The next instalment of Mahan Esfahani’s highly regarded survey of the composer’s keyboard works delivers Book 1 of Bach’s The well-tempered Clavier. Those qualities which reviewers have praised throughout the series—‘daredevil spontaneity’ (Prospect), ‘absolute mastery’ (Gramophone) and a ‘fearless improvisatory approach’ (BBC Record Review)—remain very much in evidence in this compelling account of one of the peaks of the repertoire. With the bonus of essays from the instrument maker and the harpsichord technician, as well as Mahan’s own extensive booklet note—in which he discusses the performing, instrumental and scholarly histories of the ‘48’ over the course of the intervening three hundred years—September’s Record of the Month again confirms the truth of BBC Record Review’s claim that ‘Mahan Esfahani couldn’t make a routine recital of Bach’s keyboard music if you paid him to’.

‘Unique in its terrible magnificence, gloomy and bleak, as if one were walking among dark tombs’ was the awe-struck reaction of a nineteenth-century music historian to the Requiem Mass recorded here by the all-male adult voices of De Profundis in Cristóbal de Morales’s Requiem a 5 & Officium defunctorum. Coupled with Morales’s music for the Office for the Dead, it still packs as great an emotional punch today as it must have done in the mid-sixteenth century. This album is the second in a series of twelve that will encompass all of Morales’s Masses and Magnificats; Eamonn Dougan conducts.

This month sees the release of a further six albums in Hyperion’s Vinyl Edition. All are new to vinyl and feature some of the artists with whom the label has enjoyed particularly close or long-standing associations over the years. They are released as limited-edition 180g LPs, presented in full-colour gatefolds and with sleeve notes included.

Alina Ibragimova’s recording of the solo Bach Violin Concertos with Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo won universal critical praise on its CD release, with Gramophone magazine welcoming ‘an outstanding and distinctive addition to a catalogue bursting at the seams’. 2025 marks the sixtieth anniversary of The Nash Ensemble and Hyperion is celebrating the occasion with a programme of Debussy’s Sonatas & Prélude (an exquisite arrangement for chamber ensemble of the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune). For his 2011 recording of the Grieg & Liszt Piano Concertos, Sir Stephen Hough travelled to Bergen—Grieg’s home town—to join forces with Andrew Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. Now released on vinyl, the Grieg is coupled with Liszt No 1. More electrifying pianism in on display from Andrey Gugnin, who made his Hyperion debut with ‘totally compelling’ (BBC Record Review) accounts of Shostakovich’s Preludes & Piano Sonata. Hyperion’s collaborations with Stephen Layton and Polyphony over the years have resulted in some of the finest choral recordings available, and Cloudburst & other choral works by Eric Whitacre really is something else: described on BBC Radio 3 as ‘staggering’ and by The Times as ‘a winner’, this album helped introduce Whitacre’s unique compositional voice to a global audience. Finally, the Gramophone critic expected ‘extraordinary things’ of Marc-André Hamelin in C P E Bach’s Sonatas & Rondos: how right she was, and these ‘joyous’ recordings are now available as a double-LP set.

Two major new works come to us courtesy of Julian Bliss, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Taavi Oramo: the Clarinet Concertos of Magnus Lindberg and Kalevi Aho. These join an impressive roster of concertos for the instrument to have been written by Finnish composers in recent decades, and share a compelling vision of opulent texture, energizing rhythm and, of course, unbridled virtuosity.

Returning to the studio for Signum Classics, viol consort Fretwork turn to what they justly describe as ‘the apogee of the consort literature’ with Division – The virtuoso consort music of John Jenkins, and a generous compendium of Fantasia Suites, Fancies and Fantasies. And Viktoria Mullova and Alasdair Beatson continue a successful period-instrument cycle with Beethoven Violin Sonatas Nos 2 & 10, the former an endearing work from 1797/8 owing much to the spirit of Mozart, the latter a triumph of originality composed in 1812.

