In Beethoven Moonlight Sonata & other piano music, Pavel Kolesnikov brilliantly juxtaposes one of the most popular works in the entire canon with a carefully chosen selection of contemporary shorter pieces. This wonderful pianist's recordings for Hyperion have won unstinting—and richly deserved—praise, and there will be no shortage of critical superlatives for this latest release; an essential Record of the Month for September. More fine pianism comes from Howard Shelley who, directing the Ulster Orchestra, presents a second volume of Dussek Piano Concertos: fans of The Classical Piano Concerto will need little prompting to acquire this latest addition to the series, the G minor being one of the early nineteenth century's hidden gems.

David Hill and Yale Schola Cantorum have recorded a Brahms German Requiem like no other, the much-reduced forces employed in Iain Farrington's version with chamber ensemble lending the work a surprising (and hitherto unsuspected) intimacy. Some of the best of today's English sacred and secular choral writing is showcased in Choral works by Owain Park, music of astonishing fluency and command in lustrous performances from Stephen Layton and Trinity College Choir Cambridge.

New on the King's College Cambridge label this month is a further showcase for this most iconic of organs: Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur—nine extraordinary meditations touching the very heart of the Catholic faith—in a performance by Richard Gowers.

A generously priced new collection from LSO Live brings together all of Sir John Eliot Gardiner's award-winning cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra: the complete Mendelssohn Symphonies also includes three of the composer's most popular overtures as well as Gardiner's landmark version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The Mozartists and conductor Ian Page continue their pilgrimage on Signum with two little-known early works: Mozart's Grabmusik & Bastien und Bastienne. The former was apparently composed while the ten-year-old composer was locked up for a week 'as a test', while the slight but charming opera was Mozart’s first essay in the genre of comic German singspiel. Rather more 'mainstream', Rachmaninov's Symphony No 3 and Symphonic Dances complete Vladimir Ashkenazy's live cycle with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

A new release from LSO Live plunges us into New York's Greenwich Village of the 1930s. A salute to the city that made him big, Leonard Bernstein's Wonderful Town predates West Side Story by some four years and is packed with the composer's trademark heart-on-sleeve melodies. Sir Simon Rattle conducts a vivacious London Symphony Orchestra, with Danielle de Niese, Alysha Umphress and Nathan Gunn heading up the cast.

A ninth release in David Goode's highly respected Complete Bach Organ Works cycle for Signum Classics has at its heart the mammoth chorale partita Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig, BWV768, while Celestial bird & other choral works by Roxanna Panufnik is a rich assessment of the composer's first half century in the genre. Ex Cathedra and Jeffrey Skidmore revel in this diverse programme.

A new release from SDG finds Sir John Eliot Gardiner at the helm of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Their programme, recorded live at the Concertgebouw in November 2016, comprises Schubert Symphony No 5 & Brahms Serenade No 2, two youthful works characterized by their unusually modest scorings.

Joseph Nolan and the Signum Classics recording team headed to the Netherlands for their tenth album together—the mighty Organ of St Bavo, Haarlem, which has over the years played host to Mozart, Handel and Mendelssohn, inspiring a programme which culminates with Reubke's epic sonata.