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After nearly three decades spent perfecting her multilayered harmony techniques and range of styles as a jingle singer, vocalist for Adiemus and session artist for the likes of George Michael, David Bowie, Tina Turner, and Seal, Miriam Stockley emerges with her debut solo recording, Miriam. An amalgamation of African inspired pop, Celtic folksiness, and classically tinged commercial pop, Miriam is a selection of strongly focused vocals embedded in a tapestry of curiously effective composition. Strings swell and swirl round the singer's potent vocals, reed instruments slice through the smooth flow of keyboards, drums and penny whistle set place and mood. Indicative of what is right with both adult contemporary pop and multiethnic easy listening, Miriam steers clear of easy categorization while remaining familiar enough to be commercially viable.

The young Austrian soprano Miriam Feuersinger presents her debut CD accompanied by the Capricornus Consort Basel with a selection of several cantatas by the Kapellmeister at the Darmstadt court. With the agreeable timbre of her easily appealing voice, she succeeds wonderfully in recreating the appropriate tone of Graupner's sensuous cantata style. As with those of Bach, the cantatas of Graupner aim to stir the listener, but without sacrificing intellectual elegance or even the composure fitting for a predominantly courtly community. Unlike the confidently catchy Telemann, Graupner prefers a refined and subtle elaboration that audibly reckons with skilful interpreters and always seeks to move the listener. Despite all these advantages, the discographical exploration of Graupner's over 1400 cantatas has only just begun.

Despite the new attention given to the music of Clara Schumann, and the fact that her husband not only encouraged but actually goaded her as a song composer, Clara Schumann's lieder remain underrepresented on recordings. This release from the German audiophile label MDG, featuring one female and one male singer, is one of the few complete sets of her songs available, and perhaps the only one where each song is sung in its original key. The complete cycle is a recommended way to hear her songs, for they come from various parts of her career and offer insights into her creative development, both as tied to Robert Schumann and as separate from him.

Zenzile Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop, jazz, and world music, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.

A repertoire gap provided the impetus for a genuine new discovery: there is plenty of repertoire for the flute from the Baroque period and again since the 20th century. However, the productive Romantic era treated this instrument somewhat neglected. The Terragni/Sarasin duo wanted to remedy the situation and resorted to the tried and tested means of adaptation, which has been common in music for centuries. The object of the adaptation to the flute was not a well-known work, but a real trouvaille: the violin sonata by the composer Emilie Mayer, who was sometimes described in her time (although much younger) as the “female Beethoven”. Only a few interventions in the original text were necessary to make this energetic work appear in a new guise. The sonata is complemented by an original suite by Laura Netzel, who is also little known today, and several smaller pieces by the two female composers, which once again impressively prove what repertoire treasures there still are to be unearthed off the beaten track.

The outstanding musical significance of Johann Rosenmüller, who was said to be able to merge Italian sensuality and German “gravitas” in his compositions in the most harmonious way, was already undisputed among his contemporaries. He studied in Leipzig, and quite soon the town council realized that he was a musician of an immense talent. Rosenmüller therefore received a position at the famous Leipzig Thomasschule, and was considered as the future successor of the ill Thomaskantor, Tobias Michael.