The brooding, troubled presence of the two Shostakovich Violin Concertos casts a long shadow over post-War musical history, their formidable technical and emotional reach a real test of any soloist's mettle. These accounts from Alina Ibragimova are simply astonishing, while her accompanists—Vladimir Jurowski and the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia 'Evgeny Svetlanov'—bring their own unique sensibility to this music. Mandatory listening, and a thrilling Record of the Month for June. More great string playing comes from Lawrence Power in Sir James MacMillan's Symphony No 4 & Viola Concerto, works which demonstrate that there is still plenty of life in these most traditional of musical forms when a composer has profoundly important things to say. Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Philharmonic are in complete command of both scores.

Garrick Ohlsson and the Takács Quartet present an inspired and unexpected coupling of the Elgar & Beach Piano Quintets: two early twentieth-century masterpieces written at the height of their composers' powers here receiving performances which have never been bettered. Reflection and remembrance are threaded movingly throughout Parry Songs of farewell & works by Stanford, Gray & Wood, a programme of music mostly dating from World War I. This is a choral tradition to which the voices of Westminster Abbey Choir bring a natural, idiomatic authority, especially when conducted by James O'Donnell.

The seventh instalment in Llŷr Williams's traversal of Schubert Piano Music on Signum Classics launches impressively with the mammoth 'Unfinished' Sonata in C major. In its completion by William Bolcom, this work from 1825 is here accompanied by several other posthumous publications rather smaller in scale and the delightful set of German Dances.

David Goode triumphantly concludes his Signum Classics cycle of The Complete Bach Organ Works, this fourteenth instalment from the Metzler console of Trinity College Cambridge comprising the life-affirming third book of the Clavierübung. The Ural Philharmonic and conductor Alexey Bogorad make a second appearance on the label with the Cello Concerto and Concerto for turntables No 1 by Gabriel Prokofiev, two works every bit as contrasting as their titles might suggest.

Sturm und Drang, Vol. 1 is a vivacious new album from The Mozartists and their director Ian Page. With music by Gluck and Haydn, and the rather less familiar Jommelli, Beck and Traetta—as well as hair-raising contributions from soprano Chiara Skerath—this Signum recording more than demonstrates how the 'shock and awe' aims of this primarily literary movement quickly inspired creatives in other fields.