Laurence Perkins is not only an extremely accomplished bassoonist, he also has the enviable talent of devising memorable and attractive programmes (and album titles) for his instrument. Honey-coloured cow—his latest release, and a deserved Record of the Month for May—charmingly delivers on all fronts. Perkins’s bassoon expressively sings throughout an album covering a century of music, and if the occasional porcine grunt or plaintive moo intrudes—for example near the end of the Ruth Gipps piece which gives the album its title—humour is just one element in a programme exploring a wide range of moods, styles and accompanying forces, with contributions from harp, piano (John Flinders), string quartet, bassoon ensembles, and string orchestra (the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Goodchild). Something to gladden the hearts of moosic-lovers everywhere.

Composer and works may be unfamiliar, but Viktor Kalabis: Duettina, Chamber music & Diptych is very much the sort of repertoire in which Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica (to both of whom Hyperion extends the warmest of welcomes) specialize. All three works—for varying numbers of strings—date from the second half of the twentieth century, and if the influence of figures such as Martinů, Bartók and Berg may be heard in the background, that isn’t to deny the individuality of Kalabis’s own compositional voice, a voice which emerges as determinedly, defiantly tonal. This is a powerful album which will repay repeated listening as well as introducing a wider audience to a lesser-known Czech composer.

Sir Stephen Hough’s account of The Complete Chopin Waltzes has long been considered a favourite version of these much-recorded works. A commercial and critical success since its release in 2011, it is reissued this month—and with a very special reason. In the spring of 2024 a postcard-sized music manuscript was discovered in New York’s Morgan Library & Museum. Written in the composer’s hand, the manuscript has been confirmed as containing nothing less than a previously unknown Chopin waltz. Hough’s recording of the piece and its addition to this album—now once again genuinely complete—gives listeners the opportunity to enjoy a ‘new’ work by Chopin. And, this time in the role of composer as well as pianist, Stephen makes a second appearance this month with the release on vinyl of Stephen Hough’s Piano Concerto—the latest in Hyperion’s burgeoning catalogue of LP releases. This performance documents the work’s UK premiere with Sir Mark Elder and The Hallé providing exemplary support; side B contains two concise works for solo piano.