SIBELIUS: KULLERVO

ROMANTIC VIOLIN CONCERTO 20

Essential listening... "fabulously assured"... "unequivocally excellent", are just a few of the critical superlatives earned by Martyn Brabbins's magnificent Vaughan Williams symphony cycle. In this, the penultimate release of the series, two of the late symphonies are coupled with more rare works.

Angela Hewitt's new album is clearly destined to become a favorite. It features some of the best-known musical declarations of love across the centuries, heard in transcriptions by some of the great pianists (including Angela herself).

Classical Music

Both sonatas recorded here are the work of the young Brahms, who was still a teenager when he wrote Op.2. They are paired with, and perfectly complement the much later rhapsodies. These are magisterial accounts from Garrick Ohlsson, a pianist noted for his mastery of the Romantics.

Vaughan Williams's incidental music for The Pilgrim's Progress has seldom been heard in it's original guise since the 1906 premiere. Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra couple it with outstanding interpretation of the composer's Symphony No 5.

It's tempting to imagine that this is how the music might have sounded four centuries ago in the glorious surroundings of St Mark's. Certainly, any comparisons are unlikely to be to the disadvantage of these exceptional young singers from The London Oratory Schola Cantorum who excel in this repertoire.

Apocalyptic walls of sound cascade around the Gothic vaults of Saint-Eustache in Paris as Stephen Layton and David Briggs unleash, respectively, the full power of a top-notch Trinity Choir and the mighty van den Heuvel organ of 1989.

This is the fourth Romantic Piano Concerto album from Simon Callaghan, and that combination of talents which made his first three so successful- not least a flair for exploring the neglected byways of the Romantic repertoire, and the technique and musicianship to do them justice-proves just as compelling here.

One of the twentieth century's best-loved choral works, Durufl�'s Requiem-a magical synthesis of the old (plainsong) and the new (a harmonic language appropriate to it's time and place) - continues to cast it's potent spell over performers and listeners alike. This new recording from Stephen Layton and his Trinity forces fully deserves to be regarded as 'definitive'.

The 'heavenly lengths' Schumann loved in late Schubert are as much in evidence in the sublime G major quartet as in the other large-scale works of Schubert's final years. The Takács Quartet's earlier Hyperion recordings of Schubert were hailed as 'near ideal' and 'superlative' and this new release is every bit as fine.

A fascinating new name bursts into our Romantic Piano series with the two concertos by Thomas Tellefsen, here coupled with an extended concert piece by series stalwart Friedrich Kalkbrenner. All three works here enjoy Howard Shelley's trademark dexterity and exuberant bravura technique.

Angela Hewitt has chosen this album from her glorious Bach discography as the first to be available on vinyl. Recorded in 2015, this is a Goldberg to savour and here as a bonus side 4 includes a magnificent suite of dances by Rameau. This LP is part of Hyperion's 2024 Vinyl Edition.

Stephen Hough has a unique affinity for the music of Chopin, it has always been a central part of his repertoire. His name has become synonymous with pianistic elegance, flawless technique and immense musicianship and he has become globally renowned for his engaging and refined Chopin interpretations. In his published Waltzes Chopin brought a new level of sophistication to this popular dance form. His unpublished Waltzes are generally less complex but display considerable wit and charm, qualities ideally suited to Hough's pianism. This LP is part of Hyperion's 2024 Vinyl Edition.

Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor is one of the best-loved works of the genre. It was played here with brilliance and charm by a dazzling young violinist whose versions of the classics of the repertoire have garnered great critical acclaim. Also recorded here is the early Violin Concerto in D minor, written when the composer was only thirteen. This LP is part of Hyperion's 2024 Vinyl Edition.

The album which pretty much started the Hyperion story: the ineffably beautiful music and words of Hildegard of Bingen, revered by Ted Perry as the 'Patron Saint of Hyperion', and in matchless performances from Emma Kirkby and Gothic Voices. Now available on vinyl for the first time in over three decades as part of Hyperion's 2024 Vinyl Edition.

Two twentieth-century classics by Shostakovich, newly available on vinyl as part of Hyperion's 2024 Vinyl Edition. No 1 has long been one of Marc-Andr� Hamelin's party pieces and for this special recording he was paired with Andrew Litton, a conductor who knows these works backwards (he has recorded the second concerto as pianist!): the resulting performances have a vitality and flair which we think place them amongst the greatest.

Celebrated in his time as a 'man of great worth', who 'really knew how to play well and compose well', Annibale Padovano's modern-day neglect doesn't reflect the high regard in which he was held. Cinquecento deliver flawless accounts of two major Mass settings as they might have been heard in Karl II's Habsburg court.

No fewer than four pianists are called on to tell these hugely enjoyable 'unplayed stories', a unique selection of early Romantic concertante works for multiple pianos and orchestra by Mendelssohn, Moscheles, Schubert, and Liszt. All are new to the catalogue in the versions recorded here, and all benefit from the sympathetic storytelling of the MultiPiano Ensemble.

The transcendental difficulties of Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata will always deter all but the greatest pianists of the day, with only a select few able to master it's formidable musical, emotional and technical challenges. Marc-André Hamelin is of course very much of their number, and his performance - one which relishes all the work's glory and grandeur - is simply stupendous.

Has there ever been a composer of more consistent elegance? If Steven Isserlis's rhetorical question invites the listener to think of plausible alternatives, on the evidence of this wonderful album-an imaginative selection of Boccherini's cello concertos and cello-centric chamber music- they are most unlikely to succeed. This is truly 'music of the angels', with performances to match.

From two players to twelve: few ensembles could respond with equal authority to the very varied demands made by this wonderful collection of Debussy's chamber music. But then, few ensembles can stand comparison with the Nash Ensemble, whose members continue to set the standards across a dauntingly wide repertoire. A realization of the Pr�lude � l'apr�s-midi... for chamber ensemble adds to this album's more familiar attractions of the string quartet and three sonatas.

For a monk resident in one of post-Reformation Germany's religious institutions, music would have served as a focus of spiritual discipline as well as a source of joy. Some real discoveries await the listener who joins The Brabant Ensemble on this exploration of the monk's musical life, represented by a variety of composers of greater and lesser familiarity.

The Gesualdo Six is an award-winning British vocal ensemble comprising some of the UK's finest consort singers, directed by Owain Park. Praised for their imaginative programming and impeccable blend, the group formed in 2014 for a performance of Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsories in Cambridge and has gone on to perform at numerous major festivals around the world. Owain Park was born in Bristol in 1993. As well as directing the Gesualdo Six, he is Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Singers and works with ensembles including Southbank Sinfonia, Chamber Choir Ireland, Ensemble la Sportelle and Capella Cracoviensis. In 2024, he conducted the BBC Singers in a selection of Bruckner motets at the BBC Proms, which served as a prelude to the Berlin Philharmonic's performance of Bruckner's Symphony No 5. He also conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in works by Anne Dudley and Iain Farrington as part of the 'BBC Singers at 100' celebrations at the Barbican. Pressed on 180g vinyl.