There’s a point just past the halfway mark on “Shake It Out,” the rousing first single from Florence + the Machine's second studio release, when the swelling guitars, organs, and strings, staccato percussion, and Florence Welch's air-raid siren of a voice lock up in a herculean battle over which one is going to launch itself into the stratosphere first. It’s a contest that plays out at least once on each of Ceremonials' immaculately produced 12 tracks. Such carefully calculated moments of rhapsody would dissolve into redundant treacle in less capable hands, but Welch does emotional bombast better than any of her contemporaries, and when she wails into the black abyss above, the listener can’t help but return the call. Bigger and bolder than 2009’s excellent Lungs, Ceremonials rolls in like fog over the Thames, doling out a heavy-handed mix of Brit-pop-infused neo-soul anthems and lush, movie trailer-ready ballads that fuse the bluesy, electro-despair of Adele with the ornate, gothic melodrama of Kate Bush and Floodland-era Sisters of Mercy. Producer Paul Epworth (Bloc Party, Friendly Fires) knows that the fiercest weapon in his arsenal is Florence herself, and he stacks her vocals accordingly, creating a fevered, pagan gospel choir on “What the Water Gave Me” and “Leave My Body,” a ghostly, Phil Spector-ish chorale on the surprisingly Beatlesque “Breaking Down,” and a defiant, uplifting horde of merry pranksters on the spirited “Heartlines,” resulting in that rare sophomore outing that not only manages to avoid the slump, but bests its predecessor in the process.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

There’s a point just past the halfway mark on “Shake It Out,” the rousing first single from Florence + the Machine's second studio release, when the swelling guitars, organs, and strings, staccato percussion, and Florence Welch's air-raid siren of a voice lock up in a herculean battle over which one is going to launch itself into the stratosphere first. It’s a contest that plays out at least once on each of Ceremonials' immaculately produced 12 tracks. Such carefully calculated moments of rhapsody would dissolve into redundant treacle in less capable hands, but Welch does emotional bombast better than any of her contemporaries, and when she wails into the black abyss above, the listener can’t help but return the call. Bigger and bolder than 2009’s excellent Lungs, Ceremonials rolls in like fog over the Thames, doling out a heavy-handed mix of Brit-pop-infused neo-soul anthems and lush, movie trailer-ready ballads that fuse the bluesy, electro-despair of Adele with the ornate, gothic melodrama of Kate Bush and Floodland-era Sisters of Mercy. Producer Paul Epworth (Bloc Party, Friendly Fires) knows that the fiercest weapon in his arsenal is Florence herself, and he stacks her vocals accordingly, creating a fevered, pagan gospel choir on “What the Water Gave Me” and “Leave My Body,” a ghostly, Phil Spector-ish chorale on the surprisingly Beatlesque “Breaking Down,” and a defiant, uplifting horde of merry pranksters on the spirited “Heartlines,” resulting in that rare sophomore outing that not only manages to avoid the slump, but bests its predecessor in the process.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

JoAnn Falletta and the Ulster Orchestra present a diverse program of lesser known works by Gustav Holst, the composer of the perennially popular suite The Planets. Holst's music was informed early on by the late Romantics, and traces of Johannes Brahms can be plainly heard in the Walt Whitman Overture, which Holst composed at college when he was still searching for a personal style. The Symphony in F major, "The Cotswolds," was a major step forward in developing a distinctive voice, and though it partakes of conventions in British symphonic writing, it shows a growing awareness of folk music's potential in his work. A Winter Idyll, influenced by Holst's teacher, Charles Villiers Stanford, shows much the same tentative exploration of the Walt Whitman Overture. But there is a pronounced change in flavor and mood in the Japanese Suite and the symphonic poem, Indra, which show Holst's adoption of impressionist harmonies and atmospheric orchestration, as well as a turning away from purely German influences to draw on Asian musical ideas and philosophies. Fans of Holst's music will find the last 25 minutes of the CD will put them on familiar ground, though the first 40 minutes of the album will at least provide context for his career. The orchestra delivers satisfying performances, and Falletta leads with great control and clarity, so all the pieces feel fully realized and exciting to play.© TiVo

Since her debut with ECM in 1991, composer Eleni Karaindrou has consistently delivered recordings of unquestionable beauty and quality. All noteworthy are her scores for Theo Angelopoulos' films, 2005's grand-scale retrospective Elegy of the Uprooting, and 2010's Concert in Athens, and especially the remarkable Trojan Women, from 2002, a score to accompany Euripides' play in collaboration with stage director Antonis Antypas. Medea, another of the classical Greek dramatist's works, marks their second recorded collaboration for ECM. Karaindrou's music is delivered by a small group: instrumentation includes Constantinople lute and lyra, clarinets, violincello, ney, bendir, and santour. They accompany soloists and/or a 15-voice female choir. The first four pieces here are all instrumental, spare, spatial, warm, and foreboding. "Ceremonial Procession," with bendir, three clarinets, and santour, foreshadows the ensuing tragedy. "On the Way to Exile" brings lute, lyra, santour, bendir, and cello mournfully together; they evoke the sadness that follows betrayal, yet there is something quietly sinister in it, too. Karaindrou's is the first voice we hear in "Medea's Lament 1." Accompanied by the ensemble, she allows Giorgos Cheimonas' modern adaptation of Euripides' words to come from her belly, moving slowly through the stages of human grief -- before giving way to rage. The episodic instrumental music of "Woman in Mourning" introduces her second lament. It gives way to "Loss," before the choir makes their entrance in "Backwards to Their Sources," which announces Medea's return to divine form in order to deliver Jason a physical manifestation of cosmic payback. They act as narrators for the vocal music that remains. Though there is tension in Karaindrou's music, it never erupts; it unfolds. "Love's Great Malevolence" is funereal in tempo as it melds folk sources, classical traditions, and a melody that straddles modernity and antiquity. Violence is swollen into an emotional warning as the choir, accompanied by the added weight of the bendir, opens the way for the voice of soloist Penelope Sergounioti to offer "Do Not Kill Your Children" in vain. Early on, its melody recalls a 20th century rembetika. In "All Hope Is Lost," the choir narrates seemingly from the divine spaces between heaven, earth, and hell, before soloist Sotiria Rouvoli delivers Medea's taunt of Jason and the commencement of her own horrific act. In "Silence," the closer, the band delivers a dirge that undergirds the choir's final lament -- not a moral so much as a statement of sorrow and confusion. Karaindrou's Medea is poetic and fierce, utterly gripping, and beautiful in its earthiness and deliberate lack of dramatic grandeur. The Mediterranean folk traditions employed in her music offer a striking evocation of historical and contemporary terms. Her interpretation serves not only the play, but is ultimately a taut and timeless metaphor for the unanswerable questions and bewilderment with which we react to unspeakable tragedy.© Thom Jurek /TiVo