There was probably no other artist, who was involved creatively in so many stages of the development of Jazz music as Duke Ellington. His sonic individuality originated in his peculiar style of composing and arranging, in which he was interweaving…

This concert recording from 1961 is one of the last recordings with two outstanding musicians from Basie’s band, Joe Williams and Joe Newman, who both departed from the band in 1961 to pursue solo careers. Joe Williams, known for having a deeper and…

Thelonious Monk is famous for his unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Ruby, My Dear", which is part of the "Thelonious Monk Quartet" recording. He is also the second-most-recorded…

John Lewis is famous for his interest in classical music and baroque forms led him to compose fugues for the MJQ. Alexander's Fugue is a great example of these compositions included in "Modern Jazz Quartet". Under Lewis's direction, the quartet…

The German Brass Ensemble presents some of Bach’s most popular tunes in breathtakingly brilliant and virtuoso arrangements for brass instruments. Recorded live in “Bach’s church” – the wonderful St Thomas’s Church in Leipzig - the programme includes…

The two films on this DVD combine some of the most demanding chamber works ever written. Recorded at the atmospheric Academy of Sciences in Budapest, the Keller Quartet plays a version of Bach’s unfinished masterpiece The Art of the Fugue for string…

The moving text of the “Stabat Mater” has been an inspiration to many composers from the Renaissance onwards. Luigi Boccherini, a virtuoso cellist and master of chamber music, composed this religious work with profound respect for the text and it’s…

"Jubilee Concert in Buenos Aires": On the afternoon of 19 August 1950, a young boy in short trousers climbed the steps to the stage of the Sala Beyer in Buenos Aires to make his piano début. 50 years later, Daniel Barenboim returned “to the scene of…

A dim light picks out the outlines of the hall. Suddenly a massive shadow appears and moves swiftly over to the keyboard. There follows the vaguest of unsmiling acknowledgements in the general direction of the audience, and then the music begins…

The Kuijken Ensemble, made up of the three Belgian Kuijken brothers on flute, violin and viola da gamba and the harpsichordist Robert Kohnen count among the most distinguished of all present-day early-music specialists. They have long since branched…