With Francisco Garro’s Missa O quam pulchra es & Missa Cantate Domino, Gramophone Award-winning vocal ensemble Cupertinos and director Luís Toscano turn to another of the composers who contributed to the rich musical legacy of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Portugal. Garro may be less familiar than some of his near contemporaries, but it was only early in the last century that the confusion over his name was conclusively resolved (previous sources wrongly identify a fictitious Francisco Garcia) and the booklet documents some of the detective work involved in rescuing this neglected figure from posthumous obscurity. None of which would matter if the results as recorded here did not merit such painstaking research, which they do—abundantly so.

From the very earliest days of the label, Hyperion has recorded a veritable treasure store of choral glories from the some of the best choirs around: The Cardinall’s Musick, Westminster Cathedral and Abbey Choirs, The Orlando Consort, Gothic Voices, Cinquecento, and more. A wide selection of these albums are available at the reduced price of around £10 per CD (£8 or less for lossless downloads) until the end of March. Some highlights are listed below and are included on Volume 1 of our March sampler (free to download), and you can also » Click here for a full listing.

For his latest series on Signum Classics, label stalwart Joseph Nolan takes to the console of the mighty Stahlhuth-Jann organ in St Martin’s, Dudelange: it’s a beast, and here unleashed on a first volume of The complete organ works of Charles-Valentin Alkan. We have a set of eleven grand preludes (they’re very grand) which culminate in a transcription from Handel’s Messiah, a further set of preludes (little ones this time) on the eight plainchant modes, and finally an extended impromptu on a theme by Luther. No less outrageous in its musical demands is countertenor Randall Scotting’s latest album: Divine impresario – Nicolini on stage. Together with the Academy of Ancient Music and conductor Laurence Cummings, this album brings to life the astonishing career of the Italian castrato who, in 1710, seized the London headlines with his portrayal of an apparently naked man defeating a lion in on-stage gladiatorial combat. Not quite all elements are recreated here.

A joyful double album from historical piano label APR this month brings us The complete Boston ‘Pops’ recordings of Jesús María Sanromá. The programme includes Sanromá’s trademark Gershwin warhorses, of course, but also concertos by Mendelssohn, Paderewski and MacDowell, Liszt’s epic Totentanz (all with the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fiedler), and a set of piano solo Puerto Rican dances by Juan Morel Campos, our pianist’s nod to his beloved homeland.

The Crown of Life is a new Signum Classics album from Queen’s College Choir Oxford, presenting works by Kenneth Leighton, Harold Darke, Rebecca Clarke and Holsts Gustav and Imogen. There are three premiere recordings (including of Leighton’s ‘Festival Mass’, the Missa Christi which proved to be virtually the last piece he wrote) and director Owen Rees’s exemplary commentaries fully document the fascinating background linking all these composers and their works.

From Decca Classics this month we have Lise Davidsen Live at the Met, seventeen items selected from the star soprano’s September 2023 recital with pianist James Baillieu: songs by Richard Strauss, Franz Schubert and Jean Sibelius, plus opera snippets from Tosca, A masked ball and Tannhäuser. Exhilarating stuff, and impeccably delivered before a capacity and appreciative audience.

A new recording from LSO Live imaginatively couples Tchaikovsky Symphony No 6 with the Prelude to Khovanshchina by Musorgsky, the latter as completed by Rimsky-Korsakov after its composer’s all-too-early death. Tchaikovsky wrote of the symphony—it was to be his last—that he had put his whole soul into it: suffused with tragedy and violence, this is Russian Romanticism at its most raw, and it is performed here with vivid relish by Gianandrea Noseda and his London Symphony Orchestra forces.