Bernarda Fink's voice is well suited to the nineteenth century lied; it's warm, full, and intensely focused, with a radiant luminosity over its whole range. She projects a sense of regal composure and a maturity that's not so much chronological as spiritual; you just have the sense that this is a very centered individual. Those qualities, along with her interpretive sensitivity, make this a truly memorable version of Frauenliebe und -leben.

You might guess from the disc’s title (“Loneliness”), not to mention from the cover art, that isn't going to be the most cheerful of recitals; but in fact it isn't the least bit morose. Matthias Goerne has used his time with Harmonia Mundi to show that he is one of the most distinguished baritones singing Schubert today (review), and here he gives us his first Schumann recital, which proves to be every bit as distinguished; perhaps even more so, because since recording the Schubert series Goerne’s voice has darkened into an instrument that is even better suited for exploring the world of Schumann’s melancholy.

Elizabeth Watts is regarded as 'one of the finest British sopranos to have emerged in the last decade. Her reputation is steadily growing as she has performed s a recitalist, opera singer, and concert artist, she has already appeared at many of the world's leading musical centres and festivals, including the Royal Opera House, London, Wigmore Hall, Welsh National Opera, the BBC Proms, Santa Fe Opera, Boston's Handel and Haydn Society, and has engagements throughout Europe from Amsterdam to Zurich.

René Jacobs began his career as a countertenor and quickly earned the reputation as one of the finest of his time. But he gradually turned to conducting and since the turn of the new century has rarely sung in concert. As a countertenor Jacobs championed a string of forgotten Baroque composers on his recordings: Antonio Cesti, Sigismondo d'India, Luca Marenzio, Pierre Guédron, Michel Lambert, and others.

This is a beautiful, heartwarming record. Schubert's part-songs, originally written for friendly gatherings at home, have never received the recognition they deserve, perhaps partly because he himself underrated them. Yet their extraordinary variety of mood, character, and texture, (often within a single song) and the inspired melodies, harmonic surprises, and magical modulations, are vintage Schubert.

The Ensemble Pygmalion directed by Raphaël Pichon commences its collaboration with Harmonia Mundi with this new recording of J.S. Bach’s lost music to the Köthener Trauermusik (Cöthen funeral music), BWV 244a. Founded in 2006 at the European Bach Festival, Ensemble Pygmalion is a combination of choir and orchestra - all young performers with experience of authentic instruments and period-informed performance. Its repertoire concentrates primarily on Johann Sebastian Bach and Jean-Philippe Rameau.

The glittering city of Dresden, whose painstaking reconstruction after it was reduced to rubble in World War II is one of the great success stories of architecture preservation, is a hot topic in the Baroque music field, and this 2000 recording, reissued in budget form in 2010, offers a taste of the excitement. As the seat of the Holy Roman Empire's Elector of Saxony, the city was musically significant even before the rise to power of the man who really made its cultural reputation, August the Strong.

On Deutsche Barocklieder, Harmonia Mundi's outstanding imprint Les Nouveaux Musiciens introduces German soprano Annette Dasch in a recital of German Baroque songs. Not one of these 18 selections is familiar, and that is good; it is an overlooked area of the repertory consisting of a monumental amount of material.