Johannes-Passion album review – Pygmalion are razor sharp in theatrical new recording

Raphaël Pichon’s ensemble and fine lineup of soloists bring rich expression to Bach’s dramatic oratorio – with unswerving gravitas from Huw Montague Rendall as Jesus

Bath BachFest review – joyous and mesmerising music making

The festival’s new artistic director Adrian Brendel presided over – and was a key part of – a day of virtuosic and adventurous performances

Johann Ludwig Bach: The Leipzig Cantatas album review – this distant cousin’s music is a remarkable discovery

This is the premiere recording of sacred cantatas by JL Bach: works preserved due to his distant cousin, JS Bach, copying them for performance. Conductor Johanna Soller brings them to sensitive and vivid life

Gli Incogniti/Beyer: Bach from Italy album review – fascinating collection sizzles and shines

Violinist Amandine Beyer and the musicians of Gli Incogniti juxtapose original works by Vivaldi and the Marcello brothers with the Bach compositions they inspired and influenced

Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 album review – Mahan Esfahani’s reading is lucid and illuminating

The harpsichordist describes Bach’s Preludes and Fugues as a ‘challenge and a homecoming’. His thoughtful new recording has a sense of the work’s drama but is never wilful nor perverse

Alexandros Kapelis/Berliner Barock Solisten review – ravishing period immersion in Bach’s keyboard concertos

The Solisten’s historically informed style played on modern instruments, with Kapelis’s crisp piano articulation, made for a musical equivalent of Bridgerton

La Pasión Según San Marcos review – Golijov’s riot of rhythm and colour gets Edinburgh off to a thrilling start

Osvaldo Golijov’s remarkable take on Bach’s St Matthew Passion exhilarates with its singular mix of textures, styles and movement, brought together into a triumphant mass by conductor Joana Carneiro

The week in classical: Cavalleria rusticana/Aleko; Bath BachFest review – passion and penitence

Opera North pairs Mascagni’s masterpiece with teenage Rachmaninov in a potent double bill. Plus, well-tuned extremes from Tenebrae and a blizzard of notes with Mahan Esfahani

Classical home listening: Bach’s Goldberg Variations/Reimagined; Errollyn Wallen

Bach’s miraculous work is given outstanding expression by Vikingur Ólafsson, and a bold baroque treatment by Rachel Podger and friends

Víkingur Ólafsson review – Icelandic pianist brings magic and spontaneity to Bach

Performing the Goldberg Variations to a packed and tangibly engaged hall, this was a hypnotic reading that added up to considerably more than the sum of the work’s 32 parts.

The week in classical: 74th Aldeburgh Festival; Werther – review

From thundering Thorvaldsdóttir to late-night Bach, it’s a standout year for Britten’s music festival, while at the ROH Jonas Kaufmann made a subdued Werther

Webern: String Quartets; Bach: The Art of Fugue review – warm performances of enigmatic works

The pairing of Bach’s unfinished composition with Webern’s spare pieces for string quartet works well, although background noise takes the shine off

The week in classical: Blue; Bach: Mass in B Minor – review

A potent US tale of Black lives hits home with fervour and humanity at ENO. Plus shock and roar from John Eliot Gardiner at 80

St John Passion review – Polyphony and OAE deliver an outstanding, vivid rendition

An extraordinarily moving Bach passion contained intensity, radiance and, from Nick Pritchard, the finest live account of the Evangelist this critic has heard

Alisa Weilerstein review – Bach’s cello suites sing and dance, but insights and introspection present too

Weilerstein’s tour de force performance of the six suites – spread across two concerts – was full of eloquence, colour and remarkable dynamic control