The Grosses Festpielhaus in Salzburg has been the scene of countless memorable musical events - operas, concerts and recitals - for 50 years. Here is a unique chance to celebrate the glories of this distinguished era. In an exceptional collaboration with the Salzburg Festival, we have prepared a 25-CD box set - 5 complete operas, 10 concerts and 2 recitals - featuring many of the world's greatest artists, in recordings with classical status and others that are appearing on CD for the first time. Concerts (five out of ten are first-time releases): with Abbado, Bernstein, B hm, Boulez, Karajan, Levine, Mehta, Muti, Solti. Soloists include Anne-Sophie Mutter and Jessye Norman.

With Night Passages Martin Fröst fuses a centuries-spanning selection of music, from the famous to the rare, into highly original arrangements for clarinet, bass and piano. With his unusual ensemble he touches the genre of jazz, folk and turns traditional Baroque favorites by Bach, Scarlatti, Handel and Rameau into original arrangements. He also sends greetings from his home country, Sweden, with music by Romantic composer Hugo Alfvén and the traditional Polska from Dorotea. Martin Fröst is widely recognized as an artist who constantly seeks new ways to shape, challenge and rebuild the classical music arena and, together with Miles Davis, the only wind soloist to have received one of the world's highest music honors; the Léonie Sonning Music Prize.

Nephew is a Danish Orchestra formed in 1996 in Aarhus, Denmark. The band consists of Simon Kvamm (lead vocals, keyboards, songwriting), Kristian Riis (guitar, backing vocals), Søren Arnholt (drums, backing vocals), Kasper Toustrup (bass guitar), René Munk Thalund (keyboards), and Marie Højlund (vocals, keyboards, guitar).

The Soundboard Series focuses on the last three decades of concerts around the world. While some of the shows were previously available as rare and limited fan club editions, others are concerts from the artist archive, mixed and mastered for the occasion. In each case, great care is spent to achieve the best audio quality. On “Live In Tokyo 2001” we return to 2001, with Deep Purple touring the far reaches of Asia to ultimately arrive in Tokyo on March 24th for two successive concerts. This live-album brilliantly captures and combines both shows, which are stand-outs in their live-repertoire, into a single album. Deep Purple’s stay in Tokyo is unique thanks to a cooperation with celebrated conductor Paul Mann, the Shin Nihon Philharmonic Select Orchestra and none other than Ronnie James Dio. It contains a full-length rendition of Jon Lord’s masterful three-piece “Concerto”.

Issued in 1959, Howard Roberts' Good Pickin's was his second album for Verve as a leader. It is as straight-up a blowing date as you're likely to find, though it has wonderful harmonic invention thanks to the two arrangers on the date - Bill Holman, who also plays tenor, and Marty Paich. The rest of the date is rounded out by pianist Pete Jolly, bassist Red Mitchell, and drummer Stan Levey. The tunes range from standards like "All the Things You Are" and "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" to straight-up bebop in Charlie Parker's "Relaxin' at Camarillo" and George Wallington's "Godchild." The lone original on the set, which closes the album, is Roberts' "Terpsichore." It is also the longest on the platter. It's a slow blues that's unimaginative but allows everyone in the band to blow…

Originally publised as a double album including his '83 concert as well, now it's released as a single edition with remastered sound. This is the album with '87 performance of Dio at Castle Donington. It was recorded when Dream Evil went out so almost all the songs are from Dio's band unlike the '83 release with a lot of material from Black Sabbath and Rainbow.

This disc, recorded live toward the end of Jacqueline du Pré's grievously short career, displays both her irresistible magic–the sumptuous, warm tone, the spontaneous immediacy of expression, the technical and emotional risk-taking born of total faith in her talent and musical instincts–and her unbridled excesses: the liberties, the extreme tempi and tempo changes, the passionate abandon, the incessant slow, sentimental slides.

This unique album is a wonderful snapshot of American jazz in an orchestral setting. Most classical music aficionados are familiar with George Gershwin and his works such as Rhapsody in Blue, but there are also a number of less-famous composers who wrote around the same time who are no less brilliant. These composers also interacted with and influenced each other. For example, James Price Johnson also wrote a rhapsody, entitled Yamekraw, Negro Rhapsody, which is a sophisticated work full of tempo changes, varied rhythms, and various moods and character. (William Grant Still orchestrated this piece.) Yamekraw swings and is syncopated, giving it a very dancelike feel, and the Hot Springs Music Festival Symphony Orchestra does an excellent job bringing the music alive without ever making it rigid. Not only do it play beautifully on this first piece, but also through the rest of the album, where it truly captures all the moods jazz pieces require while never losing strong classical technique. It is much to conductor Richard Rosenberg's credit that all of the pieces have energy and good musical taste.