America's pre-eminent status as a cultural melting pot is well demonstrated by the four works on this month's cover disc, which presents a heady mix of jazz, late-Romantic classical and the use of bold, elemental musical ideas to represent the nation's epic landscapes. Bernstein's Chichester Psalms opens the CD, before pianist Peter Jablonski takes centre stage for Gershwin's musical portrait of New York, the Second Rhapsody for piano and orchestra. Grofé's Mississippi Suite, inspired by the great North American river, and Ellington's Harlem, an evocation of Sunday morning in the area of New York which was the centre of Black American culture between the wars, complete the disc.

Audio clip: Grofé's Mississippi Suite – finale: 'Mardi Gras'