Having thoroughly explored the madrigals of Monteverdi, Paul Agnew returns to the genre, this time focusing on the work of Gesualdo, whose mastery of chromaticism and dissonance eventually turned these expressive devices into a defining feature of his musical style. A fascinating repertoire that Paul Agnew and his team delight in offering here.

Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre present a new recording of Mozarts Mass in C Minor, the iconic opening Kyrie of which is among the most cherished religious music ever written. Mozart performed parts of the Mass in 1783, but the score remained unfinished, making the use of a scholarly edition necessary for a complete performance. Despite its unfinished state, Mozarts Mass in C Minor has gained popularity and now enjoys a place in the choral core repertory. For this recording, made in connection to live performances, Minkowski has chosen Helmut Eders 1985 edition for the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe.

Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan made their first recording of the St Matthew Passion in March 1999. Twenty years later, in April 2019, it was time once again, as the singers and players gathered in the Concert Hall of the Saitama Arts Theater in Japan. ‘A profound joy’ is how Masaaki Suzuki describes his emotion at the opportunity to record Bach’s great fresco of Christ’s Passion for a second time. And this time, he and his ensemble have brought with them into the concert hall a profound and collective familiarity with Bach’s choral music, after having recorded more or less all of it in the meantime, including the complete sacred cantatas.

It is striking that two of the true classics in English orchestral music were composed within the short space of some fifteen years around the turn of the previous century. Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations have charmed as well as fascinated listeners since the first performance in 1899. In 14 remarkably diverse variations Elgar demonstrates his compositional mastery while creating miniature portraits of his closest friends, as well as of his wife and himself. By turns gentle, idyllic, tempestuous and boisterous, the pieces – which often run seamlessly into each other – nevertheless make up a coherent whole, like a group portrait taken during a country weekend.

Written between 1818 and 1823, Beethoven's Missa solemnis was the result of intensive theological and musical research in the library of it's dedicatee, Archduke Rudolph of Austria. It is, in Beethoven's own view, his most ambitious composition. On this recording, René Jacobs shows us that it is also his loftiest. This is the work of a composer with deeply held religious sentiments and profound tenderness for humanity, so confident in his artistry that he could create that which goes beyond liturgical form and expresses in musical terms the universality of divine transcendence.

Philippe Herreweghe and La Chapelle Royale turning to Josquin, whose music they perform with individuality and seriousness of purpose. It is also that they are concentrating on some of his finest achievements: here, for example, we have not only the miraculous Miserere—the work that the late Edward Lowinsky regarded as music's answer to the Sistine Chapel ceiling—but the six voice Ave nobilissima creatura, the Stabat mater and the psalm Usquequo, Domine.

Twilight is the third album of tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Saskia Giorgini, dedicated to Robert Schumann song cycles, all written in the miraculously productive year of 1840.The album title and cover photography were inspired by the song Zwielicht, which together with Mondnacht from the same Op. 39 cycle is often considered to be theepitome of German nineteenth-century Romanticism.

Askenazy and the Philharmonia produced a very good 6th Symphony in their previous cycle for Decca, and not a great deal has changed, except that in the Stockholm performance the tempi are all notably faster, giving the lie to the adage that conductors slow music down as they age. This lovely symphony, often neglected in concert programmes, is regarded as a masterpiece by many musicologists. In following the exultant 5th, it is drained of heroism, and it also reserves epic glory for the 7th Symphony. Yet it has fragile beauties of its own.

The three piano trios by Leopold Kozeluch recorded here are from 1786 and 1787 and were initially published independently by their composer. Already a few months later, however, reprints appeared in Paris, London, Offenbach, Mannheim, and Speyer – which shows just how well known and popular his music was at the time. Even before, in 1781, Kozeluch enjoyed such a fine reputation that the Archbishop of Salzburg offered him the post of court organist, succeeding Mozart. The piano trios on this recording for the most part display a mirthful and relaxed character, with spirited joy of performance along with virtuosic design sometimes holding sway in the piano part.

Thomas Erskine, the 6th Earl of Kellie was Scotland's most colourful and exuberant 18-century composer, known on his estates as 'Fiddler Tam'. His music includes Mannheim symphonies, songs, string quartets, trio sonatas, and a strathspey & reel. This recording features his extravagant orchestral fireworks, and his intimate chamber music recorded in his Fife home, Kellie Castle.

Giovanni Antonini has been recording the complete symphonies of Joseph Haydn with the Alpha label for more than five years. Now the series is enriched by another monument by the Austrian composer: Die Schöpfung (The Creation), recorded in 2019 with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and his own orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico. This great oratorio was inspired by those of Handel, which Haydn heard performed by very large forces during his visits to England. The Creation, composed between September 1796 and April 1798, demanded such a colossal effort of him that he even fell ill just after its first performance; but the work enjoyed immense success.

Academy of Ancient Music, Cambridge Handel Opera Company, Cambridge Early Music and Julian Perkins are proud to present the first professional recording of John Eccless Semele (c.1707), a notable early setting of the great English libretto by William Congreve better known in a version by GF Handel from 1744. Academy of Ancient Musics mission is to explore, reveal and preserve the great treasure house of baroque and classical music, and a spirit of newfound discovery runs through all our work.

The Sistine Chapel Choir were quite late to the recording scene, but they are making up for lost time under director Massimo Palombella. The strengths of the choir's performances on this holiday release are threefold. First of all is the sound environment of the chapel itself, resonant and big, yet hospitable to dense polyphony since Josquin was a choirboy there. Josquin appears on the program here, but the motet Missus est Gabriel is not a common work, and that points to the choir's second strength: they work from a manuscript tradition, that of the Vatican, that is different from the set of scholarly publications that have long shaped the Renaissance performing repertory, and several pieces here are world premieres, or otherwise seldom heard.

The second volume of Sibelius' complete symphonies series features the 4th and 5th symphonies, the light and shadow of the composer's masterly musicality. Adding one the composer's most famous pieces, "Finlandia," this disc displays the delicate, rich expression of music through the combination of Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic.

I think that purists will object to the very Slavonic approach to Brahms in these readings. I do not fall into this category and found them immensely enjoyable. The Borodin Trio and Rivka Golani convince one that they are authoritative players even if their bias is rather too much towards succulent sonorities and an overtly emotional use of tone. They do not fall into the trap of over-projecting the music and without denying their own temperaments are still able to offer a definite style of interpretation.