Familiarity usually breeds contempt, but in music, overexposure most often leads to indifference: attempts to revive a tired warhorse like Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major may attract the attention of specialists, but jaded listeners are unlikely to get excited over yet another acclaimed release and may pass it by without a thought. But when Joshua Bell performs – nay, resuscitates – the concerto, with the superb backing of Michael Tilson Thomas and the Berlin Philharmonic, listeners should take notice. Granted, nothing new has been discovered in the score, and there's nothing especially revelatory about the restored cuts in the Finale, which Bell finds significant.

The Collegium Vocale Gent and Orchestre des Champs-Elysées interpret Beethoven's Missa Solemnis for PHI. This major work of the sacred repertoire, high on the list alongside Bach's Mass in B minor and the Mozart Requiem, is Beethoven's longest work and assuredly the one that demanded the most work. The composer even considered the Mass his finest work. Philippe Herreweghe shares this opinion and judges the Missa Solemnis to be one of the apogees in the history of classical music. With four superb soloists, a refined chorus and orchestra, Philippe Herreweghe invites us to a thoroughly transcendental experience.

After the success of a CD devoted to the sonatas of Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Florence Malgoire s ensemble Les Dominos explores the first French sonatas. All of these works date from the 1680s, when the French had just discovered the Italian sonata style and had begun to use it, albeit in some secrecy. This recording contains the complete sonatas of François Couperin, four of which are the original versions of sonatas that Couperin would later make use of in Les Nations. It is the first recording to present the sonatas in their entirety, in particular because the sonata La Convalescente appears on record for the very first time. The sonata was discovered only recently in a manuscript copy in Germany.

Every violinist from the Romantic period onwards has played Tomaso Antonio Vitali's famous Chaconne,although the score that they used was always based on the very much modified version of the piece that violin virtuoso Ferdinand David had made of it around 1860.Various unusual aspects of the piece together with some unexpected modulations have always led experts on the Baroque to regard the piece as inauthentic.Stéphanie de Failly,however,has gone back to the original manuscript and in so doing has not only shed new light on the work but also revealed its connections to other works by Tomaso Antonio Vitali and his father Giovanni Battista Vitali.The musical invention in Giovanni Battista's pieces and dances with variations leads the listener directly to the extravagances of the Chaconne.

LSO Live is delighted to renew its relationship with the magnificent Tenebrae choir, whose previous recordings on the label have included Berlioz 'L enfance du Christ' and Handel s 'Messiah'. As part of the 2011 City of London Festival, Tenebrae joined an ensemble from the LSO at St Paul s Cathedral for a performance of the Fauré Requiem, preceded by a selection of Bach s Chorales interspersed with Partitas performed by Gordan Nikolitch, leader of the LSO. The centrepiece of the programme was Helga Thoene s remarkable arrangement of Bach s choral themes with solo violin.

Of all the instruments that were being developed at the beginning of the 18th century, the role of the bassoon in music of that time is still insufficiently recognised. Telemann and his German contemporaries composed true solo passages for the instrument and also used it in combination with the violin, the flute, the oboe and the harpsichord. Musicians have now been performing on original instruments for fifty years; during this time they have refashioned their techniques by combining what they have learnt from period sources with modern instrumental usage.