Hägar Der Schreckliche

The foreboding crawl of the Hammond organ is what made Van Der Graaf Generator one of the darkest and most engrossing of all the early progressive bands. On H to He Who Am the Only One, the brooding tones of synthesizer and oscillator along with Peter Hammil's distinct and overly ominous voice make it one of this British band's best efforts…

Peter Hammill has always had an abiding interest, it seems, in the blurred boundary between the mystical and the scientific, and between the rational and magical mind; this is certainly evident on the debut Van Der Graaf Generator album, even though Hammill had yet to really begin focusing himself on what it was that was driving him (despite the fact that the band's very name referenced a device that resembles a bastard mix of scientific apparatus and shamanic totem)…

Van Der Graaf Generator's third album, Pawn Hearts was also its second most popular; at one time this record was a major King Crimson cult item due to the presence of Robert Fripp on guitar, but Pawn Hearts has more to offer than that. The opening track, "Lemmings," calls to mind early Gentle Giant, with its eerie vocal passages (including harmonies) set up against extended sax, keyboard, and guitar-driven instrumental passages, and also with its weird keyboard and percussion interlude, though this band is also much more contemporary in its focus than Gentle Giant…

Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (Dearest Jesus, my desire), BWV 32, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed the dialogue cantata (Concerto in Dialogo) in Leipzig for the first Sunday after Epiphany and first performed it on 13 January 1726 as part of his third cantata cycle.

This is an exceptionally accomplished debut recording from cellist Laura van der Heijden, winner of BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2012. It includes Soviet composers’ irritated and defiant responses to the Communist regime’s 1948 decree on what they could write. Prokofiev’s 1949 Sonata is a blistering, angry work, performed here with passion and guts. Myaskovsky’s 1948 Sonata, which, ironically, went on to win the Stalin Prize, harks back to the Romantic age—the richness and depth of van der Heijden’s tone is a thing to behold. The final, melancholy Lyadov Prelude is an aching portrait of Russian despair.