Ralph Vaughan Williams’s sublime Mass in G minor reveals the composer’s absorbing interest in using the modal harmonic language and contrapuntal textures of the English late Renaissance to achieve a huge emotional and dynamic range. Undoubtedly the most technically demanding work on this disc is A Vision of Aeroplanes, a virtuosic motet for mixed chorus and organ. Several neglected works also feature here, including The Voice out of the Whirlwind, an anthem for mixed chorus and orchestra or organ, and Valiant-for-truth, one of several works based on Bunyan’s Christian allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress.

The Naxos series devoted to the orchestral music of Aram Khachaturian continues with his two works for cello and orchestra. The Cello Concerto, whose brooding emotional unease did not endear it to the authorities at a difficult time for Soviet musicians, is the most resourceful and forward-looking of his works from this period. The Concerto-Rhapsody is dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich and pursues a highly personal and intuitive approach to the relationship between soloist and orchestra. Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto and Concerto-Rhapsodyfor Violin are available on 8.570988, and the Piano Concerto and Concerto-Rhapsody for Piano on 8.550799.

Fauré’s musical language bridged a gap between 19th-century Romanticism and the music that appeared with the new century, developing and evolving, but retaining its own fundamental characteristics. His gift for melody, subtle harmonic idiom and judicious and highly personal use of contemporary innovations make for enriching listening, whether in the popular Sicilienne, Pavane and other short pieces or in his two tuneful and impeccably crafted Cello Sonatas. Fauré’s Piano Quintets on 8.570938 and Violin Sonatas Nos 1 and 2 on 8.550906 are also available.

From West Side Story to The Simpsons, Barber’s Adagio (featured in the soundtracks of Platoon and The Elephant Man) to the splendid homage to the most famous space-movie soundtracks and their writers, Space Brass, as well as music from the Indiana Jones movies, this volume brings all the excitement of popular movie and television soundtracks to Naxos’s Brass Band Classics series. Two years after it was founded, The Gomalan Brass Quintet won first prize in the prestigious ‘Town of Passau’ International Contest in Germany and now enjoys an international career.

‘There is a fire in the brain, in the mind, which comes from the universal fire that makes solar systems and galaxies, asteroid belts and comets, huge orbiting spirals, circles, loops that bend back on themselves in giant symmetries and stream out across millions of miles in giant asymmetries. What we humans call music is the perfect expression of this utterly fantastic image.’ George Rochberg’s extraordinary statement perfectly characterises the contrasts between order and chaos, symmetry and asymmetry, development and repetition of his immense and symmetrical Circles of Fire for piano duo.

Naxos’s acclaimed series of William Schuman’s symphonies concludes with his powerful and at times playful Eighth Symphony, in which the great American composer takes full advantage of the diverse instrumental colors available from a very large orchestra, including two harps, piano, and batteries of brass, wind and percussion instruments. The introspective Night Journey is based on Schuman’s score for Martha Graham’s ballet about Jocasta’s tragic destiny as both mother and wife of Oedipus, while his arrangement of Ives’s popular Variations on ‘America’,  again rich in percussion, combines reverence and exuberance.

It is only relatively recently that Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel has stepped out of the shadow of her more famous sibling Felix. Nearly all of her five hundred or so compositions remained unpublished during her lifetime, despite their undeniable beauty, lyricism and passion. This volume of piano music spans almost her entire adult life, from youthful experiments to music written less than a year before her untimely death, giving the listener a whirlwind tour of a much-underrated composer.

Best known for his inspired Son of God Mass for saxophone, choir and organ, the British composer, conductor and writer James Whitbourn is admired for his fresh, distinctive yet accessible compositional voice. Setting texts from ancient seers to the modern luminary Desmond Tutu (who narrates his own writings on this disc), the works on his new recording reflect the breadth of the composer’s achievement, from the monumental Magnificat written for King’s College Cambridge, to the Classical Indian fusion work Luminosity – a rare choral work composed for dance. They are performed by Commotio, an Oxford-based chamber choir which specialises in contemporary choral repertoire.

Described by his teacher, Stanford, as ‘the one who most fulfilled the accepted ideas of genius’, the poet and composer Ivor Gurney composed more than 300 songs despite suffering from bipolar disorder and tuberculosis. The Five Elizabethan Songs show the young composer’s astonishing limpid fluency, while Tears and Sleep rank among his most exquisite creations. Comedy, desolation and lovelorn longing all touch the music of this ‘lover and maker of beauty’, whose songs find ideal interpreters in Susan Bickley and Iain Burnside.

First performed in London in 1736 to an admiring audience of 1,300 people, and enjoying considerable success thereafter, Handel’s setting of John Dryden’s 1697 poem Alexander’s Feast evokes the power of music to stir the soul to acts of love and war, revenge and revels. This splendid oratorio, set at Alexander the Great’s victory celebrations for his conquest of Persia, culminates in an apotheosis to ‘divine Cecilia’, the patron saint of music whom Handel also praises in his Ode for St Cecilia’s Day of 1739 (Naxos 8.554752).

