David Tell

For the first time in nearly five years, David Gilmour has released a new solo song. It’s called Yes, I Have Ghosts. The acoustic guitar-driven track was initially released as part of an audiobook edition of Polly Samson’s A Theatre for Dreamers. It’s the first new music from the former Pink Floyd musician since his critically acclaimed 2015 studio album Rattle That Lock. Because the three-minute, 45 second tune was also inspired by her best-selling literary fiction novel, the lyrics were penned by Samson too — who also happens to be Gilmour’s wife. On top of Samson’s lyricism and Gilmour’s voice and guitar work, the couple’s youngest child, daughter Romany Gilmour, is featured on Yes, I Have Ghosts too.

David Zinman’s account of the Fourth Symphony is fleet and mercurial, as compelling a case as we have for honouring Beethoven’s fast metronome markings and, in the finale, bursting with unforced vitality (though without undermining the power of those crucial sforzando semiquavers at bar 66). Freshly revealed detail includes energetic semiquavers among second violins 2'28'' into the Allegro vivace (rarely as clear on rival versions) and held forte horns at 3'58'' into the Adagio, at the point where trenchant descending sforzando chords intensify the mood.

The album companion to the critically acclaimed film by Brett Morgen. Features unheard versions, live tracks and mixes created exclusively for the film.

Ackles' self-titled debut LP introduced a singer/songwriter quirky even by the standards of Elektra records, possibly the most adventurous independent label of the 1960s. Ackles was a pretty anomalous artist of his time, with a low, grumbling voice that was uncommercial but expressive, and similar to Randy Newman's. As a composer, Ackles bore some similarities to Newman, as well in his downbeat eccentricity and mixture of elements from pop, folk, and theatrical music. All the same, this impressive maiden outing stands on its own, though comparisons to Brecht/Weill (in the songwriting and occasional circus-like tunes) and Tim Buckley (in the arrangements and phrasing) hold to some degree too. This is certainly his most rock-oriented record, courtesy of the typically tasteful, imaginative Elektra arrangements, particularly with Michael Fonfara's celestial organ and the ethereal guitar riffs (which, again, recall those heard on Buckley's early albums).

La straniera was Bellini’s fourth opera, first performed at La Scala in February 1829. During the composer’s lifetime, and for a few years after his death in 1835, it enjoyed considerable international success, though contemporary reviewers were sometimes hostile, criticising its lack of set-piece arias and complaining of the “continual interruptions” to the musical line. It is this that strikes the modern listener as one of the most interesting aspects of the score.

At 16 cuts, this Greatest Hits collection from the inimitable David Lee Roth is four short of 1998's Best, but with the exception of fan favorite "Ladies' Nite in Buffalo?," all of Diamond Dave's best post-Van Halen hits are accounted for…

You'd get differing answers to the question of whether John Adams is America's greatest living composer, but he's the one to whom the country turned in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The demand for new work from him has only increased since he achieved senior citizen status. Fortunately, he's been able to meet that demand with distinctive large-scale works. Consider 2016's Scheherazade.2, recorded here by the violinist who premiered the work, Leila Josefowicz, with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under David Robertson. The piece succeeds on several levels. It is, outwardly, as close as Adams has come to writing a big Romantic violin concerto, and it will no doubt be welcomed into the concert repertory as such. Yet go into it more deeply, and it seems less a concerto than – well, what, exactly? Adams calls it a "dramatic symphony." English critic Nick Breckenfield has compared it to Berlioz's Harold in Italy, with the soloist representing an individual making her way through a series of adventures that may have a threatening tinge.