Given all the overt literary references of Selling England by the Pound, along with their taste for epic suites such as "Supper's Ready," it was only a matter of time before Genesis attempted a full-fledged concept album, and 1974's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was a massive rock opera: the winding, wielding story of a Puerto Rican hustler name Rael making his way in New York City. Peter Gabriel made some tentative moves toward developing this story into a movie with William Friedkin but it never took off, perhaps it's just as well; even with the lengthy libretto included with the album, the story never makes sense. But just because the story is rather impenetrable doesn't mean that the album is as well, because it is a forceful, imaginative piece of work that showcases the original Genesis lineup at a peak. Even if the story is rather hard to piece together, the album is set up in a remarkable fashion, with the first LP being devoted to pop-oriented rock songs and the second being largely devoted to instrumentals. This means that The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway contains both Genesis' most immediate music to date and its most elliptical. Depending on a listener's taste, they may gravitate toward the first LP with its tight collection of ten rock songs, or the nightmarish landscapes of the second, where Rael descends into darkness and ultimately redemption (or so it would seem), but there's little question that the first album is far more direct than the second and it contains a number of masterpieces, from the opening fanfare of the title song to the surging "In the Cage," from the frightening "Back in NYC" to the soothing conclusion "The Carpet Crawlers." In retrospect, this first LP plays a bit more like the first Gabriel solo album than the final Genesis album, but there's also little question that the band helps form and shape this music (with Brian Eno adding extra coloring on occasion), while Genesis shines as a group shines on the impressionistic second half. In every way, it's a considerable, lasting achievement and it's little wonder that Peter Gabriel had to leave the band after this record: they had gone as far as they could go together, and could never top this extraordinary album.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

After a beautiful introspective debut for the label ECM, Avishai Cohen changes gears with his band Big Vicious. A unique cast around the Israeli trumpeter boasts two drummers (Aviv Cohen and Ziv Ravitz), an electric bass player (Yonatan Albalak) and a guitarist (Uzi Ramirez). This jazz-wielding quintet grew up with a thousand other sounds in mind. Hence this assembly of plural sound textures from electronic music as well as rock, classical, pop and trip hop. We are treated to big and improbably leaps, such as the one between Massive Attack and Beethoven, the two names whose works Big Vicious revisits (Teardrop and Moonlight Sonata). Avishai Cohen sometimes seems to be wearing the clothes of his elders Jon Hassell and Don Ellis. In particular, he tones down his leader's aura to let the quintet advance as one. It is precisely the homogeneity and atmospheric sound of Big Vicious that makes the whole original. And whether the compositions are trippy (Intent), uptempo (King Kutner) or downright experimental (Fractals), they share a real unique narrative force. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

World premiere recordings of music by Charles Ives in 2023 are certain to draw considerable attention from those who have an affinity for music from the early-20th century composers. Beyond those looking to complete a collection of Ives' recorded works, this collection of mostly miniatures will likely pique the interest of instrumental ensembles seeking to expand their repertoire. There is a lot of humor in this music, for instance in "Calcium Light Night" from Set No. 1. The wind instruments represent different fraternities parading Yale's campus, singing their society songs as they pass each other in an attempt to drown the other out. A major benefit to this collection is the diversity of Ives' compositional range. There are sensitive, emotional tunes contrasted directly by marching and aggressive rhythms, and Naxos provides texts that the composer used as a basis for these purely instrumental works. The concluding Set for Theatre Orchestra was inspired by the makeshift and often extraordinarily flexible musicians that make up local or community theater orchestras. While this is the only set for "Theatre Orchestra," all of these works fall within the same proportions and variety in instrumentation. Ives wrote many of these with the idea of other instruments being substituted or added, often noting which instrument would be a good substitute. The first three sets and the Set for Theatre Orchestra were fully assembled and published, and credit to John Sinclair, Kenneth Singleton, and David Porter for the realizations provided here of the remaining sets, which were planned for assembly but never made it beyond that stage. This recording is likely to find an audience of more than just collectors, and one can imagine many college faculty recitals making use of the eccentric scoring to collaborate across departments. © Keith Finke /TiVo

This release celebrates the partnership of the distinguished conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016) directing the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE) in a memorable cycle of the complete Schubert Symphonies at the Styriarte Festival in Graz, Austria during July 1988. Harnoncourt was a notable and perhaps controversial Schubertian who, with his favorite orchestra, set about examining everything afresh. The players he worked with in 1988 talk about the way he changed their perceptions, of discovering Schubert’s work for themselves, ignoring the accretions of previous performance tradition. Harnoncourt wanted Schubert’s music to be on the edge, to rebuild it, testing and evaluating the contribution of each instrument and for the players to take as many risks as they wanted. Dane Roberts, the COE’s double bass player, recounted: ‘Harnoncourt’s strong roots in both Vienna and Graz influenced and enabled his musical insights and vision. He presented to us dimensions of these masterpieces we had not considered or did not know (or at least recognize)’. Sally Pendlebury, cello, recalled: ‘The Schubert Symphonies was my first ever project with Nikolaus Harnoncourt. To say it completely changed my musical life would in no way be an overstatement’. © ICA Classics

