ohann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708-1763), was born in Silesia (then under Austria, but Prussia from 1742 and now part of Poland) and followed a normal career path for a musician in Mitteleuropa, culminating as contraviolonist in the Royal Orchestra of the Court of Prussia from 1736 until his death in 1763. Janitsch also composed ballet music for the Royal Court Opera), rehearsed the opera chorus, and composed music for the balls held at the opera house during carnival-time. Janitsch was also called on to participate in the intimate concerts that took place in the king’s private apartments at Sanssouci, alongside a number of instrumentalist-composers including C.Ph.E. Bach and Johann Joachim Quantz.

Ferdinand Ries presents himself as a master of chamber music with the three extraordinarily imaginatively composed works on Vol. 3 of our edition of his complete works for flute and strings. On the one hand he is firmly rooted in the tradition of his great classical models. On the other hand he takes the step to a poetic musical worldview that by no means corresponded to the mainstream between 1815 and 1830. Some time before Novalis had written: "The world must be romanticized."

Bach contemporaries such as Jan Zelenka (1679-1745) and Johann Pisendel (1687-1755), both of whom spent most of their creative lives at the Dresden court, are enjoying a well-deserved period of “discovery”–and so is Johann Schein (1586-1630), a less-interesting contemporary of Bach’s most illustrious predecessor, Heinrich Schütz, who preceded Bach as Kantor in Leipzig by a little more than a century. Schein’s primary claim to importance is his incorporation of Italian madrigal style into Lutheran church music. But it’s also clear that he was influenced by the big block-chord sound and antiphonal choir scoring favored by Gabrieli and similarly employed by Schütz.

Signum s third disc with the Philharmonia Orchestra and their Principal Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen is drawn again from their celebrated Vienna: City of Dreams series of 2008-9. The Ninth symphony is often interpreted as a farewell to the world, in part because Mahler never had the chance to hear it performed. As one critic wrote, If you want to learn to weep, you should listen to the first movement of the Ninth, the great, magnificent song of ultimate farewell . Other releases this year with the Philharmonia orchestra will include Mahler s Sixth Symphony with Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Mahler s Fourth Symphony with Sir Charles Mackerras.

By 1968, Norwegian jazz singer Karin Krog was already an international star. She had already won her country's most prestigious jazz award, the Buddy, had performed in the U.S. with Claire Fischer and Don Ellis, and had won a Talent Deserving Wider Recognition award in the 1966 Down Beat poll. She had also recorded three albums under her own name by this time. The recording of Joy with then-young lions Arild Andersen on bass, Svein (Jon) Christensen on drums, saxophonist Jan Garbarek, pianist Terje Bjorklund and percussionist Espen Rud signified a change in direction, from her previously straight swing and bop performance method. The set opens provocatively, even shockingly for the time with Annette Peacock's "Mr. Joy," a paean to a personal "toy" driven by Bjorklund's modal piano…

Nova was formed in early 1975 in Helsinki. Most of the band members had played together earlier in a band called Isojako, which apparently played more pop-orientated music. From the start, Nova's main figure was Antti Ortamo who was the main composer, lyricist and also played keyboards and sang for the band. In february 1976 Nova started recording their debut "Atlantis" in Stockholm, Sweden. The music on this album will probably remind you of Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Wigwam, perhaps even Eloy and Yes at times. It's not the most innovative album to walk the earth, but it's a nice effort full of warm keyboard sounds and atmospheres.
First CD of this double disc set has the original version of the album, just as released in 1976. Second disc contains the brand new mix with bonus track plus the band's only single "Käytävä / Kaupungin naiset"…

my bloody valentine, the quartet of Bilinda Butcher, Kevin Shields, Deb Googe and Colm Ó Cíosóig, are widely revered as one of the most ground-breaking and influential groups of the past forty years. During an era in which guitar bands denoted, at best, a retro-classicism, not only did my bloody valentine sound unlike any of their contemporaries, the band achieved the rare feat of sounding like the future.

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds are back after a five-year break with their new album Wild God! Across ten tracks, the band dances between convention and experimentation, taking left turns and detours that enhance the rich imagery and emotion in Cave's heartfelt narratives. There are moments that fondly recall the Bad Seeds' past, but they are fleeting and only serve to add another facet to the band's relentless and restless forward momentum. Nick Cave says of the album: "It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it. It's a complicated record, but it's also deeply and joyously infectious."

Frank Quasar is a Belgian composer, living and working in Oostende (Westcoast). His musical formation was accomplished after a study of 5 years at the Music Academy of Oostende, later on complemented by several studies for composition. Since 1975, he was passionately interested in the electronic music scene and in the fast development of synthesisers.
His first solo LP "Dusk" was released in April 1988 and there were several presentations of other compositions in the weekly broadcasted programs "Maneuvers in het donker" and "De gewapende man" (Belgian National Radio).
Frank Quasar composes music for films, video and theatre and he produced several compositions for the biennial Benelux Video- and Shortfilmfestival at Oostende…

Christa Ludwig was a German dramatic mezzo-soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, Lieder, oratorio, and other major religious works like masses and passions, and solos contained in symphonic literature. Her career spanned from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. She is widely recognised as one of the most significant and distinguished singers of the 20th century.