Lebrecht’s Album of the Week

Isabella Leonarda; A portrait (Brilliant Classics)

Passion and originality blossom behind the walls of the cloister

Nico Muhly: Stranger (AVIE)

This new album of three works offers quiet empathy more than overwhelming emotion

Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the end of time (OUR)

Messiaen’s quartet, first performed in a freezing barracks in 1941, is a thing of great beauty

Ferdinand Ries: Piano Trio and Sextets (Hyperion)

Ludwig van Beethoven’s former secretary and pupil was no forgettable curiosity

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphonies 7 & 9 (Hallé)

VW will never catch on beyond Anglophiles — ask not the reason why

Erwin Schulhoff: Violin sonatas (Orfeo/FHR)

Virtuosity amidst violence

Hans Winterberg: orchestral works (Capriccio)

The lost sounds of a German Jewish composer

Reynaldo Hahn: Poèmes & Valses (Hyperion)

This unfamiliar collection is the most enjoyable piano album of the year so far

Henryk Mikolai Gorecki: Piano pieces (Accord)

A furious, unfiltered revelation of the experimental heart of a familiar composer

Pärt, Poulenc, Stravinsky (BR Klassik)

This is a brilliant concert of three sacred works