Today sees the release of new albums from Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout, Alexander Chance and Toby Carr, Iestyn Davies and Joseph Middleton, Alexander Melnikov, and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and its Chief Conductor Karina Canellakis. Explore them all below, read reviews and listen on Apple Music.

For their new album, Rachel Podger (violin) and Kristian Bezuidenhout (fortepiano) explore two early and two late violin sonatas by CPE Bach. Both musicians have won accolades in Gramophone for their recordings of JS Bach's music – Bezuidenhout recorded the sonatas for violin and harpsichord with Isabelle Faust (an Editor's Choice in March 2018 - read the review), and Podger's recording of the same repertoire with Trevor Pinnock at the harpsichord was an Editor's Choice in February 2001 (read the review). This, however, is their first encounter with CPE Bach's music, with the two early concertos looking back to JS Bach's music and the two later ones (from several decades later) fully displaying the kind of free-spirited composer that CPE Bach had become.

The first of two new English song recitals this week (see Iestyn Davies's album below), this is countertenor Alexander Chance's debut album for Linn Records. Alexander Chance was the guest on last week's episode of the Gramophone Podcast, which you can listen to below:

'Divine Music' is a very different programme of English songs from Iestyn Davies and Joseph Middleton, featuring premiere recordings of Four Songs (Purcell, arranged by Adès), Spoons Aria (Adès), Four Traditional Songs and Old Bones (arranged by Muhly).

Davies and Middleton made an impressive recording of Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin last year, about which Hugo Shirley wrote: 'Suffice to say that the artistry and intelligence he and pianist Joseph Middleton lavish on the work are never in doubt, and there are several highlights, especially among the more introspective, purely poetic songs.' (Read the review)

This fascinating album sees Alexander Melnikov perform a series of Fantasias by different composers in chronological order and on era-appropriate instruments, so we journey from Bach's Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue in D minor, BWV903, on a harpsichord through to Schnittke's Improvisation and Fugue on a modern Steinway, taking in Busoni on a Bechstein, Mozart on a fortepiano and Chopin on an Érard piano along the way. 

Pentatone has signed an exclusive recording agreement with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and its Chief Conductor Karina Canellakis and this is the first album of the relationship: Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra and Four Orchestral Pieces. 

As well as being Chief Conductor of Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Canellakis is Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and also Principal Guest Conductor of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. Initially a violinist – she played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Bergen Philharmonic – her decision to focus on conducting was validated by her receipt of the 2016 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award. 

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