Does Mahan Esfahani not realize that the harpsichord is a modest, unassuming creature, with a voice best suited to domestic intimacy and Baroque decorum? Clearly not, on the evidence of Musique? – Modern and electro-acoustic works for harpsichord—and a good thing too, or we would have been denied this most visceral, explosive (at times almost literally so) programme of works written for the instrument, some involving considerable electronic fortifications. Featuring six composers who, over the course of the last sixty years, completely rethought the possibilities of the harpsichord, July's Record of the Month promises a thrilling recital. The Piano Concertos by Rubbra & Bliss may date from the middle decades of the last century, but they remain true to the spirit of the Romantic Piano Concerto series, which here reaches volume eighty-one. With the addition of a makeweight by Bax, this is a programme of three life-affirming works in lustrous accounts from Piers Lane, Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now.

The flawless all-male voices of Cinquecento turn to another exponent of the Franco-Flemish polyphony which is central to their repertoire in Missa Rex Babylonis & other works by Johannes de Cleve. This sequence of rich, intense vocal works embodies the musical tastes and trends in the Habsburg courts of the later sixteenth century, and the composer will come as yet another rewarding discovery from this source.

Newly re-issued on the Cala Signum imprint is an explosive first recording of Lawrence Leonard's arrangement of Musorgsky Pictures from an exhibition—a piano concerto is born?—and a generous array of lesser-known Musorgskian gems in enterprising orchestral garb, including the previously unrecorded Pictures from the Crimea in the orchestration by Walter Goehr. Geoffrey Simon conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra.

On their own label The Hallé Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder continue their esteemed series with a new recording of Debussy Images & other works. These orchestral masterpieces, written in the years following the success of La mer, are coupled with the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Debussy's own orchestration of one of his piano waltzes, and the first recording of Et la lune descend in another of Colin Matthews's acclaimed orchestrations.

In Spring 2019, The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, led by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, presented a critically acclaimed European tour of Handel’s Semele, their first performances of the work since the pioneering recording of the 1980s. A glamorous team of young soloists joins the ensemble to bring the story to thrilling life in this SDG recording made live in London's Alexandra Palace Theatre.

Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Huw Watkins return with the start of a Beethoven Violin Sonatas cycle—here Nos 1, 5 and 8: 'The heart gives a little leap at the prospect of … a duo as engaging and intelligent as Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Huw Watkins' (Gramophone). This cycle is sure to be one of the highlights of Signum’s year, as well as of Beethoven 250. A second volume in their glorious In chains of gold series once more brings together the Magdalena Consort, Fretwork and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts in an exploration of the English Pre-Restoration Verse Anthem—Psalms and Royal Anthems, particularly those of William Byrd. Llŷr Williams's Schubert Piano Music series concludes with an album comprising sixteen of the composer's songs in their exquisitely sympathetic piano transcriptions by Franz Liszt—vividly reimagined as concert pieces, these labours of love and admiration eventually led to over fifty recreations in the decade from 1836.

Christopher Gunning's Violin Concerto & Cello Concerto, a second Signum album from this composer more familiar for his film and television work, receive lyrical performances from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the composer's own baton. Soloists Harriet Mackenzie (violin) and Richard Harwood (cello) share the stage with the orchestral poem Birdflight.