A new recording of Puccini's Tosca made in Rome by DG with three outstanding singers in the lead roles – Eleonora Burratto as Tosca, Jonathan Tetelman as Cavaradossi and Ludovic Tézier as Scarpia – is always going to be hotly anticipated, but does it deliver? Mark Pullinger, in his review for the April issue, writes: 'This new account boasts the finest Tosca cast of the digital era and is a recording I'll be returning to often in years to come.' 

This recording was made over three public performances and Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford was in attendance to speak to Jonathan Tetelman about the experience (you can read the interview in the April issue and on our website). Performing an opera without staging and with microphones present brings its own challenges, as Tetelman says, 'Everything is under a microscope – a hundred times more. You only have the music to tell the story, and it’s not just based on beautiful sounds, either; it’s also about finding this emotion. I think Puccini is one of the harder composers to record.'

After three recitals exploring, in turn, the music of Weill, Zemlinsky and Korngold ('Thousands of Miles'), Scarlatti, Handel and Haydn ('Arianna'), and Monteverdi and Monari ('Tiranno'), mezzo Kate Lindsey's fourth album for Alpha ('Samsara') features Schumann's cycle Frauenliebe und -leben and Fauré's La chanson d'Ève. She is joined on this new album by pianist Eric Le Sage, who has recorded the chamber music of Fauré (the Quintets with Quatuor Ébène – shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2013) and Schumann for Alpha, as well as Schumann's Dichterliebe with Julian Prégardien and Sandrine Piau, so he's a perfect partner for Lindsey in this repertoire.

Cyrille Dubois and Tristan Raës have struck up a remarkable recording partnership for the Aparté label, winning a 2023 Gramophone Award and Recording of the Month accolade for their complete survey of Fauré's Songs and having their album of music by Louis Beydts (1895-1953) named an Editor's Choice and shortlisted for a Gramophone Award last year. Today sees the release of a new album from the pair exploring the complete songs of Gabriel Dupont (1878-1914). Dupont's life was cut short by tuberculosis at the age of just 36, and as a former pupil of both Massenet and Widor he was known during his lifetime primarily as a composer of opera, and since his death for the piano works Les heures dolentes and La maison dans les dunes. His songs only rarely appear on record, but there can be no better guides to this unfamiliar landscape than Dubois and Raës.

Back in 1999, the Takács Quartet made a fine recording of Dvořák's Piano Quintet in A major with pianist Andreas Haefliger for Decca, today they return to the work alongside Marc-André Hamelin for Hyperion. Their first recording paired the quintet with Dvořák's String Quartet No 10, but the new album features Florence Price's Piano Quintet in A minor. Price's Quintet was originally completed in 1952, but was rediscovered in an abandoned attic as recently as 2009 and received its premiere recording courtesy of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for Chandos in 2021. 

Errollyn Wallen CBE, Master of the King's Music, has always drawn inspiration from all kinds of music, a musician effortlessly vaulting over genre barriers as though they are not there, because for Wallen they really are not there. A new recording released today of Wallen's orchestral works by the BBC Concert Orchestra and conductor John Andrews for Resonus Classics gives an impressive overview of her orchestral works, from Mighty River (2007) to Dances for Orchestra (2023). Mezzo Idunnu Münch joins the orchestra for This Frame Is Part of the Painting, soprano Ruby Hughes is featured on By Gis and by Saint Charity and cellist Miwa Rosso steps out of the orchestra for a short but telling solo in Postcard for Magdalena.