Maxim 2009 May

Kick Off Your Muddy Boots (1975). Founder member and drummer of The Moody Blues, Graeme Edge recorded this classic album in 1975 whilst the Moody Blues were on a sabbatical. Teaming up with Adrian and Paul Gurvitz as the core of his band, Kick Off Your Muddy Boots was a fine effort (cited by some as the finest solo album by any Moody Blues member of the 1970's) and featured a guest appearance by ginger baker on the song Gew Janna Woman. Unavailable on CD for many years, this Esoteric Recordings release has been re-mastered from the original master tapes and includes the non-album track We Like To Do It (issued as a single in 1975) as a bonus track…

Fedotov studied at the Special Music School in Leningrad and then at the Moscow Conservatory. As well as his career as a soloist, he has also been chief conductor of the Russian Symphony Orchestra (2003–2005), artistic director and chief conductor of the Moscow City Symphony Orchestra – Russian Philharmonic Orchestra from 2006 until December 2010, professor of the Moscow Conservatory since 1987, and professor and head of Department of Violin and Viola of the Gnessin-Academia of Music from 2003 until 2008.

This collection of vocal and orchestral works by Benjamin Britten span his career, from Two Portraits for string orchestra, written when he was 16, to the solo cantata, Phaedra, one of his last completed works. The music varies in style but even the earliest pieces sound mature and demonstrate the composer's early mastery of his craft. Phaedra, from 1975, sets a selection of monologues from Racine's play that outline the dilemma of the queen who falls in love with her husband's son from an earlier marriage.

Arabella Steinbacher has previously released a number of recordings on the Orfeo label, with both Shostakovich concertos, and those by Berg, Beethoven, Khatchaturian and Milhaud already under her belt. She now appears on the SACD specialist Pentatone label, perhaps taking over the baton from Julia Fischer after her move to Decca.