River of music is a charming new album from The Kanneh-Masons on Decca Classics. For the family’s first outing on record in 2020, they recorded Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the animals with narration from Michael Morpurgo and Olivia Colman. Here the format is a little different: the narrative element comes only in the booklet (available to download customers exclusively through this website), leaving the audio to speak eloquently for itself: folksong arrangements, wistful imaginings from Elgar, Dvořák and others, and concluding with a spirited rendition of Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet.

New from APR—the label specializing in historic piano recordings—we have Alfred Cortot: The 1942-3 Paris Chopin recordings. Cortot began recording as a soloist in 1919 and continued through to the 1950s, but nearly all his discs were made in the USA and the UK. It was only during World War 2 that he recorded solo repertoire in France and these recordings, originally only released locally, are much less well known than his London HMVs from the 1930s. Here we have the complete Chopin Études, Waltzes and Préludes in performances replete with virtuoso playing of the highest order.

The next instalment of Mahan Esfahani’s highly regarded survey of the composer’s keyboard works delivers Book 1 of Bach’s The well-tempered Clavier. Those qualities which reviewers have praised throughout the series—‘daredevil spontaneity’ (Prospect), ‘absolute mastery’ (Gramophone) and a ‘fearless improvisatory approach’ (BBC Record Review)—remain very much in evidence in this compelling account of one of the peaks of the repertoire. With the bonus of essays from the instrument maker and the harpsichord technician, as well as Mahan’s own extensive booklet note—in which he discusses the performing, instrumental and scholarly histories of the ‘48’ over the course of the intervening three hundred years—September’s Record of the Month again confirms the truth of BBC Record Review’s claim that ‘Mahan Esfahani couldn’t make a routine recital of Bach’s keyboard music if you paid him to’.

‘Unique in its terrible magnificence, gloomy and bleak, as if one were walking among dark tombs’ was the awe-struck reaction of a nineteenth-century music historian to the Requiem Mass recorded here by the all-male adult voices of De Profundis in Cristóbal de Morales’s Requiem a 5 & Officium defunctorum. Coupled with Morales’s music for the Office for the Dead, it still packs as great an emotional punch today as it must have done in the mid-sixteenth century. This album is the second in a series of twelve that will encompass all of Morales’s Masses and Magnificats; Eamonn Dougan conducts.

This month sees the release of a further six albums in Hyperion’s Vinyl Edition. All are new to vinyl and feature some of the artists with whom the label has enjoyed particularly close or long-standing associations over the years. They are released as limited-edition 180g LPs, presented in full-colour gatefolds and with sleeve notes included.

Alina Ibragimova’s recording of the solo Bach Violin Concertos with Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo won universal critical praise on its CD release, with Gramophone magazine welcoming ‘an outstanding and distinctive addition to a catalogue bursting at the seams’. 2025 marks the sixtieth anniversary of The Nash Ensemble and Hyperion is celebrating the occasion with a programme of Debussy’s Sonatas & Prélude (an exquisite arrangement for chamber ensemble of the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune). For his 2011 recording of the Grieg & Liszt Piano Concertos, Sir Stephen Hough travelled to Bergen—Grieg’s home town—to join forces with Andrew Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. Now released on vinyl, the Grieg is coupled with Liszt No 1. More electrifying pianism in on display from Andrey Gugnin, who made his Hyperion debut with ‘totally compelling’ (BBC Record Review) accounts of Shostakovich’s Preludes & Piano Sonata. Hyperion’s collaborations with Stephen Layton and Polyphony over the years have resulted in some of the finest choral recordings available, and Cloudburst & other choral works by Eric Whitacre really is something else: described on BBC Radio 3 as ‘staggering’ and by The Times as ‘a winner’, this album helped introduce Whitacre’s unique compositional voice to a global audience. Finally, the Gramophone critic expected ‘extraordinary things’ of Marc-André Hamelin in C P E Bach’s Sonatas & Rondos: how right she was, and these ‘joyous’ recordings are now available as a double-LP set.

