At the heart of 'Bach: The Art of Life' – Daniil Trifonov's exploration not only of the music of Bach but also the composer's world – is a recording of The Art of Fugue. The album also features music by members of the Bach family, including JC Bach's Harpsichord Sonata, Op 17 No 5, and WF Bach's 12 Polonaises. 

Soprano Renée Fleming and conductor and pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin explore humanity's relationship with the natural world through songs by Edvard Grieg, Franz Liszt, Gabriel Fauré and Reynaldo Hahn. 'Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene' also includes two premiere recordings of songs by Nico Muhly and Kevin Puts.

Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Sol Gabetta have been playing together for two decades and this celebration of their musical collaboration and friendship features duos for violin and piano by Ravel and Kodály, as well as more contemporary works by Francisco Coll, Jörg Widmann and Iannis Xenakis. The recent album 'Plaisirs illuminés' featured the pair together in Coll's work of the same name, it was shortlisted for this year's Gramophone Awards.

'À sa guitare' is the first collaboration between countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and guitarist Thibaut Garcia and, like many of the albums that we are highlighting this week, it embraces an exceptionally broad range of music, separated by many hundreds of years. As Philippe Jaroussky says of the album, 'each piece is a world in itself. The idea was to take some risks … sometimes moving to a completely different world between one track and the next.'

John Butt and The Dunedin Consort present three of JS Bach's greatest cantatas with soloists Joanne Lunn, Katie Bray, Hugo Hymas, Robert Davies and Matthew Brook. Admirers of their accounts of the B minor Mass, John Passion and Magnificat (which was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2016) will know to expect an exceptional recording, full of fresh musical insights.

Specialist Classical Chart

The Official Specialist Classical Chart Top 20 appears on the Gramophone website and is updated every Friday at 6pm (UK time). It’s a great way of exploring the new classical releases: 

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