Finley warms up Sibelius: Rautavaara's inspired orchestrations offer a rich tribute to the late master's late master.

Alwyn is possibly better known for his 200-odd film scores than for his other compositions.

Argentine cellist Sol Gabetta catapulted into public consciousness when she won the Crédit Suisse Young Artist Award in 2004 and subsequently debuted with the Vienna Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev. She was 23 then, but had won her first competition at the age of ten, and now enjoys a hectic international career as one of the world’s most famous and highly-regarded cellists. Her wide-ranging repertoire includes three albums of works by Vivaldi and his contemporaries, recorded with Capella Gabetta, the ensemble she founded with her brother Andrés. In addition to core 19th-century repertoire, she is also committed to contemporary compositions, and has recorded an album of works by Latvian composer Pe¯teris Vasks which included his Second Cello Concerto, written especially for Gabetta.  This latest album features two 20th-century masterworks – the first, arguably the most famous cello concerto in the repertoire; the second, virtually unknown by comparison. Elgar’s concerto was written in 1919, with the dark pall of WWI hanging heavily upon its composer, who wrote, next to its entry in his catalogue of works, “Finis. R.I.P.”. Its 1919 premiere was a disaster, and it languished in popularity until recorded by Jacqueline du Pré in 1965 (incredibly, she was only 20) and her technically…

Marlis Petersen has been the preeminent Lulu for two decades. Since she announced that she would be retiring from the role after this Met production, this Bluray is an important document. Visual artist William Kentridge wowed the Met a few years ago with a hyperactive production of Shostakovich’s The Nose, but I was wary of his take on Berg’s towering masterpiece – with a work of such dramatic intensity I’d happily swap all the Met’s technical gee-gaws for a few chairs and a spotlight. I suspect his arresting visual trickery might have been distracting in the theatre, but thankfully the filming strikes an ideal mean with cameras focusing our attention on the intense drama. That said: it is certainly a visual feast with constantly evolving projections referencing Expressionist and Weimar Republic visual cues with India ink, linocut and woodcut overlaying newsprint. The occasional Rorschach blot is a clever visual metaphor for both the moral ambiguity of Lulu (“I’ve never pretended to be anything but what men see in me”) and the opera’s formal arch structure. The cast is excellent. Johan Reuter manages to draw sympathy as a younger than usual Dr Schön, his anger more menacing for that. Susan Graham…

Yende makes a compelling case for a place in your collection with this finely-engineered and recorded disc.

Giordano’s 1896 French Revolution opera is not as popular as it was. A star vehicle for a great tenor, it’s lumped in the verismo basket, though it bears more resemblance to the historical romances of Verdi. The score balances period pastiche with more urgent fin de siècle passions, and in the right hands it can soar. That’s certainly the case under the baton of Antonio Pappano in this, Covent Garden’s first new staging in 30 years. David McVicar’s meticulously researched, dramatically detailed production gives this sprawling beast its best chance to bite – you can smell the foul breath of the mob. Robert Jones’ grand sets and Jenny Tiramani’s authentic costumes provide a backdrop against which McVicar can deploy his quick intelligence, ensuring credibility and motivational insight. On the other hand, there’s little can be done about the awkward dramaturgy. Crucial changes of fortune happen off stage, and the five year gap between acts one and two is a problem for an audience unversed in the political ups and downs from the Estates-General to the Jacobin Terror. Nevertheless, you couldn’t ask for a finer Chénier than Jonas Kaufmann. Firm-toned and ardent, he’s well matched by Eva-Maria Westbroek as an intense,…