Arvo Pärt is one of the greatest and most performed of living composers. Slow and meditative, often religious, reflecting his mystical experiences, Pärt’s works are unmistakeable. In 1976 he created a unique musical language called "tintinnabuli", which continues to define his work to this day. Here Morphing Chamber Orchestra, under its artistic director Tomasz Wabnic, performs some of the Estonian composer’s finest instrumental works, Fratres, Spiegel im Spiegel and Summa, together with one of his vocal masterpieces, the Stabat Mater, presented here in a new arrangement, sung by three of today’s greatest operatic voices, Roberto Alagna, Aleksandra Kurzak and Andreas Scholl. Several shorter pieces, marvels of poetry and purity, sung by Andreas Scholl, complete this programme. © Aparté

This set of Beethoven's nine by conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy took shape in an unusual way. There was no plan to record a set, but as his interpretations of the symphonies with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra began to accumulate, listeners realized that something special was happening, and live performances over 13 years were remastered into a whole. Mastering engineer Ian Watson deserves credit for shaping diverse sound environments into a coherent entity, and there is very little audience noise other than well-deserved applause and cheers at the end. The real news is not the sound but the performances, which are extraordinary. Takács-Nagy was a violinist and frequent quartet player before he turned to conducting, and these are very much a chamber music player's interpretations, with any passage in which instruments answer each other given a crackling edge. He takes fast tempos in the outer movements, with which the 30 or so players of the Verbier orchestra keep up without fail; the slow movements are elegantly lyrical. Really, there are insights in nearly every movement -- the earlier symphonies respond wonderfully to the chamber treatment -- but sample the Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 ("Pastoral"), whose programmatic elements are almost palpable. Certainly, there are some unorthodox things, one being the Mussorgskian bass of Mikhail Petrenko in the finale of the Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 ("Choral"), but there is nothing that hasn't been carefully thought through. A marvelous set that seems likely to take its place among the greats. CD buyers and some online listeners get a discussion between Takács-Nagy and Beethoven biographer Jan Swafford that offers additional insights into the music. © James Manheim /TiVo

Often acclaimed as the best Wu-Tang solo project of all, Liquid Swords cemented the Genius/GZA's reputation as the best pure lyricist in the group -- and one of the best of the '90s. Rich in allusions and images, his cerebral, easy-flowing rhymes are perhaps the subtlest and most nuanced of any Wu MC, as underscored by his smooth, low-key delivery. The Genius' eerie calm is a great match for RZA's atmospheric production, which is tremendously effective in this context; the kung fu dialogue here is among the creepiest he's put on record, and he experiments quite a bit with stranger sounds and more layered tracks. Not only is RZA in top form, but every Clan member makes at least one appearance on the album, making it all the more impressive that Liquid Swords clearly remains the Genius' showcase throughout. All of his collaborators shape themselves to his quietly intimidating style, giving Liquid Swords a strongly consistent tone and making it an album that gradually slithers its way under your skin. Mixing gritty story-songs and battle rhymes built on elaborate metaphors (martial arts and chess are two favorites), the Genius brings his lyrical prowess to the forefront of every track, leaving no doubt about how he earned his nickname. Creepily understated tracks like "Liquid Swords," "Cold World," "Investigative Reports," and "I Gotcha Back" are the album's bread and butter, but there's the occasional lighter moment ("Labels" incorporates the names of as many record companies as possible) and spiritual digression ("Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth"). Overall, though, Liquid Swords is possibly the most unsettling album in the Wu canon (even ahead of Ol' Dirty Bastard), and it ranks with Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx as one of the group's undisputed classics.© Steve Huey /TiVo

Physical album buyers will get a clue as to the intentions of conductor Ádám Fischer on this 2023 release, the second in a Danish Chamber Orchestra series devoted to Haydn's 12 London symphonies. For Haydn's audiences, Fischer writes, "there was an atmosphere at his concerts that is only felt at rock concerts today." This is a good point, but Fischer's methods for achieving this atmosphere will be a matter of taste. In place of rock concert amplification, he uses really loud timpani, seemingly hit with a hard mallet. Paired with this are unusual string attacks, with a great variety of articulation and an overall punchy sound. It might seem busy, or it might be just the ticket, depending on one's perspective. Sample the outer movements to decide; Fischer is a bit more straightforward in the slow movements and minuets. Finally, as they were on Fischer's first album in the series, tempos are quick, raising the overall tension level. That first album was greeted with a variety of critical opinions, and this one probably will be similarly received. This is all to the good; these are genuinely adventurous Haydn recordings from the septuagenarian Fischer, and they made classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2023. The sound from the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen is clear; it is a great improvement on the murky acoustic of Fischer's earlier recordings of these works on the Nimbus label with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra.© James Manheim /TiVo

