In a nail-bitingly close contest, an independent label carries off the top prize.

Clive Paget caught up with the personable British baritone to unpack his enviable reputation as a singer and orchestrator.

More is more in these tasteful orchestrations of English song favourites.

This month, Roderick Williams gussies up English songs, Ravel and Arnold receive ardent advocacy, and a trio of suppressed Jessye Norman recordings sees the light of day.

Vaughan Williams’ 150th tops and tails this month’s new classical albums, plus the latest from the Danish String Quartet, a classic Bryn Terfel recital and a heartfelt new Traviata.

Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé deliver a characterful, colourful tribute to Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Norman Lebrecht suggests that the Berlin Phil's decision to bypass the record industry by establishing their own label is the reason. Not so, says Gramophone.

Elder and the Halle travel inspirationally between Heaven and Hell.

A tribute to a legend, and a solo debut of rare drama and scope.

Chimes and gentle winds open A Celestial Map of the Sky – the title track on this disc by British-American composer Tarik O’Regan – before the Hallé, led by Sir Mark Elder, is joined by the choir. The luminous opening soon gives way to powerful, driving intensity, O’Regan setting extracts of poetic texts (by Walt Whitman, Mahmood Jamal and more) that reflect his response to a pair of woodcuts – star charts – by Albrecht Dürer. Haunting vocal meditations are entwined with a glittering, astral score. Jamie Philips conducts the Hallé in the remaining works. O’Regan takes the Adagio of JS Bach’s third Violin Sonata (BWV 1005) as his jumping off point in Latent Manifest. Solo violin is joined by harp and percussion, O’Regan extrapolating Bach’s quadruple-stops into a whorl of vivid orchestral colour and sizzling rhythms. Both Raï and Chaâbi (which was commissioned for the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s 2012 tour) derive from O’Regan’s memories of childhood visits to relatives in Algeria and Morocco. Raï is full of fierce strings, rhythmic drumming and bright momentum from the Hallé, while shifting string textures in Chaâbi create a reflective mood. The finale is Fragments from Heart of Darkness, a dramatic… Continue reading…

Ryan Wigglesworth is making a name for himself as an accomplished conductor, composer and pianist. He is Composer in Residence with the English National Opera, for whom he is writing an opera for the 2017 season, and is Principal Guest Conductor of the Hallé orchestra, who feature on this recording. This album is the first full-length portrait of his compositions and demonstrates his prowess over a variety of mediums. Wigglesworth’s Echo and Narcissus: A Dramatic Cantata, for which the album is named, is a setting of text from Ted Hughes’ Tales from Ovid that had its premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2014. Wigglesworth on piano is joined by mezzo-soprano Pamela Helen Stephen, tenor Mark Padmore and two choruses of female voices. Stephen, augmented by chorus, is the narrator – her voice sumptuous and authoritative. The part of Echo is sung by a wistfully distant second chorus (heard mainly from offstage), while Padmore makes an anxious, keening Narcissus. The album opens with Augenlieder, a suite of four songs, settings of poems linked thematically by eye or gaze imagery, written for soprano Claire Booth. Wigglesworth conducts the Hallé, the orchestra a haunting underbelly to Booth’s limpid soprano. Three orchestral works round…

John Casken’s orchestral music is monumental in breadth and vision, and makes for enjoyable listening.