Two major new works come to us courtesy of Julian Bliss, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Taavi Oramo: the Clarinet Concertos of Magnus Lindberg and Kalevi Aho. These join an impressive roster of concertos for the instrument to have been written by Finnish composers in recent decades, and share a compelling vision of opulent texture, energizing rhythm and, of course, unbridled virtuosity.

Returning to the studio for Signum Classics, viol consort Fretwork turn to what they justly describe as ‘the apogee of the consort literature’ with Division – The virtuoso consort music of John Jenkins, and a generous compendium of Fantasia Suites, Fancies and Fantasies. And Viktoria Mullova and Alasdair Beatson continue a successful period-instrument cycle with Beethoven Violin Sonatas Nos 2 & 10, the former an endearing work from 1797/8 owing much to the spirit of Mozart, the latter a triumph of originality composed in 1812.

River of music is a charming new album from The Kanneh-Masons on Decca Classics. For the family’s first outing on record in 2020, they recorded Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the animals with narration from Michael Morpurgo and Olivia Colman. Here the format is a little different: the narrative element comes only in the booklet (available to download customers exclusively through this website), leaving the audio to speak eloquently for itself: folksong arrangements, wistful imaginings from Elgar, Dvořák and others, and concluding with a spirited rendition of Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet.

New from APR—the label specializing in historic piano recordings—we have Alfred Cortot: The 1942-3 Paris Chopin recordings. Cortot began recording as a soloist in 1919 and continued through to the 1950s, but nearly all his discs were made in the USA and the UK. It was only during World War 2 that he recorded solo repertoire in France and these recordings, originally only released locally, are much less well known than his London HMVs from the 1930s. Here we have the complete Chopin Études, Waltzes and Préludes in performances replete with virtuoso playing of the highest order.

The next instalment of Mahan Esfahani’s highly regarded survey of the composer’s keyboard works delivers Book 1 of Bach’s The well-tempered Clavier. Those qualities which reviewers have praised throughout the series—‘daredevil spontaneity’ (Prospect), ‘absolute mastery’ (Gramophone) and a ‘fearless improvisatory approach’ (BBC Record Review)—remain very much in evidence in this compelling account of one of the peaks of the repertoire. With the bonus of essays from the instrument maker and the harpsichord technician, as well as Mahan’s own extensive booklet note—in which he discusses the performing, instrumental and scholarly histories of the ‘48’ over the course of the intervening three hundred years—September’s Record of the Month again confirms the truth of BBC Record Review’s claim that ‘Mahan Esfahani couldn’t make a routine recital of Bach’s keyboard music if you paid him to’.

‘Unique in its terrible magnificence, gloomy and bleak, as if one were walking among dark tombs’ was the awe-struck reaction of a nineteenth-century music historian to the Requiem Mass recorded here by the all-male adult voices of De Profundis in Cristóbal de Morales’s Requiem a 5 & Officium defunctorum. Coupled with Morales’s music for the Office for the Dead, it still packs as great an emotional punch today as it must have done in the mid-sixteenth century. This album is the second in a series of twelve that will encompass all of Morales’s Masses and Magnificats; Eamonn Dougan conducts.

Nach dem Erfolg der ersten zehn Alben der Vinyl Edition von Hyperion (veröffentlicht im September 2024 und März 2025) folgen nun sechs weitere LPs. Alle Alben erscheinen erstmals auf Vinyl und zeigen weltweit tourende Künstler, mit denen das Label seit langem eng zusammenarbeitet. Jeder der sechs Titel wird als limitierte 180g-LP erscheinen, die in einem vollfarbigen Gatefold präsentiert wird und mit einem Begleitheft ausgestattet ist.

