Originally released in 1982 by Arista in the U.K. and reissued on CD by the Dutch Disky imprint in 2001, Celebration serviceably culls some of the better moments from Simple Minds' first three albums: 1979's Life in a Day and Reel to Real Cacophony and 1980's Empires and Dance. Given the sadly neglected status of the band's early catalog – meaning anything that was released prior to 1982's breakthrough New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) – through the early 2000s, it is doubly unfortunate that a compilation like this remained out of print for an extended period of time.

The young Argentine cellist Sol Gabetta has emerged at the top of the heap with some speed in the 2010s. She merits the double greatest-hits album represented by this release, and it will be welcomed by listeners who haven't quite focused on her meteoric career. You get only one full-scale concerto, but it's a good one: Gabetta has a real way with Elgar, and the compilers did well to feature his music on most of disc one. You get the fresh interpretations of repertory recital and encore pieces that have really endeared Gabetta to ordinary concertgoers. Sample the marvelous Fauré Pavane, Op. 50, an excellent example of how with Gabetta, less is often more.

Sol Gabetta has established herself as one of the most promising cellists to emerge in the first decade of the 21st century, with a substantial international career as a soloist and with a growing number of recordings. While she has drawn most attention for her performances of the standard concerto and chamber music repertoire, she has also championed contemporary works by composers as diverse as Takemitsu, Ligeti, Gubaidulina, Rihm, and Vasks.

Few people nowadays seriously believe Vivaldi wrote the same concerto five hundred times. But the view that there is little variety in Vivaldi's oeuvre is still widely held. Louis T. Vatoison, in the programme notes to this recording, has a strongly different perception: "a Vivaldi concerto must (…) be seen as an individual 'snapshot', whose instrumental layout or formal structure implicitly reveal at what period, and sometimes even for whom it was written". The music on this disc gives ample evidence for this view.

First released in 1999, this well-played, superbly-recorded album makes a near-perfect single-disc introduction to the music of Einojuhanni Rautavaara (1928-2016), not only the most significant Finnish composer after Sibelius, but very probably among the finest of all later-twentieth century masters. Rautavaara is undoubtedly the greatest composer most people have never heard of, and that's a shame, though, one might hope, records such as this will go some way towards remedying so glaring an injustice.

An important part of European music at the time of the Renaissance was the art of varfattsn. One need only recall the virtoostic art of ornamentatioo practised in Italy, or Spanish composers such as Cahezon, Milan, Mudarra or Ortia, with their diferencias, recercaden and glosas. The sources were very often folksongs and folk dances, from whose originally improvised accompaniments instrumental forms developed, such as diferencias over well-known folk tones, or variations based on dance forms, like the pavan, passamezzo or the follia, among others.

The Hungarian Failoni chamber orchestra was established in 1981. On this CD and its companion volume they give their interpretations of a representative sample of Vivaldi's oboe concertos (Vivaldi wrote about 20 concertos for oboe and strings, several more for two oboes and strings, in addition to concertos where oboe is combined with other solistic instruments). On volume one, three of the concertos are scored for two oboes. As with most other Naxos recordings of Vivaldi's concertos, the interpretations are lively and musical. Some of the concertos demand virtuosic skills from the players, which the two oboists here, Stefan Chilli and Diethelm Jonas, are able to fulfil with flags wawing.

Ilya Kaler is a Russian virtuoso, a pupil of Leonid Kogan. He's a first-rate fiddler and an excellent musician. Paganini's once fiendish pyrotechnics hold no terrors for him, not even the whistling harmonics, and how nicely he can turn an Italianate lyrical phrase, as in the secondary theme of the first movement of the First Concerto. Then he can set off with panache into a flying staccato, bouncing his bow neatly on the strings when articulating the delicious spiccato finales of both works. Stephen Gunzenhauser launches into the opening movements with plenty of energy and aplomb and is a sympathetic accompanist throughout.

The music of contemporary Lithuanian composer Peteris Vasks has a reputation for depicting nature, a grand tradition in the northern countries, and for creating structure that examine the relationship between nature and human culture. One might also add that from the evidence of the music here, which dates from between 1972 and 2011, Vasks is one of the few composers, in the Baltics or anywhere else, to succeed in gradually moving in the direction of tonal music without a sharp shift in direction. That's a testament to the strength of his musical personality.

For many years, Willi Boskovsky led the Vienna Philharmonic during the famous New Year's concerts. Violinist and conductor, he had this "Viennese Blood" essential to understand the music of Strauss and know how to mark the dynamics in the most accurate way. Although recorded many years ago (60' and 70') the recording was thoroughly remastered, giving us a fresh sound clarity as if it was recorded during last year's New Year's Concert. The CD includes the most famous waltzes by Johann Strauss (the Blue Danube, Emperor Waltz, Tales of the Vienna Woods…), along with 2 other ones written by his younger brother Joseph (Spharenklange and Dorschwalben aus Ostorreich).

Dohnányi's penchant for quality musical entertainment bore popular fruit with his perennially fresh Variations on a Nursery Theme. Howard Shelley's performance is a model of wit and style, blending in with the orchestra whenever the moment seems right and employing an ideal brand of rubato. Bamert's conducting is properly portentous in the Introduction and charming elsewhere, whether in the musicbox delights of the fifth variation, the animated bustle of the sixth or the seventh's novel scoring (plenty for the bassoons and bass drum).

The Columbia Symphony may not have been a first-class orchestra, but Bruno Walter trained them to do the right things, and they responded with first-class accounts of these symphonies. While there are instances of less than crack ensemble, there is also some very fine first-desk playing, and the performances as a whole are marked by a natural feeling of movement, phrasing, and expression. Walter's approach to the music is kindly, caring, and wonderfully whole–sunny but not overly brilliant, warm but not overly heated, sincere but not overly impassioned.

Best known for his Variations on a Nursery Theme for piano and orchestra, the Hungarian composer Ernö von Dohnányi also wrote two published Symphonies, two Piano Concertos and two Violin Concertos, all of which have been undeservedly neglected. The rarely heard Violin Concerto No. 1, notable for its Brahmsian slow movement, combines virtuosity and lyricism. Written in the mould of the great Romantic violin concerto, and with an unmistakably Hungarian flavour, the superbly orchestrated and remarkably inventive Violin Concerto No. 2 (1949-50) is worthy of being ranked alongside the Concertos by Barber and Korngold.

Issued in 2008, this three-disc box set, compiled by Rhino Records and available only at Barnes & Noble, presents the first solo albums released by Peter, Paul & Mary following the famous folk trio’s 1970 break-up. While Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers offered up PETER and MARY, respectively, Noel Paul Stookey cheekily entitled his record PAUL AND, also managing to score a significant hit with the elegant, nuptial-themed “Wedding Song (There Is Love).”

If you've never heard the music of George Crumb before, you are in for a treat. Well, treat may not be exactly the right word; perhaps "an experience" would be a better way to put it. Written in 1970 and 1974, Crumb's Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land for electric string quartet and Makrokosmos III: Music for a Summer Evening for 2 amplified pianos and percussion are the classical music equivalent of psychedelic rock.