Sept 2023

Haydn's "The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross", originally written for orchestra, has undergone numerous adaptations, from oratorio to string quartet. Benoît Haller and Guillaume Humbrecht now present a version for string and vocal quartet. The new arrangement required some changes in the vocal parts, as well as the transcription of the second introduction for string quartet instead of wind ensemble. The eight musicians of the Chapelle Rhénane and the Quatuor 1781 perform the transparent "new creation" with great enthusiasm and attention to detail.

4CD 89 track clam shell box set contains all that Punk legends Chelsea recorded during their time with the seminal Step Forward Records between 1977-82. Including BBC sessions, a superb In Concert recording and all of their Step Forward singles. Plus demos and monitor mixes.

This CD brings together for the first time three major Lyonnais composers of the late 19th and 20th centuries through more than thirty short vocal or instrumental pieces with contrasting and sometimes surprising aesthetics and musical languages.

Die erste Trio-Aufnahme von Victoria Shereshevskaya (Mezzosopran), Alexandra Soumm (Violine) und Rémi Geniet (Klavier) enthält Werke, die in ihrer Atmosphäre weit voneinander entfernt sind, aber alle von einem universellen Gedankengut geprägt sind, das russische, indische und französische Dichter, volkstümliche und gelehrte Musik miteinander verbindet, und ist ein Album von einzigartiger Farb- und Ausdrucksvielfalt.

The soprano Kathrin Hottiger and her accompanist Edward Rushton have dedicated their new album to the much-sung about earth satellite.

Joni Mitchell's ongoing Archives series has been an overwhelming success and the third volume somehow manages to outdo its predecessors. Where Volume 1 gave a raw, warts-and-all look at a developing talent wrestling with her creative identity and Volume 2 showed that talent operating at an astonishingly high level, Volume 3 documents Mitchell's transition from a truly gifted artist pushing the boundaries of the rock-culture zeitgeist into a mad genius staking her own sonic territories. This set, probably more than any other that has been or will be part of this series, is dynamic and revelatory, like pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz and finding an actual wizard doing real wizardry. While Vol. 3 falls short of giving blow-by-blow documentation of the incredible studio-as-an-instrument work Mitchell did to transform For the Roses, Court and Spark, and—most triumphantly—The Hissing of Summer Lawns from jazz-inflected pop-folk records into towering artistic statements (most of the songs here are presented in either spare embryonic versions or funky, recalibrated live takes, with little middle ground).

Joni Mitchell's ongoing Archives series has been an overwhelming success and the third volume somehow manages to outdo its predecessors.

Bruce Springsteen once said he intended to make an album with words like Bob Dylan that sounded like Phil Spector where he sang like Roy Orbison, a nifty summary of many, but not all, of his artistic ambitions and a key to his appeal. Unlike any other singer/songwriters saddled with the appellation of "the new Dylan" in the early '70s, Springsteen never hid how he was raised on '60s AM radio. He loved rock & roll, whether it was the initial blast from the '50s or the mini-symphonies from the days before the Beatles or the garage rockers that surfaced in the wake of the British Invasion, and all this could be heard within his wild, wooly collective E Street Band, a group who debuted on his second album, 1973's The Wild The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, and who would support him throughout most of his career.