Hour Before The Dawn

Challenging Kate Bush and Guns N' Roses for the title of "lengthiest gap between albums," Now Is the Hour is the first offering from American powerhouse Jennifer Rush since 1998's collaboration with the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra, Classics, and her first set of new material since 1997's Credo. Having taken 12 years off to raise her daughter, Rush has assembled a crack team of established European-based hitmakers including Swede Jörgen Eloffson (Leona Lewis, Britney Spears), American country singer/songwriter Sharon Vaughn (Alcazar), and soul-pop songstress Natasha Bedingfield on a record that retains the epic power balladry of her mid-'80s heyday while also pursuing a previously unexplored dance-pop direction similar to Cher's fifty-something disco diva re-invention a decade earlier.

This compilation covers 20 years of live recordings made by conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky and the then-named Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra for Erato. Mravinsky led that orchestra for nearly 50 years, from 1938 until his death. His last recording was that of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 12, made in 1984, found on Disc 3 here. His interpretations of Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky were highly regarded, so it's not surprising that several of their symphonies are here. There are also symphonies by Mozart and Beethoven in this set; tone poems by Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky; and orchestral excerpts from operas by Wagner, Glinka, and Glazunov. The final disc contains a rare recording of a rehearsal led by Mravinsky, something few outsiders were ever allowed to witness. Even though he was an elder statesman of Russian music at the time of these recordings, there is still precision and energy in his interpretations.

For the first time, Little Steven’s music from the ground-breaking first original series, Lilyhammer, which ended in 2014, has been collected together and will be released as two separate albums – Lilyhammer The Score – Volume 1: Jazz and Volume 2: Folk, Rock, Rio, Bits And Pieces – on CD, digital and 180g black vinyl on 12 July via Wicked Cool/UMe.