Dans les arbres’ third album, ‘Phosphorescence’ moves away from its predecessors’ aesthetic context of contemporary improvised chamber music performed on acoustic instruments towards a more mixed economy of means, with some electronic processing, amplification (of the prepared piano and guitar) and real-time sampling added to the repertoire of sounds familiar from the first two recordings. Recorded at Isitart, “the studio in a forest” in rural Sweden south of Oslo, it’s tempting to see ‘Phosphorescence’ as in some way a more relaxed, even bucolic production, but this may not be the case at all.

Born in Amsterdam and based in Germany, Johannes Schenk blended the musical influences of the English viol school and of Marin Marais. Each volume of his works has its own individual character: the volume entitled Le Nymphe di Rheno contains twelve sonatas for two bass viols without figured bass. Schenk here makes use of the Italian sonata form, as he does in the church sonatas as well as the chamber sonatas with their dance movements. French influences can also be felt in the various rondeaux and minuets and above all in the monumental Chaconne of the Sonata in G major.

Marc-André presents a fascinating juxtaposition of two composers who are not obviously musically related, but who are proved on this album to be a felicitous combination.

The Brabant Ensemble continues its exploration of hidden gems of the Renaissance with an album of music by Antoine Brumel, famous for his ‘Earthquake’ Mass but otherwise barely known today. Conductor Stephen Rice has assembled an intriguing collection of works including the Missa de beata virgine, a work suffused with plainsong but in which the voices are used almost percussively, making rhythm the driving force of the piece. The Christmas motet Nato canunt omnia is one of the most remarkable musical works of the period.

John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, first performed in 2012 in Los Angeles, is something of an expansion on the composer's El Niño, a Passion story adorned with a variety of contemporary themes and musical materials. Like the earlier work, it features a libretto by longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars, and it may be sung on-stage as an oratorio or presented as an opera. Mary Magdalene is indeed a central figure in the work, but actually it is more than the trick perspective the title might imply; as with El Niño Sellars incorporates such devices as set pieces featuring poetry by other writers (this time poet Louise Erdrich plays the central role).

Éclairs sur l'au-dela (Illuminations of the Beyond) was Messiaen's last work. It shares with his other large-scale orchestral pieces a sense of otherworldly grandeur, obsessively repeated rhythmic and melodic patterns, birdcalls, and a riot of orchestral color, among much else. Its eleven movements address different aspects of the title and, like virtually everything Messiaen wrote, could not be mistaken for any other composer.

The 10 songs on Notes Of Blue are inspired by the spirit of the blues, but not the standard blues as most know it. The unique and haunting tunings of Mississippi Fred McDowell, Skip James and Nick Drake were all points of exploration for Farrar for the new collection. The album opens with the country soul of Promise the World, followed by Back Against the Wall, a song that could stand alongside the great Son Volt songs of their early albums. However, Notes Of Blue reflects the blues as it resides in the folk tradition, but heavily amplified.

This release offers a pair of fairly early Delius works; they may not be instantly appealing to those making a start with this idiosyncratic English impressionist, but confirmed fans will love them. The roots of Frederick Delius’ Appalachia lay in his experiences as an orange plantation manager in Florida in the late 1880s, where he heard the singing of African-American laborers and, according to his own testimony, first began to think about becoming a composer. The work is subtitled “Variations on an Old Slave Song with Final Chorus for baritone, chorus, and orchestra,” and everything about it is intriguingly confused. Florida is not part of Appalachia. Nor is the Mississippi River delta, which Delius claimed was the inspiration for the work, but which he apparently never saw.