Handel/Steffani: Dixit Dominus; Stabat Mater - The Sixteen, dir Harry Christophers

For most listeners, the surprise package here will be Agostino Steffani’s Stabat Mater - its flavour is sober and devout

Schumann: Scenes from Goethe’s Faust - Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, cond Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Christian Gerhaher is Faust in Fischer-Dieskau mould and Alastair Miles makes the most of Mephisto’s brief appearances

Brahms: String Quartet in C minor, Op 51, No 1;Piano Quintet, Op 34 - Quatuor Ebène, Akiko Yamamoto (piano)

Hard on the heels of the Cuarteto Casals’s superb performance of Brahms’s C minor quartet comes the Quatuor Ebène’s

Prokofiev: Cello Concerto No 1; Symphony-Concerto - Alban Gerhardt (cello), Bergen Philharmonic, cond Andrew Litton

After meeting Rostropovich in 1947, Prokofiev composed a new cello sonata and extensively revised his Cello Concerto Op 58

Bach: Complete Sonatas and Partitas - Alina Ibragimova (violin)

The young Russian violinist performs these timeless masterpieces in concert with thrilling sang froid and without vibrato

Richard Bona: The Ten Shades of Blues

Gentle beat of Shiva Mantra sets the tone on an FM-friendly disc that roams over the landscape of Asia and Africa

Robert Glasper: Double Booked

Saxophonist Casey Benjamin gives Vocoder trimmings reminiscent of 1970s Headhunters (Herbie Hancock’s Butterfly is on cue)

Mariah Carey: Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel

The last line of Betcha Gon’ Know (The Prologue) promises "To be continued"... Twenty songs later, this was no idle threat

Dogan Mehmet: Gypsyhead

Mehmet is a 19-year-old fiddler and singer from Brighton, fluent in both English Morris and his parents’ Turkish folk

Adrian Shaw and Rod Goodway: Oxygen Thieves

Rod Goodway sang for the Wiltshire freakbeat band the Pack while Adrian Shaw is owed royalties from Hawkwind line-ups

Cerys Matthews: Don't Look Down

On her new album, former Catatonia front woman turned reality-show star and radio broadcaster is reunited with Mason Neely

Willard Grant Conspiracy: Paper Covers Stone

Robert Fisher has put together a unit including Sean O'Brien and Pete Weiss, guitarist and producer on early albums

Air: Love 2

Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin appear content to revisit the sound we all fell in love with on debut LP Moon Safari

Califone: All My Friends Are Funeral Singers

Led by Tim Rutili, Califone are making the exact opposite musical journey to Wilco, that other great Chicago band

Cerys Matthews: Don’t Look Down

Cerys Matthews has left the paes of Hello! magazine behind to challenge Duffy in the smoky-voiced chanteuses stakes

Deadmau5: For Lack of a Better Name

Funereal organs and astringent synths glisten on some tracks but the rest are turgid, heads-down numbers

Vasily Petrenko: Shostakovich

Petrenko’s wonderful Shostakovich symphony series continues with interpretations that are never over-indulged

Yasmin: Levy Sentir

Levy often struggles to escape from the shadow of flamenco here but an idiosyncratic reading of Hallelujah is superb

Sarah Chang: Bruch/Brahms

Chang here gives a vital, soulfully lyrical performance, with her warm musicianship spreading delight on every track

Air: Love 2

This brilliant album is the sixth instalment of what, almost by stealth, has become a breathtaking body of work