1972 session recorded for Phillips is strictly a solo piano affair in which Bolling salutes the greats of jazz piano, including Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Thelonious Monk, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Jelly Roll Morton, Earl Hines, Erroll Garner, and Horace Silver. He primarily sticks to a stride piano setting, which gives a whole new flavor to Silver's "The Preacher," while his interpretations of the works of stride pianists like Smith are technically polished but seem just a tad mechanical, lacking a true improviser's touch…