Belfast-born Ferguson’s reputation as a composer rests on the nineteen published works that he wrote between 1928 and 1959. Rhythmic energy endows his music with its exciting sense of momentum, underpinned by his command of Baroque and Classical forms and grasp of Romantic harmony and melody. Such characteristics of ‘progressive conservatism’ may be heard in his Partita for Two Pianos, the earliest work on this disc. Ferguson’s only song cycle, Discovery, was one of Kathleen Ferrier’s favourite works and is acknowledged as one of his finest compositions.

This is the fifth and final volume of Manuel Blancafort’s complete solo piano works, a series which has drawn on many unpublished scores kindly made available to Miquel Villalba by the composer’s family and contributed to the work of recovering, conserving and publicising the composer’s legacy. From the first two Nocturnes of 1930 and 1931, to the other works composed during or after World War II, we hear the transformation of Blancafort’s music from pieces inspired by his love of nature to works which pay tribute to fellow composers or are lovingly dedicated to his grandchildren.

This fourth volume of Naxos’s acclaimed edition of Igor Markevitch’s Complete Orchestral Music presents two of his most intriguing works: Rébus, an enigmatic ballet commissioned by Léonid Massine but never performed as such, and Hymnes, one of Markevitch’s most experimental compositions (the ‘hymns’ are wordless and completely secular) to which, shortly before his death, he appended the Hymne à la Mort. Volumes 1-3 are available on 8.570773, 8.572152 and 8.572153.

As one might guess from their descriptive titles, Jean-Baptiste Robin’s works are evocative, poetic and colourful, abounding in strength, energy and passion. When you listen to them, the days of contemporary music devoid of expression and obsessed with structure seem long past. This is highly expressive music with something to say, full of ideas to fire our imagination. Robin, who here performs on the organs in the churches of Saint-Louis-en-l’Île and Saint-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris, creates a world in flux, whose moving pictures and living images flow through a new fabric of sound.

Louis Spohr’s life-long artistic commitment to elegance, sturdy workmanship and emotional reticence has burdened him with a reputation as a nostalgic conservative. Yet his melodic mastery, delicately poised Classical sensibility and advanced treatment of harmony, are evident in the highly enjoyable music on this disc. Glittering solo passages and congenial interplay between the soloists characterise both the Concertanti, which pay tribute to the Baroque concerto grosso and look forward to the music of Berlioz, Tchaikovsky and Mahler, and the Duo, with its lively dialogues between equal partners.

Winner of the of the 2005 German Music Competition, the 2005 Stuttgart International Cello Competition and the 2006 Adam International Cello Competition, New Zealand, as well as the recipient of a 2009 Borletti Buitoni Fellowship, Nicolas Alstaedt here presents the complete cello music of Gabriel Pierné and Vincent D’Indy. Pierné’s superbly crafted and elegant Cello Sonata was much influenced by the music of César Franck, while d’Indy shows a fondness for old French dance forms. Nadia Boulanger made a particularly lasting impression as a teacher, exerting strong influence notably over a generation of American composers. Her Three Pieces move from gentle meditation to wild dance.

Here is a recording of rarities on two counts. Not only is the music of Kryukov, Vasilenko, Frid, Krein and Bogdanov-Berezovsky little known outside of Russia, but viola sonatas are as welcome as they are scarce. Romantic lyricism, the influence of Scriabin and Shostakovich, Russian emotionalism and a touch of French sensibility – each threads its way through these engaging works which exploit the viola’s rich tone. Igor Fedotov and Leonid Vechkhayzer here make their Naxos débuts, while Gary Hammond can also be heard on Naxos’s recording of music by Lucien Lambert Sr and Jr .

Lovers of the viola will rejoice at this deliciously varied musical feast: Zoltán Kodály’s magnificent transcription of Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia, Paganini’s Sonata (actually a theme and variations), two elegiac pieces by Vieuxtemps, Kreisler’s Praeludium and Allegro, Benjamin’s Le tombeau de Ravel, Enescu’s treacherously difficult yet fluidly melodic Concert Piece, Jongen’s impressionistic Introduction et Danse, and Bernard Shore’s charming Scherzo.

Cole Porter's final musical, Aladdin, loosely based on the famous story from The Thousand and One Nights retains the tale's Chinese setting and its well-known story of the lad and his magic lamp, while transforming it into a fully fledged musical, many of whose songs are much admired. The original Broadway cast recording is complemented here with tracks from the private edition preview, together with excerpts from Les Girls and the Dream Ballet based on music from Let's Do It and All Through The Night.

