When no less an authority than Peter Phillips—here directing the mixed voices of El León de Oro—considers a Mass-setting by a little-known sixteenth-century composer to be a 'stand-out masterpiece' then you can be sure that the results are going to be rather special. And this new recording of George de La Hèle's Missa Praeter rerum seriem & works by Manchicourt, Payen & Rogier is certainly that, Hyperion's Record of the Month for April fully meriting such enthusiasm.

Any new album from Piers Lane is guaranteed to please, and Russian Variations delivers in abundance. Rachmaninov's Variations on a theme of Chopin was the composer's first large-scale piece for solo piano, and dates from one his happiest and most productive periods, the years following the success of the second piano concerto. A mature compositional voice is unmistakable and the work, a typically heady brew of fearsome technical demands and intense emotion, brings Piers's recital to a brilliant and tumultuous conclusion.

The ongoing series dedicated to choice selections of our all-time favourite recordings—ones you might possibly have missed? This time: Voyage of a sea-god from Laurence Perkins and friends (‘the whole album represents the kind of triumph only possible from a small, imaginative, independent recording company’—The Times), Cantatas & Theatre Music by Thomas Linley from The Parley of Instruments (‘simply stunning’—Audiophile), and Liszt's Missa Choralis & Via Crucis from the Corydon Singers (‘essential listening’—Gramophone). If you don’t know them already, a track from each is included on our monthly sampler which is free to download.

A new album on Signum Classics brings us a first instalment of Schumann in English. As with their earlier, and fascinating, Schubert albums, pianist Christopher Glynn, translator Jeremy Sams and singers Ailish Tynan, Roderick Williams and Kathryn Rudge present old favourites in new light, here performing the Eichendorff Liederkreis ('Song cycle'), Dichterliebe ('A poet's love') and Frauenliebe und -leben ('A woman's life, a woman's love'). Desmond Earley and his versatile University College Dublin Choral Scholars have recorded Ireland you're my home: four ingenious arrangements fusing Gaelic folk with choral excellence and here with accompaniment from the Solstice Ensemble.

The Orchestral works of Dorothy Howell—symphonic poems, a ballet score and more—have languished in obscurity for the best part of a century. Lovingly recorded by Rebecca Miller and the BBC Concert Orchestra, this new album is a fully deserved revelation. Also for Signum, composer/producer and now pianist Joshua Spacht has recorded Chopin at midnight, a programme of favourites 're-imagined' to suit more contemporary—ephemeral?—listening habits.

Recorded in April 2023 for LSO Live, the London Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda present Prokofiev Symphony No 3, a work of apocalyptic intensity which was first performed in 1929, and the third instalment in these artists' current cycle.

Thomas Roseingrave's Eight Harpsichord Suites have been somewhat overshadowed by those of his great contemporary George Frideric Handel. But they can fully stand alone as a bold, original and genuinely outstanding collection of music. While some have been recorded before, this new album from Bridget Cunningham on Signum Classics is the first to present the complete set.

The Choristers of King's College Cambridge have teamed up with violinist Hannah Perowne and the Britten Sinfonia to record John Rutter's Visions, a work originally composed for the Temple Church in London, whose historical associations also provided the composer with his inspiration. Daniel Hyde conducts in the opulent spaces of King's College Chapel.

For his latest album at the helm of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Santtu-Matias Rouvali has chosen to record Stravinsky's Firebird & Petrushka Suites, the two ballet scores which propelled both composer and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes to the heights of fame in early twentieth-century Paris. Also on Signum Classics, Adrian Chandler and La Serenissima turn to the Violin Sonatas of Giuseppe Tartini, their album entitled 'Diavolo' after the famous 'Devil's Trill' movement which concludes the best-known of these fascinating works.