Various Artists - Florish in the Key - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The legendary British oboist Leon Goossens inspired all the composers represented on this recording, and they wrote all but one of the pieces for his oboe, on which he premièred the works by Delius, Bax, Bliss, and Finzi featured here. The piece by Vaughan Williams is written for cor anglais, but Goossens's precious instrument also premièred Vaughan Williams's Oboe Concerto, in 1944. Nicolas Daniel has, with special permission from Goossens's daughter Jennie, recorded the Delius Interludes on Leon Goossens's (now 110-year-old) Oboe, rather than his own modern instrument, and contributes a fascinating booklet note on the influence and experience of playing this instrument.

Some of the greatest works ever composed were conceived for and inspired by keyboard instruments. Today, however, the splendor of the canonical works for keyboard instruments composed after 1600 - Bach's Preludes and Fugues, Beethoven's Sonatas and Chopin's Nocturnes - tends to overshadow works composed earlier, despite there being a rich history of repertoire and a variety of instruments at that earlier time. Corina Marti here not only explores the earliest keyboard music to be composed in Europe but also provides a fascinating insight into a world of virtuoso players and the music composed for them, playing a selection of instruments that are hardly known today a metal-stringed clavisimbalum (an early form of harpsichord), an upright gut-stringed claviciterium, two organetti (portative organs) of different sizes, and the church organ in Altenbruch in northern Germany with it's array of original pipes that date from the fifteenth century.

CD in a 4 panel slipcase. Planet Rock The Album is an old school hip hop album by Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force, originally released in 1986 as a collection of previous singles.