Noted for his exquisite, beautiful playing and a technical wizardry, Accardo is most associated with Paganini. DG are proud to present these legendary Paganini in a deluxe 6CD + Blu-ray Audio package remastered from the original sources. These incredible virtuoso solo violin works are heard in astounding detail in this new 96kHz/24-bit remastering. Accardo's instrument is a Stradivarius dating from 1717.

Karajan was a great Tchaikovsky conductor. Although he recorded the last three symphonies many times he did not turn to the first three until the end of the 1970s. There’s no doubt that the reason these early symphonies sound so fresh is because the Berlin orchestra was not over-familiar with them. The Tchaikovsky symphonies were recorded at the Philharmonie between October 1975 and February 1979 and are presented with their Slavonic March and the Capriccio Italien, both recorded in Jesus-Christus-Kirche in October 1966. The six symphonies span the whole of Tchaikovsky’s career as a composer, from 1866 until 1893, the year of his death.

With Philippe Jaroussky’s new album, Storia di Orfeo, the French countertenor realises a long-held dream: to portray the mythic Orpheus – divine musician who ventures into the underworld to retrieve his beloved wife Eurydice from the clutches of death – in his many guises, an inspiration for the very first opera and beyond.

The legendary first lineup of Chick Corea's fusion band Return to Forever debuted on this classic album (titled after the group but credited to Corea), featuring Joe Farrell on soprano sax and flute, the Brazilian team of vocalist Flora Purim and drummer/percussionist Airto Moreira, and electric bass whiz Stanley Clarke. It wasn't actually released in the U.S. until 1975, which was why the group's second album, Light as a Feather, initially made the Return to Forever name. Nonetheless, Return to Forever is every bit as classic, using a similar blend of spacy electric-piano fusion and Brazilian and Latin rhythms. It's all very warm, light, and airy, like a soft breeze on a tropical beach – hardly the sort of firebrand approach to fusion that Miles Davis, Tony Williams, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra were exploring, and far less rooted in funk or rock.

Postcards from Vienna: drawn largely from the supreme players of the Wiener Philharmoniker, collected here are the Decca recordings of Viennese chamber music ensembles, including the New Vienna Octet, Vienna Wind Soloists, Wiener Waldhornverein and Vienna Flute Trio, many making their first international appearance on CD. Led by clarinetist Alfred Boskovsky, the first line-up of the Vienna Octet made it's last recording for Decca in 1972, but Boskovsky was behind the revival of the group's name, having already chosen the young members of the Vienna Philharmonic who would carry on the work of the ensemble and it's traditions of superbly mellifluous, silver-toned playing.

There is a long tradition of "saxophone battles" in jazz with duos such as Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray or Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane performing together in a kind of sporting joust of abilities, a gentleman's contest for who is the better player. On the 2012 concert album Friendly Fire: Live at Smoke, tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander and alto saxophonist Vincent Herring join in this tradition with a swinging, passionate set of standards recorded live at the respected N.Y.C. venue. The album is actually a re-pairing of the duo, who first sparred on 2005's Battle: Live at Smoke. This time around they spar over such numbers as Hank Mobley's "Pat 'N' Chat," McCoy Tyner's "Inception," the standard "You've Changed," as well as Herring's own "Timothy," among others. Backing the saxophonists here are pianist Mike LeDonne, bassist John Webber, and drummer Carl Allen. This is a lively and exciting session of adventurous and old-school straight-ahead jazz.

Chick Corea's long, varied career resists a definitive summary on any one disc, so inevitably this Rarum volume is going to be limited by definition. Indeed, Corea compresses his choices further to only three of his many ensembles: the first Brazilian-charged edition of Return to Forever, his duets with vibraphonist Gary Burton, and the superb reunited 1980s trio with bassist Miroslav Vitous and drummer Roy Haynes (in any case, ECM promises a second Rarum volume of Corea chamber music in 2003). The present volume starts with a truncated version of the Return to Forever band's "Sometime Ago/La Fiesta" medley, the moody seven-minute intro lopped off perhaps to accommodate the limits of a CD that was pushing 80 minutes.