Recorded between 1988 and 1993, and previously released as individual discs, this 2004 box set of Mozart's complete symphonies features exciting performances by Nicholas Ward and the Northern Chamber Orchestra, and Barry Wordsworth and the Capella Istropolitana. Discs 1-6, under Ward's direction, present the first 24 symphonies in sequence, with the Symphonies No. 26 and No. 37 included. The remaining 15 symphonies, conducted by Wordsworth, fill up the last five discs in a staggered arrangement. This corresponds to the order of the original CDs -- the repressing no doubt reduces production costs -- but it requires that the uninitiated pay close attention to the booklet for track listings. Beyond that difficulty, the performances are quite enjoyable and refreshing. Both conductors take brisk tempi and observe aspects of authentic performance practice, and their orchestras manage something close to a lean and bright period sound, even though the instruments are apparently modern. The recorded sound varies a little, for Ward's performances are noticeably closer than Wordsworth's, perhaps because of microphone logistics in the different concert halls. Once accommodation is made for this, though, the listener can sit back and enjoy these fine performances without sudden volume adjustments. Part of the desirable White Box series, this set is de rigueur for collectors.© TiVo

If you dipped into the music at random, you might guess that Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds shares the minimalist style of many of his Baltic contemporaries. There are sparse, limpid passages, but elsewhere he is lush, with dense multipart textures that push the limits of tonality. Esenvalds deploys various languages in the service of texts that he, with some effort, devises himself: the final Passion and Resurrection here is not a setting of a preexisting religious text, but consists, somewhat in the manner of John Rutter, of texts assembled from various sources by the composer himself. All the variations in musical language are deployed in the service of the texts, which may be quite unusual. Some may feel that Esenvalds' method works better in smaller works, where the unusual quality of his text selection is vividly illustrated, than in the Passion setting. For this, the first recording of the composer's works in North America (it's indicative of his success that the album has been commercially successful in Britain as well), the performers choose a work with North American material: a Navajo origin story, condensed by Esenvalds himself. Both this and the Sami-inspired Rivers of Light consist mostly of prose, but Esenvalds' musical language is so flexible that the effect is highly poetic. Sample Rivers of Light, whose text also gives the album its Doors of Heaven title. The X factor here is the strong, enthusiastic performance by the Portland State Chamber Choir and soloists, with instruments, under conductor Ethan Sperry, who has won praise locally for adventurous programming. The student singers respond by punching above their weight vocally, and this is surely an ensemble to watch on the U.S. West Coast. The sound, recorded at Portland's St. Stephen's Catholic Church, is not quite equal to the extremely quiet opening of Rivers of Light, but the effect comes through.© TiVo

The Nash Ensemble returns once more to the music of Max Bruch, having previously recorded the composer's string octet and quintets. For this recording, the Nash Ensemble pares down to smaller dimensions of two to four instruments. Bruch's most famous works -- the Violin Concerto in G minor, Op. 26, Scottish Fantasy, Op. 46, and Kol Nidrei, Op. 47 -- have been performed and recorded frequently, but his chamber music, written during his early and late life, has suffered from neglect and loss due to early 20th century European political strife, war, and the modernist movement. Here, the Nash Ensemble offers two works from each period. The Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 5, and the String Quartet No. 2 in E major, Op. 10, are from his student years. The Piano Trio begins, uncommonly for the era, with a slow opening movement with an attacca into a playfully dancing Allegro assai. Four Pieces for cello and piano, Op. 70, was written -- as was Kol Nidrei -- for Robert Hausmann, a giant of the day. The opening movement, "Aria," was borrowed from Bruch's son Max Felix and fully realized by the elder Max. While Bruch's interest in folk music is heard throughout much of his output, it's even more apparent in the final three movements of this work, "Finnländisch," "Schwedisch," and "Schottisch." Of particular note is the Romance for viola and orchestra, Op. 85, heard here in the composer's arrangement for viola and piano. Having written popular works for the violin, the choice of viola for his Romance gives this oft-maligned instrument a wonderful display piece. The sound at All Saints' Church in East Finchley, London, is lovely, but a more intimate setting would have better suited this recording. A worthy addition to chamber music libraries and for those interested in further examining this composer's oeuvre.© TiVo