Inganno Roth

Saint-Saëns's first opera, Le Timbre d'argent initially composed in 1864 need not fear comparison with some of the most celebrated works in the nineteenth-century French repertory. It depicts the nightmare of a man whose hallucinations anticipate by twenty years the fantastical apparitions of Offenbach's Les Contes d Hoffmann.

Paris, early Twentieth Century: in the space of three ballets, a previously unknown Russian composer revolutionised the music of his time. With The Firebird and Petrushka, respectively fairytale and folktale, and of course The Rite of Spring, a telluric invocation with its insanely innovative harmonies and rhythms, Stravinsky dynamised the Late Romantic orchestra, taking it to literally unheard-of places.

Rhino released a new David Lee Roth box-set, The Warner Recordings 1985-1994, which features newly remastered versions of the former Van Halen lead singer’s first five solo releases. Roth released his debut EP, Crazy From The Heat while still a member of Van Halen. Consisting of cover versions, it was a hit, reaching number 15 on the Billboard 200. Following on from this success, David Lee Roth departed Van Halen in the summer of 1985 and his first solo album, Eat ‘Em and Smile, would follow in the July of 1986. More straightforwardly ‘rock’ than his EP, it still retained some of the wide-ranging tastes explored previously, including a cover of Frank Sinatra’s ‘That’s Life’. 1987’s Skyscraper, included the hit ‘Just Like Paradise’ and 1991’s A Little Ain’t Enough continued Roth’s run of success, with another top 20 placement on the Billboard 200. 1994’s Your Filthy Little Mouth was produced by Nile Rogers although the shifting musical landscapes, especially the emergence of grunge, meant Your Filthy Little Mouth would not match the success of Roth’s previous albums, in America. The new box set features the debut EP and the following four albums as a 5CD set in a clamshell box.