On 5 April 1784 Joseph Haydn wrote to the Viennese music publishers Artaria and Co accepting an offer of three hundred florins for a set of new string quartets, which he thought would be finished that July. In fact Artaria had to wait three years, until July 1787, before they received all six of the set that was to become known as Opus 50.
Virile, colourful performances … sharply responsive to the music's robust earthiness and gleeful unpredictability. On 3 December 1781 Joseph Haydn dictated to his secretary a round robin letter inviting subscriptions to a new set of string quartets. The new Quartets, now know as Opus 33, were dedicated to the Russian Grand Duke Pavel Petrowich (1754-1801), hence their collective nickname. Opus 33 was a great success for Haydn. It was rapidly taken up and re-published in other European capitals, by Hummel in Berlin, by Schmitt in Amsterdam, by Napier and Forster in London, by Guera in Lyons, and by Le Menu and Boyer and then by Sieber in Paris.
Three slices of work from the Sun Ra Arkestra – all recorded at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto in 1978, and presented here as a massive 10 CD package! The format is great – as the set offers up the full concert performance from each night, not just a handful of songs – and each date in the package is represented with 3CDs of music, so that together the whole thing spans almost 8 hours in length! Performances are from March 13, September 27, and November 4, 1978 – and the set also features a bonus CD that includes a 1968 interview on WBAI. And the recording quality is great!
Although Funk Fantastique is a somewhat thrown-together affair, the music presented on the album represents solid work by organist/keyboardist Charles Earland and company. The material at the center of the album (tracks four through seven) was originally released as Charles III in 1972, and the surrounding tracks are previously unreleased. Since the unreleased material comes from two different sessions, three different ensembles grace Funk Fantastique.
A comprehensive collection of recordings of the music of Johann Strauss, almost all of them come from a Japanese collector, Mayumi Cho, who began collecting all recordings of Johann Strauss' music just after the war. His collection exceeds 700 discs with no fewer than 100 versions of An der schönen blauen Donau.
Veteran Swedish progressive rockers The Flower Kings released the first part of a career spanning boxset titled ‘A Kingdom of Colours (1995-2002)’ late last year, covering the period starting with ‘Back in the World of Adventures’ to ‘Unfold the Future’ over the course of 10 discs. Now they are pleased to announce the release of ‘A Kingdom of Colours 2 (2004 – 2013) which covers the albums from ‘Adam & Eve’ to ‘Desolation Rose’ and also includes 3 discs of bonus material dating back from 1995. As with the first part of the boxset, there is a brand new interview with band leader Roine Stolt conducted by journalist Dom Lawson (The Guardian, Prog Magazine), giving a history of this period of the band’s existence.