Artistic director of Russia’s Perm State Opera, Greek-born conductor Teodor Currentzis and his relentlessly drilled HIP orchestra Musica Aeterna have been attracting encomia and outrage in equal measure for their thrilling, uncompromising and often eccentric accounts of works by composers from Purcell to Stravinsky and Shostakovich. This recording of Mozart’s Don Giovanni – apparently released a year later than planned because Currentzis was unhappy and insisted on doing it all over again – completes the firebrand’s survey of the composer’s three operas to libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Like his Nozze di Figaro and Così Fan Tutte, Currentzis’ take on the Don grips you from the terrifying overture and sweeps you along to the terrible denouement. Again, the precision of the orchestral playing, often at breakneck speed, defies belief. Currentzis sees Don Giovanni as inhabiting a very specific soundworld combining “the coldness of the Salzburg church music tradition” with “a Mediterranean Baroque sound.” Thus Don Giovanni (Dimitris Tiliakos) strikes one as more pitiable than ever; Leporello (Vito Priante) despite his servitude, more admirable, while Karina Gauvin’s Donna Elvira is the very embodiment of a woman scorned. Mika Kares (Il Commendatore), Myrtò Papatanasiu (Donna Anna), Kenneth Tarver (Don Ottavio), Christina Gansch…

Argentinian countertenor Franco Fagioli has always been a live wire.

Considering her sizable discography, 2015’s Fleurs was surprisingly Carolyn Sampson’s first song recital. It turned out a corker and set a very high bar for a follow-up. I can happily report that this release comfortably vaults that bar. The clever thematic programming continues, this time in various settings of Symbolist Decadent Paul Verlaine’s moonlit evocations. Debussy’s setting of Fêtes Galantes, Ariettes Oubliées and Fauré’s La Bonne Chanson are old favourites along with Hahn’s lovely L’heure Exquise and Tous Deux, but the five settings by Poldowski, aka Régine Wieniawski (daughter of the violin composer), are an unfamiliar treat; accomplished vocal writing, gorgeous harmonies and imaginative accompaniments – her En Sourdine is delicious. The performances are breathtakingly beautiful. As expected from the impeccable Sampson there is some astonishingly pure and precisely controlled vocalism, but lest she be typecast as an early music specialist there has been a perceptible increase in richness and colour over the last few years. Her delivery is mostly intimate and confessional, the full voice used sparingly so at key moments when it opens out and expands the result is spine-tingling. She has an ideal partner in Joseph Middleton, a superb musician with a keen ear whose hypersensitive touch…

Once the remit of boy choristers and early music specialists only, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater has evolved into a star vehicle.

Spem in alium is undoubtedly one of the great masterpieces of English polyphony; in a sense the last great flowering of a magnificent tradition. Like any great masterpiece, Tallis’s astounding 40-part motet can be admired from any number of different vantage points.   In this final volume of their Tallis survey, Carwood and The Cardinall’s Musick give us two versions – the original setting with its Latin text as well its contemporaneous adaptation to an English text. Both cast different lights on the music. Pleading and sorrowful, the Latin words create a sombre mood while the English text has a more jubilant effect. Choosing to record the work in a relatively dry acoustic also emphasises the composer’s extraordinary skill in manipulating such heroic forces and also the singers’ wonderful precision and unanimity of tone. The rest reminds us of Tallis’s uncanny ability to bend to the musical and religious dictates of his age, thus ensuring his head remained attached to his shoulders. Amongst deservedly popular works in Latin and English we have O Sacrum Convivium, Hear the Voice and Prayer and Verily, Verily, I Say Unto You. At the simpler end of the scale some early English liturgical works are…

Born in Venice about 1670 and dying in Vienna in 1736, Antonio Caldara not only had the good fortune to span different geographical musical centres, but also changes in musical style and taste. This programme of his music mainly devoted to the Virgin demonstrates some of these changes. The Venetian polychoral school is admirably represented by the double-choir Magnificat which opens (and also receives its first recording). A 16-part setting of the Crucifixus has more of a dramatic, high baroque sensibility akin to that of Caldara’s almost exact contemporary, Antonio Lotti. Making their first appearance in the catalogue, two charming concerted works, Ave Maris Stella and Salve Regina demonstrate Caldara’s skill in handling solo voices and smaller forces. Australian-born tenor Robert Macfarlane sings with admirable grace and clarity in the latter while soprano Nathalie Seelig and alto Franziska Markowitsch make a well matched pair in the former. String and continuo accompaniments are both sympathetic and engaging. The major work is an extended setting of the Stabat Mater. With baroque techniques like descending chromatic bass lines and stark dissonances, Caldara paints a colourful picture of the sorrowing Mary at the foot of the cross. The music is well served by the…