The Autumn Recordings Guide

The season's haul is unusually rich. The headline is a long-awaited Bruckner Ninth, its unfinished finale presented with scholarly honesty and played with ferocious concentration.

Smaller labels dominate the shortlist. A song cycle recorded in a deconsecrated chapel trades studio gloss for genuine air, and the difference is audible in every phrase.

Our recommended shelf: five discs that reward the patient listener, listed in the magazine's full review section.