Another in the long line of outstanding Bohemian musical families the Bendas were similarly part of the diaspora that saw them moving across the continent in search of court and church appointments to further their careers. The Catholic Frantisek thus acquired a new religion as well as a new name becoming the Protestant Franz Benda. He served in Vienna, Warsaw and Dresden in a rapid space of time before following the Prussian Crown Prince, now King, to Potsdam where he was to remain for the rest of his life, having finally succeeded the court favourite and violinist-Konzertmeister Carl Gottlieb Graun.

The Talich Quartet, complemented here by Jiri Najnar and Vaclav Bernasek, illuminate these chamber music gems in brilliant colors. The string sextet version of Schoenberg's Verkleñrte Nacht (Transfigured Night), which is still bound to the late Romanticism, is a true enrichment to the repertoire.

Paweł Łukaszewski (b. 1968) is possibly the most-performed contemporary composer from Poland. His spiritual choral works are performed by both professional and amateur choirs around the world. Paweł Łukaszewski’s output has a significant position in Great Britain where his works are performed and premiered by renowned London and Cambridge choral ensembles. This new album by the award-winning State Choir LATVIJA under Māris Sirmais includes several world première recordings from the Polish master.

Mathias Rüegg's Vienna Art Orchestra had always been an eclectic bunch, working in the odd jazz or classical cover into its repertoire with some regularity, but for this release, the ensemble went whole hog, leaping into the oeuvre of that grandfather of minimalism, Erik Satie. Originally issued as a two-LP set, every track (save one evocative Gil Evans-y piece by Rüegg) is a Satie composition rearranged, often brilliantly, and generally highlighting two or three individual VAO members. This reductionist technique serves the band well, as it has often had a tendency toward weighty ponderousness. Here, the arrangements are light and linear, affording a supple but transparent platform for the soloists, who are clearly encouraged to venture out into jazzy territory.

Philips's collection of major works that have propelled Gavin Bryars to New Music stardom is an effective overview of his music. The longest work is his Cello Concerto, handsomely played by Julian Lloyd Webber with a big, colorful tone and sustained intensity throughout its contemplative half-hour. A comparable mood pervades the bright tintinnabulating textures of the whimsically titled One Last Bar, Then Joe Can Sing. Similar as well, in their attractive serenity and suppressed sadness, are many of the other works here, prime among them the viola concerto in all but name, The North Shore, a tone painting of the rugged cliffs of northeast England. Adnan Songbook, settings of six poems by Lebanese poet Etel Adnan, are beautifully sung by soprano Valerie Anderson and delicately scored for a small ensemble. Bryars's biggest hits, The Sinking of the Titanic and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, have inspired him to numerous reworkings and capsuled fragments. They're represented by Titanic Lament, depicting a hymn tune dissolving into gray, watery textures, and two very different four-minute versions of Jesus' Blood, both with Tom Waits.

This collection covers Pendergrass' run of big hits from the Philadelphia International era, including "I Don't Love You Anymore," "Close The Door" and "Turn Off The Lights".

What might have been simply seen as an agreeable enough debut album has since become something of a notorious legend because Kraftwerk, or more accurately the core Hütter/Schneider duo at the heart of the band, simply refuses to acknowledge its existence any more. What's clearly missing from Kraftwerk is the predominance of clipped keyboard melodies that later versions of the band would make their own. Instead, Kraftwerk is an exploratory art rock album with psych roots first and foremost, with Conny Plank's brilliant co-production and engineering skills as important as the band performances. Still, Hütter and Schneider play organ and "electric percussion" – Hütter's work on the former can especially be appreciated with the extended opening drone moan of the all-over-the-place "Stratovarius" combined with Schneider's eerie violin work. But it's a different kind of combination and exploration, with the key pop sugar (and vocal work) of later years absent in favor of sudden jump cuts of musique concrète noise and circular jamming as prone to sprawl as it is to tight focus.

Flesh and Blood (stylized as Flesh + Blood) is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Roxy Music. Released in late May 1980, it was an immediate commercial success peaking at No. 1 in the UK for one week in June and then returned to the summit in August for another three weeks, in total spending 60 weeks on the albums chart in the United Kingdom. The album also peaked at No. 35 in the United States and No. 10 in Australia. The album was made after their drummer Paul Thompson had left the band, essentially making Roxy Music a three-piece band consisting of Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera.

Who says you can't ever find your way home again? Finland's Amorphis started testing the veracity of that age-old maxim in 2005, when their Eclipse album interrupted years of ruthless genre-hopping evolution, took stock of a bevy of styles from all eras of the group's long career, and stewed them into a single, mostly satisfying mélange. Amorphis' peacemaking experiment with their past also coincided with the introduction of new vocalist Tomi Joutsen, leading some to speculate that the departed Pasi Koskinen had much to do with their prior direction, and perhaps proving the point when their subsequent outing, 2007's Silent Waters, found the band pursuing the all-inclusive philosophy once again…