With Grieg’s Holberg Suite, Ballade & Lyric Pieces, Andrey Gugnin brings abundant poetry to a selection of some of the great Norwegian composer’s finest works for solo piano. The two major pieces here may be relatively unfamiliar but are deeply rewarding: the poignant and impassioned Ballade, written following the death of his parents in 1875; and the Holberg Suite, much better known in Grieg’s own arrangement for string orchestra, but heard here in its original form. Two sets of exquisite Lyric Pieces complete Hyperion’s Record of the Month for May, a recital which is certain to bring listeners a great deal of pleasure.

Cinquecento’s exploration of the thriving musical courts of the sixteenth-century Habsburgs continues with the Missa A la dolc’ ombra & Missa Domine a lingua dolosa by Annibale Padovano. This composer, whose productive (and peripatetic) creative life was chiefly divided between Venice and the court of Archduke Karl of Inner Austria in Graz, was widely admired by the luminaries of his time—a reputation which on the evidence of the two Masses recorded here was wholly justified.

The ongoing series dedicated to choice selections of our all-time favourite recordings—ones you might possibly have missed? This time: Early Chamber Music by Frank Bridge from The Raphael Ensemble (‘The Raphael Ensemble plays with passion and sensitivity and is beautifully recorded’—Fanfare), John Rutter's Requiem & other choral works from Polyphony and Stephen Layton (‘Here is music finely crafted, written with love for the art and an especial care for choral sound’—Gramophone), and Songs by Britten, Finzi & Tippett from Mark Padmore and Roger Vignoles (‘this ranks as one of the finest discs of English songs to have been issued for some years’—The Sunday Telegraph). If you don’t know them already, a track from each is included on our monthly sampler which is free to download.

Husband and wife team Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung have recorded Debussy & Ravel for two, their third album for Signum Classics to explore the joys of music for piano duo and piano four hands. Debussy's Petite suite and Ravel's Mother Goose sit at the heart of a fascinating programme.

Three seminal orchestral works from the 1940s are brought together on LSO Live with Benjamin Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem, Spring Symphony and Young person's guide to the orchestra, the Spring Symphony featuring soloists Allan Clayton, Elizabeth Watts and Alice Coote plus massed voices from the Tiffin School and the London Symphony Chorus. Sir Simon Rattle conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in these gripping performances captured live at the Barbican in 2018, 2019 and 2021.

On Signum the Carducci String Quartet continues a vibrant cycle with the release of Shostakovich String Quartets Nos 9 & 15, two major works which fall at either end of what can be regarded as the composer's 'late' period. The earlier volumes in this series have been widely praised for their passion and intensity.

Paul McCreesh and massed Gabrieli forces have recorded the epic that is Elgar's Dream of Gerontius. With soloists Nicky Spence (as Gerontius), Anna Stéphany and Andrew Foster-Williams and orchestral instruments painstakingly sourced to recreate the sounds of the work's early performances in 1900, this new recording is definitely one which stands out from the crowd.

Sir Mark Elder has long been hailed for his interpretations of the works of Sir Edward Elgar—indeed his earlier renditions of the symphonies were among the first albums to be released on the fledgling Hallé label over twenty years ago. This new recording of Elgar Symphonies Nos 1 & 2 marks the culmination of Sir Mark's tenure as Music Director of the Hallé Orchestra, the performances recorded live in Manchester in 2018 and 2021.

On the face of it the pairing of Piano Quintets by Sergei Taneyev and Robert Schumann might seem surprising, the Taneyev dating from 1911 and being the towering Russian achievement in the genre before Shostakovich, the Schumann being composed some seventy years earlier and 1000 miles away. But so ground-breaking and wildly popular did Schumann's work prove to be—he and Clara toured it in Russia—that it became the acknowledged model for many others, Taneyev very much included. These two masterpieces are here gloriously performed by Peter Donohoe and the Sacconi Quartet. Also for Signum, Viktoria Mullova and Alasdair Beatson—once more drawing the most beguiling sounds from gut-string violin and fortepiano—have recorded Beethoven Violin Sonatas Nos 1, 6 & 8, works at once of rare enchantment and joyful abandon.