'This is one of those delightful occasions where a complex and highly nuanced solo programme both holds together as a musical sequence and is wonderfully executed, combining intellectual joy with sonic beauty.' So begins Edward Breen's review of Isabel Schicketanz's debut solo album 'Seelentrost - the Sound of Inner Life in Heinrich Schütz Time', an Editor's Choice in the February issue and released today. It is a collection of music from the early Baroque, performed by, as Breen says, 'a baroque specialist with a steel core'.

Violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cédric Tiberghien return today with a recording of Robert Schumann's violin sonatas for Hyperion. The pair have produced excellent complete surveys of the Mozart and Beethoven sonatas (the latter for Wigmore Hall Live), as well as Gramophone Award-shortlisted albums dedicated to the music of Schubert, and to Vierne and Franck. They recorded Clara Schumann's little Romance, Op 22 No 1, as a close to their album of the Brahms sonatas. 'They find rich emotional ambiguities in the music’s melodic and harmonic intricacies,' wrote Andrew Farach-Colton.

Pianist Dmitry Masleev was James Jolly's guest on the Gramophone Classical Music Podcast last week, discussing his new album 'Dies Irae', which is released today. The album is a concertante collection of Liszt's Totentanz and Rhapsodie espagnole, and Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, performed with the Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra. 

Renaud Capuçon's new album is an exploration of the music of Richard Strauss featuring Ein Heldenleben (recorded back in 2000 with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and Seiji Ozawa, who died last year), the Violin Concerto (recorded in 2024 with the Wiener Symphoniker and Petr Popelka) and chamber works including the Violin Sonata and Piano Quartet.

We recently spoke to conductor Kent Nagano about his upcoming recording which recreates the the 1868 premiere of Brahms's German Requiem, this will be released on February 21 by BIS, but a useful modern comparison for that recording is released today, a new German Requiem from Edward Gardner with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Choirs, and soprano Johanna Wallroth and baritone Brian Mulligan on Chandos.