le Concert 2009

French progressive group Nemo has finally arrived, proposing a contemporary slice of modern prog that has "today" stamped all over it , dealing with the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. These 4 stellar musicians have expanded their craft into a completely new transformation, fusing the classic recipes of past references (yeah Rush is a strong one) with a sound of their own, a heady mix of jazz, power-rock with tons of Middle Eastern motifs and a manic euphoria that exudes charming confidence…

The master of the piano must surely be Frédéric Chopin. Every one of his compositions includes the piano in some form, yet within his oeuvre there is still an exciting variety of music to be found. Chopin made the solo piano form into an art, extensively developing various styles – including the piano sonata, waltz, polonaise and impromptu – and heavily popularising others for the first time, such as the Polish mazurka, the form he often chose to express his nationalism.

It's a tall order to compile the best classical music of the twentieth century, but EMI has selected its top 100 classics for this six-disc set, and it's difficult to argue with most of the choices. Without taking sides in the great ideological debates of the modern era – traditionalist vs. avant-garde, tonal vs. atonal, styles vs. schools, and so on – the label has picked the composers whose reputations seem most secure at the turn of the twenty-first century and has chosen representative excerpts of their music. Certainly, the titans of modernism are here, such as Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Béla Bartók, Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergey Prokofiev, Claude Debussy, and Benjamin Britten, to name just a few masters, but they don't cast such a large shadow that they eclipse either their more backward-looking predecessors or their more experimental successors.

This highly accessible, colourful and melodic music is here interpreted by the Tapiola Sinfonietta under Jean-Jacques Kantorow, a team whose previous recordings on BIS have been enthusiastically received by the reviewers. A disc of works by Saint-Saëns was for instance described as ‘a smorgasbord of distinctive orchestral colours’ in Classic FM Magazine and was a finalist in the Gramophone Awards 2007.

2009 Marks The 111th Anniversary Of Deutsche Grammophon. Over 11 Decades, The Label's Philosophy Has Always Been 'The Greatest Recordings By The Greatest Artists In The World' And Now They Showcase This With This Incredible 55 Cd Box Set. This Unique Collection Forms Dg's Major Release In Its 111th Anniversary Celebrations. The Limited Edition Box Set Gathers Together Many Landmark Recordings, From The Past To The Present. Most Of Them Appear Complete, As Originally Programmed, In Their Original Cover Art And Several Include Additional Material. It Is A True Library Of Music, Artists And Recordings Extending From Abbado To Zimerman, Monteverdi To P„rt, Furtw„ngler To Dudamel– There's Never Been Anything Quite Like It Before. The Opulent Deluxe Box With Hinged Lid Opens Up To Reveal The Neatly Stacked Contents Of 51 'Original Jacket' Albums And 150-Page Booklet.

Toto were formed in LA in the late 70’s by a group of friends who were all much in demand session musicians. They went on to epitomize the classic American pop/rock sound of the 80’s and 90’s with hit albums and singles including Hold The Line, Africa, I’ll Be Over You and the multi-Grammy winning worldwide hit Rosanna. This concert was recorded at Le Zenith in Paris in March 2007 in front of a wildly enthusiastic sell-out crowd. It captures the band rocking at their hardest and most powerful and giving a new life to all their best loved tracks.