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 (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.

In the Poet’s Garden is a treat of a new album from Sir John Rutter and The Cambridge Singers. Their all-Rutter programme opens with I’ll make me a world, an extended setting of James Weldon Johnson’s whimsical Creation narrative, 1920s Americana fantastically rendered with top-notch soloists Melanie Marshall and Roderick Williams. Three further works are included—a choral celebration of London among them—and the album comes to us from the Collegium label.

Llŷr Williams has returned to the studio for Signum Classics, and behind the unassuming title of Schumann: Piano Works, Vol. 2 lie some of the composer’s greatest works for the instrument: the first and third sonatas, Kreisleriana, Blumenstück, the Arabeske and the Études symphoniques. Performances and recorded sound immediately demand our attention: here is an understated pianist with much to say.

Simply titled and profoundly moving, Elegy is a heartfelt recital from Mary Bevan and Joseph Middleton and a meditation on that peace which can only be found through death. Encompassing works by composers from Ravel and Chausson, Brahms, Schubert and Mahler, through to Samuel Barber and Errollyn Wallen, this new album comes to us from Signum Classics.

Letters from Paris is classical guitarist Alexandra Whittingham’s first full-length album on Decca Classics, and with it she visits some of France’s most iconic musical characters. From melancholy miniatures to the soaring melodies of French chansons, this is an album which gives us the space to contemplate, marvel and hope.

New from APR—the historical piano label—we have The complete recordings of Fanny Davies & Adela Verne. Fanny Davies was a disciple of Clara Schumann and her recordings of Robert Schumann’s major works are some of the most important documents of nineteenth-century pianism to have survived (and prompted an amusing swipe from Compton Mackenzie, writing in Gramophone magazine in 1928: “Once again I must remind the recording companies that Miss Fanny Davies is alive and that she plays Schumann a great deal better than Cortot ever will”). Southampton-born Adela Verne was an active performer up till the 1950s, but her recorded legacy comprises just the four sides included here as a bonus.

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.

The Mozartists and director Ian Page have teamed up with star mezzo Ann Hallenberg to produce an album of Arias by Gluck, several of them recorded here for the very first time. Perhaps most famous today for Orfeo ed Euridice, Gluck’s name remains synonymous with the birth of modern opera (he contributed an impressive 49 works to the genre), and the diversity of styles on display on this new album from Signum Classics is testimony to the fecundity of his musical imagination.

Recording for LSO Live, London Symphony Orchestra leader Roman Simović steps back into the solo spotlight with a new recording of one of the cornerstones of the violin repertoire: Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for solo violin. Composed in 1923, this creative love letter to the violin challengingly embraces the instrument’s panoply of technical and lyrical possibilities, and gave birth to six stylistically unique sonatas.

New from Decca Classics this month we have an album celebrating the 80th birthday of one of England’s most revered composers: Reflections & other orchestral works by Sir John Rutter. The title work turns out to be nothing less than a highly entertaining piano concerto (performed here by Steven Osborne) and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra also gets to show off in a generous collection of further works, all under the baton of the composer himself.

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 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.