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Elizabeth Gaskell’s birth Naxos AudioBooks embarks on a series of unabridged and abridged recordings of her major novels. North and South follows the widely-praised recording of Cranford (2008), transporting the listener to the heart of Victorian England by vividly delineating the social landscape and an unlikely romance which flourishes within it. Saddened to be leaving behind the sophistication of the South, Margaret Hale approaches her new life in the unrefined, industrialised North with dread. Appalled at the poverty, struggle, and mean conditions that surround her, her revulsion particularly centres on the factory owner John Thornton. Yet, when circumstances conspire to bring them together, Margaret begins to see past crude stereotypes. Conjuring up a fantastic sense of time and place, Gaskell’s novel of romantic suspense and changing perceptions, is a sheer delight in the hands of Manchester-born reader, Clare Wille. Gaskell's novels have enjoyed a surge of popularity thanks to the BBC series of Cranford starring Judi Dench and the earlier BBC series of North and South. Also available unabridged on 15 CDs: ISBN-13 9789626341858.

Daunted by the prospect of running a marathon? The 3,000-mile Transamerica epic race that is the subject of this novel puts it very much in perspective. It is depression-era America and notorious huckster, Flanagan, plans the ultimate race, reeling in contestants with the promise of a glittering jackpot prize. At the starting line, 2000 audacious hopefuls line up from every walk of life and all ends of the globe, each with something to prove. As they run themselves ragged across America, they come up against numerous hazards, including the precipitous Rockies, shady mobsters and crooked officials.Their different stories, ambitions and dreams converge through a shared determination which will inspire you to push on to the finishing line.

Daunted by the prospect of running a marathon? The 3,000-mile Transamerica epic race that is the subject of this novel puts it very much in perspective. It is depression-era America and notorious huckster, Flanagan, plans the ultimate race, reeling in contestants with the promise of a glittering jackpot prize. At the starting line, 2,000 audacious hopefuls line up from every walk of life and all ends of the globe, each with something to prove. As they run themselves ragged across America, they come up against numerous hazards, including the precipitous Rockies, shady mobsters and crooked officials.Their different stories, ambitions and dreams converge through a shared determination which will inspire you to push on to the finishing line.

In 2010, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Chopin is celebrated. Regarded as one of the most mesmerising performers of his day, Frédéric Chopin, the pianist-composer, lives on in his music - his waltzes, mazurkas, etudes, preludes, nocturnes, three piano sonatas and two piano concertos. Here, his life, from his birth in Poland, his famous affair with the French writer George Sand, to his death at the age of 39 in Paris, is told with his music featuring prominently. We think of Chopin as a 'frail, sheltered genius' but this forthright portrait demonstrates he was far more boisterous than that. Cheerful as a youth, it was only later that the glare of publicity, the change from local to national celebrity, made Chopin guard his privacy more carefully. This is clearly presented in Jeremy Siepmann's sympathetic account of the life of one of the key figures in Romantic music.

In 2010 Naxos AudioBooks marks the centenary of Tolstoy’s death with a number of Tolstoy recordings, starting with The Cossacks. Naxos AudioBooks has developed a strong association with Tolstoy’s writing, best represented by the landmark recording of the unabridged War and Peace. Dissatisfied with his life of frivolity among the aristocracy of Moscow, young Dmitri Andreyevitch Olénin sets out for the Caucasus region. Here, among the natural beauty of his surroundings and the honest and industrious peasant people, Olénin hopes to obtain a more meaningful existence. Yet Olénin is marked out as an outsider from the very beginning, and his ill-fated passion for Maryanka, who is betrothed to a local hero, does little to ingratiate himself with this society. This beautifully articulated novel of self-discovery, youthful idealism and romance is read with great sympathy by Jonathan Oliver.

Here, for the first time as an unabridged audiobook, this enigmatic modern classic details the adulterous entanglements of two couples on seemingly normal, friendly terms. The truth of these liaisons emerges, retrospectively and in fragments, from the viewpoint of the innocent and unsuspecting John Dowell. Dowell’s perpetual failure to grasp and understand the nature of the infidelities of the people around him makes this a compelling and intriguing first-person narrative. The gap between one person’s interpretation of events and the reality is deftly illustrated in what has been critically acclaimed as a near perfect novel and one of the greatest English classics of the twentieth century. Kerry Shale’s reading is superb, evoking all the suspense and the subtleties of this fine novel.

Though he remains one of the most popular and widely studied of American 20th-century authors, Fitzgerald is underrepresented on audiobook. Here, Naxos AudioBooks presents the only unabridged recording available of one of his major novels. When the young and naïve Rosemary Hoyt comes to the French Riviera in the 1920s, she is bedazzled by the glamorous lifestyles of Dick and Nicole Diver and their high-society set. Yet, beneath this polished veneer, the lives of the Divers are fraught with complexity and anxiety. As their mysterious, problematic past resurfaces, the struggle to keep up appearances takes its toll, and their seemingly perfect lives begin to deteriorate with alarming rapidity. Overflowing with descriptive brilliance and lyrical power, Tender is the Night is also remarkable for the strong autobiographical element to the story. In depicting Dick and Nicole Diver, Fitzgerald clearly explores his own tempestuous relationship with his schizophrenic but brilliant wife Zelda.