Virtuoso piano transcriptions of Russian Ballet Suites by Tchaikovsky & Stravinsky take the listener on a thrilling ride through four nineteenth- and twentieth-century favourite ballet scores. The suites in question are drawn from The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Petrushka and The Firebird, and were written for—or by—three of the great pianists of the day, from Arthur Rubinstein and Guido Agosti in the 1920s to Mikhail Pletnev in 1978. All make formidable technical demands of the player, demands which are easily met by Andrey Gugnin (of whose piano-playing, Gramophone magazine wrote, ‘it’s all but impossible to get enough’) in this, his fifth Hyperion album and October’s Record of the Month.

Any choral album conducted by David Hill is likely to prove irresistible, and especially so when the choir is constituted of some of the finest professional singers in the UK. For its Hyperion debut Ikon has devised an unusual yet rewarding programme of Herbert Howells’s Sine nomine & other secular choral works. Poems from around the British Isles, set to Howells’s typically rhapsodic melodic lines, reflect on the changing seasons and the passage of time, while reminding us of a neglected side to the composer. Iain Farrington makes a twofold contribution to some, as pianist, arranger, or both.

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 à l’après-midi d’un faune (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.

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.

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.

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.

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 conclude 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.

The Monteverdi Choir has teamed up with customary partners The English Baroque Soloists to record a programme entitled Charpentier: Baroque Christmas for SDG. Here we have the grandest of Charpentier’s In nativitatem Domini canticum settings (he wrote four), the popular Messe de Minuit pour Noël, and eight palate-cleansing Noëls sur les instruments. Christophe Rousset conducts, while the pirouetting soloists include Samuel Boden, Ruairi Bowen and Florian Störtz.