Hyperion Records

Hyperion's Record of the Month for December 2012 welcomes to the label the inestimable Donald Runnicles, here leading the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra through a wonderful new reading of Bruckner Symphony No 7. Also new to Hyperion is the Szymanowski Quartet. This exceptional Polish group joins pianist Jonathan Plowright for recordings of the Zarebski Piano Quintet and Zelenski Piano Quartet, two works fully justifying wider exposure.

If you're not familiar with the bass passion and sheer versatility of Christopher Purves—or have perhaps tended to avoid late-Baroque da capo arias for lower voice—then Handel's Finest Arias for Base Voice will prove revelatory. Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen accompany in a tone of awe. A fifth volume in our Complete Buxtehude Organ Works cycle brings the series to fruition, Christopher Herrick clearly relishing the 2010 Aubertin organ of Mariager Klosterkirke in Denmark.

Classic choral recordings make a welcome return: the Gramophone-award-winning Britten Sacred and Profane album from Polyphony, and the Corydon Singers' Tchaikovsky Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.