In February 1986, two of rock's most iconic forces collided on stage in a tour that would become the stuff of legend. Homespun brings you the live broadcast from the Sydney Entertainment Centre, documenting the electric chemistry between Bob Dylan and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers at the peak of their creative powers during the historic True Confessions tour.

Following a self-financed EP named »The Sign« (2021) and the promising debut platter »Paralyzing Chains« for High Roller Records in 2023, Germany’s Sintage are ready to unleash their eagerly awaited new album. It is called »Unbound Triumph« and features second guitarist Chili as a new, additional member of the band. It's predecessor »Paralyzing Chains« received good reviews in all important magazines, so expectations for the new album are quite high. After two years since its original release have passed, how satisfied are Sintage with how their full-length debut turned out? “Pretty satisfied for the most part,” says guitarist Julez. “The record stands for itself and has lost nothing of its power and appeal, the music was full-on all the way through. Looking back, we probably should have paid more attention to details. The album was recorded in a single week. It would have been better, I think now, if we had taken a breather, giving the album more time to mature.”

Brandon Sanders returns to Savant Records, and his new recording is something to get excited about. After turning critics' heads with two previous recordings, Brandon is stepping it up with his new project that's all energy and heart. Part of the buzz comes from the stellar lineup. Joining the session is pianist Eric Scott Reed, certainly a name that carries serious weight in jazz today. Reed is one of those rare players who can make any ensemble shine, and his chemistry with Brandon is remarkable, to say the least. Also on hand is Jazzmeia Horn, the Grammy-nominated vocalist with the voice that's been compared to Betty Carter and Sarah Vaughan. Joining forces with Sanders once again, she's featured on two tracks, and her singular style-which combines the timeless with the futuristic-brings a whole other dimension to the music.

Tchaikovsky was already put in front of a piano at the age of four. Two years later, there was astonishment at his rapid progress. Although he never envisaged a career as a pianist, Tchaikovsky would compose much more for this instrument than one might think: numerous short pieces, including the famous Seasons, up until the late 18 Pieces, op. 72 (1893), whose waltzes, mazurkas and polacca would be a farewell to the dance rhythms that he loved so much… But also two sonatas, not to mention his two concertos, the trio op. 50 or his pieces for violin and piano, such as the melancholy Souvenir d’un lieu cher, op. 42 (Reminiscence of a cherished spot) – contemporaneous with the Children’s Album, op. 39.

Music lovers all over the world appreciate the unique sound of Viennese strings. However, there is another special sound – that of the Viennese oboe. Sebastian Breit, principal oboist of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, puts his instrument in the spotlight on an album released by Supreme Classics. These are discoveries from the ‘golden era’ of the Viennese oboe. These rarities charmingly demonstrate why the Viennese oboe is ‘different from the others’.

For his performance of Johannes Brahms’s symphonies, Kirill Petrenko returns to their roots – and to his own: in Meiningen. Hans von Bülow was the first to perform Brahms’s works there, before Fritz Steinbach succeeded him as court conductor in 1886. Thanks to Brahms’s regular visits to Meiningen, Steinbach became extremely familiar with his music during his 17 years at the court – and meticulously recorded the composer’s wishes as performance notes in the scores.

After rubbing your eyes and maybe even hitting your forehead with the palm of your hand a few times to convince yourself that, yes indeed, in fact a young pianist has chosen to make his concerto recording debut with the Tchaikovsky and Grieg concertos, go ahead and have a listen. Denis Kozhukhin, who took first prize at the 2010 Queen Elisabeth, here partners with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Vassily Sinaisky. Out of repertory that has been celebrated, picked over and just about played to death over the course of almost a century and a half, they create magic.

Sharron Kraus' sophomore effort Songs of Love and Loss follows and diverges from the path she carved out on Beautiful Twisted. Echoes of Shirley & Dolly Collins flit about, but there is no derivative strain in the proceedings. Kraus' more plaintive voice is the perfect balance for her songs, which are laden with the kind of gloomy spirit that drives people to dwell on love's passing and absence rather than its gifts – or perhaps, as evidenced by Kraus' tomes here, this wondrously dark creativity is its gift in an offhanded way. The album was recorded in Oxford with her band that includes Colin Fletcher on bass, Jon Fletcher on banjo and guitar, and cellist and fiddle player Jane Griffiths as welll as a number of stalwart guests including Jeffrey Alexander and Jon Bowden. Kraus is both heartbreakingly sweet and sad and deliciously grim, such as on the harrowing "Song of the Hanged Man," where tropes and stereotypes explode without flinching and move into a quiet but tense and cacophonous melody adorned with squeezebox, banjo, and shimmering, clanging steel noises that is delightfully unsettling.

Antonín Dvorák's Stabat Mater, Op. 58, truly merits the adjective "tragic"; it was written after the deaths of two of the composer's children in succession, and his grief rolled out in great, Verdian waves. There are several strong recordings on the market, including an earlier one by conductor Jiří Bělohlávek himself, but for the combination of deep feeling, technical mastery from musicians and singers who have spent their lives getting to know the score, and soloists who not only sound beautiful but are seamlessly integrated into the flow, this Decca release may be the king of them all. To what extent was the strength of the performance motivated by Bělohlávek's likely fatal illness (he died days after the album entered the top levels of classical charts in the spring of 2017)? It's hard to say, although he also delivered top-notch performances of Dvorák's Requiem in his last days. The members of the Prague Philharmonic Choir sing their hearts out in the gigantic, shattering opening chorus, which has rarely if ever had such a mixture of the impassioned and the perfectly controlled. Sample the chorus "Virgo virginium praeclara" to hear the magically suspended quality Bělohlávek brings out of the singers in lightly accompanied passages.

In the summer of 1956, the famed Harlem congressman Adam Clayton Powell arranged for Dizzy Gillespie to embark on a worldwide goodwill-ambassador tour sponsored by the State Department. Gillespie and an all-star big band featuring trumpeter Quincy Jones, the late trombonist Melba Liston, alto saxophonist Phil Woods, and tenor saxophonist Benny Golson performed in Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil to frenzied, beret-wearing fans. Recordings were made but they weren't commercially available and were played only for a select group of musicians before Gillespie's death in 1993. Now the sides have been released, showcasing Dizzy at his bebopping best.

Pianist Dong Hyek Lim, a bit older than the youthful face in the graphics might suggest, has gained a reputation as a Chopin specialist, with restrained, often exquisitely detailed performances made for the small recital hall rather than for the concert hall. This was, of course, the kind of venue for which Chopin wrote most of his music, and this is a very fine tour through the much-recorded 24 Preludes, Op. 28, which form the centerpiece of this album. Lim does well to introduce things with the flashier and rarely played Variations brillantes in B flat major, Op. 12, commanding the listener's attention before delving into the Preludes, some of the most harmonically intricate music Chopin wrote. Sample any of the really famous Preludes, such as the Prelude in E minor, Op. 28, No. 4, for an idea of what Lim is up to here: he not only lingers over dissonances, but explores their potential directions with sensitivity and intelligence, all while keeping the top of the dynamic range not very high. Lim takes you back to the public world with the Berceuse in D flat major, Op. 57, and Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op. 60, which show him to be capable of a more brilliant style. London's Henry Wood Hall fits these pieces well, but Warner's engineers might have gone with even a more intense, intimate space for the preludes. In any event, the performance of those is one of the most absorbing to have come along in quite some time.