Last September Gramophone made the Norwegian soprano, Lise Davidsen, our Young Artist of the Year: it was as much a recognition of her undoubtedly exciting future as for the remarkable things she’d already done in concert and, sparsely, on record at the time. Now, her solo debut album for Decca of Wagner and Richard Strauss has appeared and on it the exquisite Four Last Songs (with the even ‘last-er’ ‘Malven’, a little gem written for Maria Jeritza). Davidsen is, I’m pretty sure, the youngest singer to record the Four Last Songs, but she will no doubt sing them throughout her career, something we talked about in the latest Gramophone Podcast.

Another glorious voice from last year’s Awards, that of the French contralto Delphine Galou, winner of the Recital category, also appears in this week’s playlist. She’s releasing, simultaneously, two albums of vocal music by Vivaldi and I’ve included a couple of taster tracks, one being the absolutely gorgeous aria from Cessate, omai cessate (a work I discovered, as I’m sure many others did, on an early recording by Andreas Scholl). 

Mozart’s most popular piano concerto, his K467, comes courtesy of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet in the latest instalment of his much-acclaimed cycle for Chandos while another Chandos pianist, Barry Douglas, brings his formidable technique to an early Schubert piano sonata.

Yet another pianist, Anna Gourari, whose programming always engages the imagination, has issued a fascinating album of modern piano music - from which I’ve plucked Alfred Schnittke’s quirky Five Aphorisms. And from a composer I always associate with ECM, Giya Kancheli, two of his little letters to friends …

Choral music from the hugely impressive Apollo5 and Alamire, and for orchestral fare on a broad canvas, Sibelius’s wondrous Lemminkaïnen Suite whose third movement is the lovely and elegiac 'The Swan of Tuonela'. 

A couple more pre-release tracks: Mahler from Renée Fleming and Christian Thielemann, and a movement from Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto from one of the prodigiously talented Kanneh-Mason family, Isata. James Jolly

Listen on Apple Music and Spotify

Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs – The Call (arr HD Bennett)

Apollo5 (VCM)

Mozart Piano Concerto No 21 in C, K467

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet; Manchester Camerata / Gábor Takács-Nágy (Chandos)

Vivaldi Salve regina, RV618 – 'O clemens, o pia'

Delphine Galou; Accademia Bizantina / Ottavio Dantone (Naïve) 

Schubert Piano Sonata No 4 in A minor, D537

Barry Douglas (Chandos)

Vivaldi Cessate, omai cessate – Ah ch'infelice sempre

Delphine Galou; Accademia Bizantina / Ottavio Dantone (Naïve)

Sibelius Lemminkäinen Suite

BBC Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo (Chandos)

Kancheli Letter to Composer Nodar Gabunia

Andrea Cortesi; Georgian Strings (Brilliant Classics)

R Strauss Vier letzte Lieder

Lise Davidsen; Philharmonia Orchetsra / Esa-Pekka Salonen (Decca)

Kancheli Letter to Writer, Puppeteer and Painter Revaz Gabriadze

Andrea Cortesi; Georgian Strings (Brilliant Classics)

Praetorius Gloria summum

Alamire; Stephen Farr; His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts / David Skinner (Inventa)

Schnittke Five Aphorisms

Anna Gourari (ECM New Series)

Fraser Wilson Wishes

Apollo5 (VCM)

C Schumann Piano Concerto – Allegro maestoso

Isata Kanneh-Mason; Royal Liverpool Philharnonic Orchestra / Holly Mathieson (Decca) PRE-RELEASE TRACK

Mahler Rückert-Lieder – Um Mitternacht

Renée Fleming; Munich Philharmonic Orchestra / Christian Thielemann (Decca) PRE-RELEASE TRACK