During this 150th anniversary year of Jean Sibelius, his music is being performed and discussed more widely than ever. As might be expected, the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, noted for its numerous and often revelatory Sibelius recordings, is planning its own homage: all seven symphonies will be performed at the 2015 edition of the orchestra's annual Sibelius Festival. With principal conductor Okko Kamu the Lahti SO has also prepared a special birthday present for their great compatriot. Recorded between 2012 and 2014 this new anniversary cycle is released as a boxed set of three SACDs with a surround sound option, and is accompanied by an ample booklet with informative notes by Andrew Barnett, author of a Sibelius biography. Needless to say, Kamu has conducted these works numerous times since then, in Finland and abroad, but has never before put his name to a complete cycle on disc.

Okko Kamu is a pro, and a thoroughly idiomatic Sibelius conductor, and of course the Lahti Symphony Orchestra's credentials already have been certified. The performances are excellent and full of personal touches. In the Tempest Suites, Kamu is always sensitive to the music's subtle details, particularly regarding string articulation. "Miranda", for example, is unusually wistful but not sleepy, and if "Caliban's Song" sounds a bit too legato, you do get a vivid sense of a corpulent, swaggering creature. "The Overture" is amazingly clear harmonically, yet also powerful. In short: a terrific performance.

Don't be put off by the precious title; this is a delightful collection of 17th-century English music built around the delicate viola da gamba skills of the Dutch virtuoso Mieneke van der Velden. Mostly oozing a delicious melancholy, but occasionally boasting a spring in its step, here is the best of such composers as John Dowland, Matthew Locke and William Corkine, with songs from Tobias Hume and Nicholas Lanier. Exquisitely played, with as much devotion to detail as technical mastery, here is period music to beguile many a modern moodswing.

Sinfonia of London and John Wilson present an album that celebrates the golden age of Hollywood. Sinfonia of London rose to fame in the 1950s as the leading recording orchestra of the day, appearing in the musical credits of more than 300 films, including the 1958 soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann for Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

“This fantasy world is a programme designed as a mirror, which is held up to our daily surroundings and where puzzling poetry abounds, creating a world simultaneously characterized by legends, lightness, and metaphysical depth too.” Jean- Baptiste Doulcet pays tribute to the fantasy literature that pervades the Romantic repertoire by combining Schumann, Liszt, and his own composition inspired by a poem by John Keats, an open door to an uncertain and poetic language.

In 1928 Maurice Ravel described the violin and the piano as “essentially incompatible.” Yet, by then, he had already composed for those instruments two sonatas (one of which was published posthumously), Tzigane, and the Berceuse sur le nom de [Gabriel] Fauré - a miraculous output for a supposedly mismatched duo.

Northern Europe was a fertile ground for lyrical music: it has borrowed many memorable historical figures but is also indebted to it for many masterpieces by Baroque composers. Handel and Bach come to mind, of course, but we would be forgetting the Heinichen, Schürmann, Keiser and Telemann, whose brilliant opera music is so rarely performed. Many of them have portrayed monarchs, terrible or majestic, in their operatic works - roles that, unlike their southern colleagues, the composers of the Septentrion do not hesitate to entrust to lower voices.

Regular duet and two-piano partners, Hélène Mercier and Louis Lortie have returned to the studio for this all-Debussy programme. The album features duets written by the composer himself – such as the Petite Suite, the Six Épigraphes antiques, and the Marche écossaise sur un thème populaire, as well as a number of arrangements of his solo piano pieces (the Première Arabesque, La Fille aux cheveux de lin, and the Ballade slave).

Vivaldi's concerti con molti stromenti are true precursors of the symphony in their amplitude and audacity. In these pieces, the 'Red-haired Priest', a creator of boundless imagination, amused himself by devising literally unheard-of combinations of timbres. In the famous concerto Il Mondo al rovescio (The world upside down), he invited flutes, oboes and harpsichord to double violin and cello in a colourfl whirlwind of parallel octaves. This recording by Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti provides an opportunity to discover these incredibly modern compositions.

Horsepower For The Streets is Jonathan Jeremiah’s fifth album, his second for PIAS, a label which feels like a good home for a soulful singer linked to a cadre of artists more readily associated with mainland Europe than his own island. So far at least.

On ‘Sophisticated Lady’ Thalen plays Jazz standards in their most vulnerable form, only accompanied by pianist Bert van den Brink and Hein van de Geyn on double bass. Her violin mainly sticks with the original melody and does not immediately flee towards the usual improvisation. In a frank and honest fashion Thalen wants to make these songs heard as they are. This seems cushy and in a first hearing, the music may sound quite accessable. But apart from the fact that nowadays it isn’t common to play mainly the melody, the plainnes of this approach appears to be fairly misleading.

A reunion record of sorts, with bass legend Mario Pavone getting together with some long-time colleagues of old in a sextet format. And the results are predictably excellent: multiple horn parts giving life to Pavone’s thorny compositions, a strong yet occasionally unpredictable rhythmic current, and superb musicianship throughout.

The quartet album from Israeli saxophonist Eli Degibri. - The group's pianist and bassist are 16 and 18 years of age, respectively. - “A very talented composer, arranger, and performer… the caliber of which is a rare find in jazz today. Degibri's music treads uncharted waters…” (Herbie Hancock)

Following the two fantastic singles that the band has put out in the past, Shelflife and Fastcut Records are incredibly excited to be releasing the debut full-length by Chicago's Star Tropics. "Lost World" cements the band's pop songwriting prowess, and its nine tracks all have equal likelihood of ending up ingrained in your brain.

That's It! is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1961 for the Candid label.