Steven Osborne is one of those rare musicians equally at home in the great Viennese classics as on the wilder shores of contemporary piano music (and everything in between) and his new recording couples a late Schubert Piano Sonata & Moments musicaux. The piano sonata in question is D959 in A major: one of the three monumental sonatas Schubert completed (and performed) in September 1828, only a few weeks before his shockingly early death. Here, Osborne contrasts it with the set of six exquisite miniatures aimed at the capable amateur pianist in what was a burgeoning domestic market. For an earlier Schubert recital on Hyperion Osborne was praised by Gramophone magazine as ‘a Schubertian of the utmost seriousness and integrity’, and July’s Record of the Month promises a similarly perceptive reception.

The fourth Hyperion release from Charles Cole and The London Oratory Schola Cantorum, Sacred treasures of Rome is a celebration of one composer in particular and, more widely, of the Golden Age of polyphony which flourished in sixteenth-century Rome. 2025 marks the five-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, and his status as the pre-eminent Renaissance polyphonist is reflected in the selection of glorious motets the Schola has recorded here, framing music by some of Palestrina’s Italian contemporaries. As always, recordings by the Schola remind us that this is a working, liturgical choir performing music which can still be heard in its proper context at the London Oratory.

Chamber music—whether from groups such as Domus in the 1980s, The Florestan Trio in the 1990s, The Nash Ensemble, or a whole host of others—has always been central to Hyperion’s catalogue. We have innumerable first and only recordings, as well as a healthy selection of classics from the genre. Add to this some of the most extraordinary string instrumentalists (we might think of Steven Isserlis, or Alina Ibragimova—but there are so many more), and we’ve been able put together a ‘Summer Specials’ list of well over fifty albums to offer. CDs are just £10.00 each, with download prices reducing correspondingly, and we hope you will find albums to whet your interest. Some highlights are listed below and are included on Vol. 2 of our July sampler (free to download), and you can also » Click here for a full listing.

.

New from Signum Classics this month we have cellist Parry Karp performing Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo & Suite for viola. The latter work was of course originally composed for viola and piano, but Bloch provided an alternative orchestral accompaniment almost at once and also considered re-jigging the viola part for cello, these two developments not united, however, till 2008, long after the composer’s death. Kenneth Woods conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the suite is presented alongside Bloch’s undisputed cello-and-orchestra masterpiece Schelomo.

Recording for their own label and under the baton of the multi-talented Thomas Adès, the Hallé Orchestra proudly presents Shanty & other new works by Adès, Leith & Marsey. These are bold new works—with some pleasingly engaging titles—and the names of Oliver Leith (b1990) and William Marsey (b1989) look more than likely to join that of Adès himself in the annals of twenty-first-century orchestral wizardry.

Mozart Organ Works: the title may appear prosaic, and could even be regarded as provocative (‘what did Mozart actually write specifically for organ?’), but let it be said at once that this album is fun. David Goode puts the organ of Trinity College Chapel in Cambridge through its paces and the comprehensive booklet from Signum Classics explores in detail Wolfgang Amadeus’s fascination with the beast he called ‘the King of instruments’.

On Signum, Light and Shadow takes the Orchestra of the Swan into a world of intimate close-ups and subtle celluloid texture, director David Le Page weaving a programme of soundtrack magic from composers as diverse as Ennio Morricone and Astor Piazzolla.

Volume 4 of The Panufnik Legacies from LSO Live continues with the vital work of offering a full orchestral voice to composers as-yet little known. Fourteen are represented here, the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jack Sheen (himself one of the featured composers).