There is much that the listener will find familiar in Radiant Dawn, the new release—and Hyperion’s Record of the Month for August—from Owain Park and The Gesualdo Six. The ensemble’s ‘matchless singing’ (BBC Music Magazine), for example, and the ‘beautifully sung and meticulously researched’ programme (Gramophone); both may be taken for granted. Yet here there is a difference: threaded throughout the album is the solo trumpet of Matilda Lloyd. Whether in the Renaissance motets to which she contributes ecstatic instrumental descants, or in recently commissioned works, her playing brings a thrilling extra dimension to the G6’s exploration of darkness and light.

The most famous depiction of a swan in music may be that by Saint-Saëns in his Carnival of the animals, but it’s by no means unique. Cellist Mats Lidström and his pianist son Leif Kaner-Lidström have taken it as the starting point of Swans, a homage to Saint-Saëns and a fascinating collection of swannish meditations. We encounter swans from the seventeenth century (by Orlando Gibbons) and the twenty-first (both Mats and Leif contribute their own original compositions); there are Polish swans by Szymanowski, Brazilian ones by Villa-Lobos and many others—no fewer than twenty-four in all, which take graceful flight in Mats’s sympathetic arrangements.

Chamber music—whether from groups such as Domus in the 1980s, The Florestan Trio in the 1990s, The Nash Ensemble, or a whole host of others—has always been central to Hyperion’s catalogue. We have innumerable first and only recordings, as well as a healthy selection of classics from the genre. Add to this some of the most extraordinary string instrumentalists (we might think of Steven Isserlis, or Alina Ibragimova—but there are so many more), and we’ve been able put together a ‘Summer Specials’ list of well over fifty albums to offer. CDs are just £10.00 each, with download prices reducing correspondingly, and we hope you will find albums to whet your interest. Some highlights are listed below and are included on Vol. 2 of our July sampler (free to download), and you can also » Click here for a full listing.

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Violinist Charlie Siem has made a new recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Oleg Caetani, pairing this magisterial work with two miniatures by George Enescu: the Op 4a Ballade (also for violin and orchestra) and the delightful Aria and Scherzino (for violin and piano—Susanna Stefani Caetani). This new album comes to us from Signum Classics.

Fields of wonder is a new release on Signum from American men’s vocal ensemble Cantus, and their programme—comprising largely first recordings—is an interesting one: mini choral cycles by Jean Cras (1879-1932), Gavin Bryars (b1943), Melissa Dunphy (b1980), Griffin Candey (b1988) & Margaret Bonds (1913-1972). Well worth exploring.

New from Signum Classics this month we have cellist Parry Karp performing Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo & Suite for viola. The latter work was of course originally composed for viola and piano, but Bloch provided an alternative orchestral accompaniment almost at once and also considered re-jigging the viola part for cello, these two developments not united, however, till 2008, long after the composer’s death. Kenneth Woods conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the suite is presented alongside Bloch’s undisputed cello-and-orchestra masterpiece Schelomo.

Recording for their own label and under the baton of the multi-talented Thomas Adès, the Hallé Orchestra proudly presents Shanty & other new works by Adès, Leith & Marsey. These are bold new works—with some pleasingly engaging titles—and the names of Oliver Leith (b1990) and William Marsey (b1989) look more than likely to join that of Adès himself in the annals of twenty-first-century orchestral wizardry.