Following the chart-topping success of his Bach Sonatas and Partitas and equal acclaim for his recording of Walther's Scherzi da violino, Bojan Cicic now turns to Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's collection of sonatas from 1681 - among the most ambitious and inventive violin works of the seventeenth century.Using unorthodox tuning and bold harmonic invention, Biber expands the instrument's capabilities, and his improvisatory style, layered textures and intricate counterpoint demand of the player not only virtuosic technical brilliance but an acute sensitivity to affect and sonority.With his Illyria Consort, Cicic brings a clarity and depth to this music, uncovering the sonatas' rich interplay between intellect, devotion and instrumental theatre. Restless in imagination and profound in expression, the sonatas - here recorded complete - are illuminated by Cicic's unmistakable artistry.

The Choir of Merton College reunites with Britten Sinfonia to explore some much-loved Anglican repertoire in its full orchestral splendour.Stanford in A, as it was originally heard in 1880, reveals its symphonic side, not least in the masterful and eloquently scored Nunc dimittis. Anthems by Elgar and Bairstow gain new life in their original scoring, while others, originally for organ, are given added dimensions by their composers' orchestrations.Walton's The Twelvematches W.H. Auden's striking and dramatic poetry with typically dynamic vocal and instrumental writing; Ireland's Greater love and Wesley's mighty Ascribe unto the Lord bring to the anthem tradition a richness of harmony and orchestral colour to which Benjamin Nicholas's combined forces do full-blooded justice.

On this inventively programmed, deeply personal album, Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux and her duo partner Joseph Havlat interleave three major Schubert works for violin and piano with instrumental versions of his songs, in juxtapositions which bring out both connections and contrasts between them. The genial Sonata in A major sits alongside the dark, dejected yet lyrical 'Du liebst mich nicht' (in which Saluste-Bridoux tunes her violin's lowest string down to D sharp to bring out a raspy, viola-like quality). 'Sei mir gegrusst' is revealed as the melodic source for the late Fantasy in C major, whose 'Hungarian' stylistic features are also found in the Rondo in B minor. Deliberately avoiding an earnest approach focused on these works' proximity to the composer's early death, Saluste-Bridoux and Havlat have 'walked away from doom and gloom and tried to bring out Schubert's silliness and, at times, unnerving simplicity'. Saluste-Bridoux is grand prizewinner of the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) 2021 International Auditions and a Classic FM 2022 'Rising Star', and the album continues Delphian's much admired series of recordings released in collaboration with YCAT, to showcasing nine leading young artists.

Under Henry VIII, royal progresses were both journeys and sonic experiences. Solemn polyphony accompanied the king's devotions; jubilant songs rang out in great halls; charming miniatures were shared in the intimacy of the privy chamber.

Inspired by his Highland heritage, the young tenor Glen Cunningham presents a personal and heartfelt journey through music connected to Scotland, both native and international, old and new. The focus of the new is a commission by fellow Highlander Stuart MacRae, setting five poems of Robert Louis Stevenson.At the album’s core, meanwhile, are Schumann’s settings of Robert Burns, showcasing the poet’s influence on the world of lieder, alongside arrangements of Burns’ songs by Scottish composers. Joined by pianist, friend and regular duo partner Anna Tilbrook, Cunningham offers a rich, evocative programme that reflects his deep connection to the landscapes and stories of his homeland.

The Choir of King’s College London follow up on their first recording of Edward Nesbit’s sacred choral music, named a Gramophone Editor’s Choice in 2022, with Nativity, a programme of Christmas music written by the composer over the last ten years: a joyful celebration that places Nesbit at the heart of a thriving British choral scene.At the heart – but slightly to one side too. In a crowded field, Nesbit’s voice is distinctive. Expect much more fast-paced music than is the norm, an abundance of musical references to the classical canon, and frequent touches of humour. With their young, zestful performances, Nesbit’s music benefits from his close collaboration with the choir and its director Joseph Fort.

Long associated with the music of Gabriel Jackson, in 2020 the Choir of Merton College, Oxford and their director Benjamin Nicholas won a BBC Music Magazine Award for their recording of The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, a work which grounded its narrative of Christ’s suffering and humanity’s redemption in texts associated with the history of the College.The Christmas Story, again with a libretto assembled by the College’s chaplain the Revd Dr Simon Jones, takes the same approach to tell the story of Christ’s birth. Spanning the period from Advent to Candlemas, it mixes biblical narrative with liturgical texts and four specially commissioned poems by members of the College.The new poems are given to the College’s girl choristers (an independent part of its choral foundation since 2016), while the main body of the work is carried by the full choir and by an ensemble of flute, percussion, strings, saxophone and three trombones – the latter recalling the hieratic sonorities of the seventeenth-century works by Schütz and others which Jackson had in mind while composing The Christmas Story.