Alina Ibragimovas Aufnahme der Solo-Violinkonzerte von Johann Sebastian Bach mit Jonathan Cohen und Arcangelo wurde bei ihrer CD-Veröffentlichung von der Kritik durchweg gelobt. Gramophone begrüßte sie als „eine herausragende und unverwechselbare Ergänzung zu einem Katalog, der aus allen Nähten platzt“, und Classic FM lobte Ibragimova für ihr „Spiel auf höchstem Niveau“. 2025 feiert das Nash Ensemble sein 60-jähriges Bestehen, und Hyperion begeht diesen Anlass mit einem Programm aus Debussys Sonaten & Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Das Originalalbum stand Anfang des Jahres auf Platz 1 der britischen Specialist Charts, und die Times schrieb: "Sechzig Jahre haben uns gezeigt, dass mit den Musikern des Nash Ensembles, ganz gleich, welches Repertoire sie spielen, eigentlich nie etwas schiefgehen kann." Für seine 2011 erschienene Aufnahme der Klavierkonzerte von Grieg und Liszt reiste Sir Stephen Hough in Griegs Heimatstadt Bergen, um mit Andrew Litton und dem Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra zusammenzuarbeiten. Bei seiner ursprünglichen Veröffentlichung nannte die Sunday Times Houghs Album „eine der wichtigsten Veröffentlichungen zum Liszt-Jubiläum, von Großbritanniens größtem lebenden Magier der Klaviatur“. „Absolut herausragend“, „ein wildes neues Talent“ und „elektrisierend“ sind nur einige der Superlative, mit denen Andrey Gugnins Hyperion-Debütalbum mit Schostakowitschs Präludien und Klaviersonate bei seiner Veröffentlichung 2019 überhäuft wurde. Die Zusammenarbeit von Hyperion mit Stephen Layton und Polyphony hat im Laufe der Jahre zu einigen der besten Choraufnahmen geführt, die es gibt, und Eric Whitacre: Cloudburst & other choral works ist wirklich etwas Besonderes: Das für einen Grammy nominierte Album wurde von BBC Radio 3 als „atemberaubend“ und von der Times als „ein Gewinner“ beschrieben und machte Whitacres einzigartige kompositorische Stimme einem weltweiten Publikum bekannt. Die Kritikerin von Gramophone erwartete „außergewöhnliche Dinge“ von Marc-André Hamelin in C. Ph. E. Bachs Sonaten & Rondos. Man kann mit Sicherheit sagen, dass sich ihr Instinkt als richtig erwiesen hat: „Kurz gesagt, ich kann mir keine bessere Einführung in C. Ph. E. Bach auf dem modernen Klavier vorstellen“. Dies ist ein 2LP-Set.

Two major new works come to us courtesy of Julian Bliss, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Taavi Oramo: the Clarinet Concertos of Magnus Lindberg and Kalevi Aho. These join an impressive roster of concertos for the instrument to have been written by Finnish composers in recent decades, and share a compelling vision of opulent texture, energizing rhythm and, of course, unbridled virtuosity.

Returning to the studio for Signum Classics, viol consort Fretwork turn to what they justly describe as ‘the apogee of the consort literature’ with Division – The virtuoso consort music of John Jenkins, and a generous compendium of Fantasia Suites, Fancies and Fantasies. And Viktoria Mullova and Alasdair Beatson continue a successful period-instrument cycle with Beethoven Violin Sonatas Nos 2 & 10, the former an endearing work from 1797/8 owing much to the spirit of Mozart, the latter a triumph of originality composed in 1812.

River of music is a charming new album from The Kanneh-Masons on Decca Classics. For the family’s first outing on record in 2020, they recorded Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the animals with narration from Michael Morpurgo and Olivia Colman. Here the format is a little different: the narrative element comes only in the booklet (available to download customers exclusively through this website), leaving the audio to speak eloquently for itself: folksong arrangements, wistful imaginings from Elgar, Dvořák and others, and concluding with a spirited rendition of Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet.

New from APR—the label specializing in historic piano recordings—we have Alfred Cortot: The 1942-3 Paris Chopin recordings. Cortot began recording as a soloist in 1919 and continued through to the 1950s, but nearly all his discs were made in the USA and the UK. It was only during World War 2 that he recorded solo repertoire in France and these recordings, originally only released locally, are much less well known than his London HMVs from the 1930s. Here we have the complete Chopin Études, Waltzes and Préludes in performances replete with virtuoso playing of the highest order.