In an age when church attendance in England was flourishing, Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876) was one of the foremost composers and organists of his day. Taking advantage of new developments in instrument building, Wesley was able to push the boundaries of English church music in a new direction, encompassing a more ambitious, even operatic style. In this recording - the first to have been made using an organ similar in design to his own - Wesley's music is brought to vibrant life by the young professional singers of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre under conductor Toby Ward.

Love – from many-splendoured and joyous to tragic and rejected, homo- and heterosexual, light-hearted and broken-hearted, heavenly and earthly, innocent and anything but: in their first joint recording, long-term performing partners Harriet Burns and Ian Tindale make a deeply personal choice of Schubert’s lieder, exploring the theme of love, but also the friendships and relationships between poets and the composer out of which he crafted songs of astonishing empathy.

Hailed as ‘a palpable success … and utterly new’ at its premiere performance, Bob Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio brings the magic, wonder and joy of a centuries-old story to modern-day life.This first recording reassembles the glittering cast of soloists from the premiere: Nick Pritchard’s Evangelist, intimately accompanied by harp and flute, is joined by mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly and bass Neal Davies.Benjamin Nicholas’s award-winning Choir of Merton College, Oxford enrich the Christmas story with carols that are sure to become instant favourites. The composer is delighted with the recording, describing it as ‘elegant, well paced and poised … The choir is fabulous – confident and sure’.

Hearing guitarist Sean Shibe’s Bach recital, recorded in Delphian’s fifteenth-century Scottish venue, Baroque violinist Bojan Čičić was inspired during the first lockdown to begin recording Bach’s iconic Partitas and Sonatas. Amid the gloom of the pandemic and restrictions on performances, Čičić travelled north – when allowed – to explore the intense rigours of Bach’s fugues and shining virtuosity of the Partitas’ fast movements.Dedicated to his late violin professor and with a booklet essay written by Mahan Esfahani, for Bojan Čičić the making of this recording in the snowbound Scottish countryside has been his greatest career highlight – a journey for him from darkness into light.

The choir which David Trendell directed for twenty-two years pays tribute in a collection of specially chosen pieces by Davids colleagues, friends and former students, interspersed with the Renaissance polyphony which was Trendells area of scholarly expertise. His deep love for the Song of Songs has inspired many of the inclusions, and its nature imagery threads through the disc, adding a suggestion of renewal and rebirth to the memorial tone of works written in the difficult months after his untimely death.

Rosalind Ventris’s debut solo album features a selection of music for unacccompanied viola composed between 1930 (Imogen Holst’s impressive Suite for Viola) and the present day (a 2020 lockdown miniature by Thea Musgrave). The largely British and Irish programme allows Ventris to revive substantial works by important yet still often overlooked twentieth-century composers – not only Holst but also Lillian Fuchs, Elizabeth Maconchy, Elisabeth Lutyens and Gra_yna Bacewicz – alongside more recent additions to the repertoire from Musgrave, Sally Beamish and Amanda Feery. With several of the composers themselves professional string players, this is, in Ventris’s words, ‘wonderful music – that just happens to be by women composers’.

Johann Jakob Walther was one of the most significant violinists in Germany in the generation before Johann Sebastian Bach, and Bojan Čičić believes his music should be essential listening for anyone seeking a fuller understanding of Bach’s polyphonic writing for the instrument. Having built their reputation with a series of Delphian recordings focussing on "missing link" composers, Čičić and his Illyria Consort are passionate about bringing Walther’s collection of Scherzi da violino to the wider audience it deserves. This first complete recording displays the sheer ambition of Walther’s opus, with highlights including his demonstration of the violin’s polyphonic potential in the D major Sonata (No. III); the joyful playfulness of the end of No. IV; the inventiveness of the Imitatione del cuccu; and – Bojan Čičić’s personal favourite – the dramatic melancholy of the final Aria in E minor.

The everyday is transfigured in this intimate collection of chamber music and songs by leading young Scottish composer Martin Suckling – settings for mezzo-soprano and piano of five magical, moonlit poems by Michael Donaghy and a String Quintet written in collaboration with the poet Frances Leviston, whose readings of her own texts frame the four movements of a piece which pays dual homage to Schubert and to Emily Dickinson. Nocturne for violin and cello bears witness to Suckling’s night vigils at the composing desk, setting down his pen as the stillness starts to ripple with birdsong, while the cello solo Her Lullaby is a nostalgic reflection on the early years of parenthood that also displays Suckling’s characteristically refined harmonic palette.