Solo albums for two sometimes overlooked instruments: the organ and the mandolin. Plus piano concertos by Prokofiev and Shor, a Tchaikovsky compendium, an exploration of Hungarian composers, and a debut from a Brooklyn-based Baroque outfit.
New Releases Jun. 3: Organ, Mandolin, Hungarian Sounds, Tchaikovsky
Anna Lapwood (Photo: Nick Rutter)
Appointed as the first-ever official organist of the Royal Albert Hall in May 2025, Anna Lapwood has strived to make organ music more accessible to a broader audience. Her dynamic presence and innovative programming continue to inspire both traditional concertgoers and new listeners alike. Firedove is her third solo album, blending classical organ works with contemporary and pop influences. The program includes traditional organ repertoire by Louis Vierne and Maurice Duruflé; contemporary works by Ivo Antognini, Olivia Belli, Ola Gjello, Rachel Portman, Hania Rani, and Hans Zimmer; and arrangements of songs by Bob Dylan and Robbie Williams. Guest artists include saxophonist Jess Gillam, violinist Elena Urioste, and the Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge, where Anna Lapwood served as music director. Urioste and the choir join in for the album’s title track “Firedove” by Julie Cooper.
In his first album of concertos, Israeli mandolinist Alon Sariel explores music of late 18th- and early 19th-century Vienna with the Cologne Academy on period instruments conducted by Michael Alexander Willens. Sariel showcases his inventive approach by adapting pieces such as Mozart’s Andante for Flute and Orchestra for mandolin, and creating a unique “Haydn’s Mandolin Concerto” by combining movements from various concertos, including one by Ignaz Malzat, long misattributed to Haydn. The album also highlights previously undiscovered works by Ernest Krähmer, recently found in the Bavarian State Library and recorded here for the first time.
Sariel reflects, “Ten years after my trio project Paisiello in Vienna around the chamber music in the Viennese Salon, I’m now excited to rediscover my instrument in its orchestral context of 19th century Vienna.”
Behzod Abduraimov won the 2009 London International Piano Competition at the age of 18 with a performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 — a victory that marked his graduation from a prodigy to a celebrated musician. In his new album recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra led by Vasily Petrenko, Abduraimov pairs Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto with the lyrical Piano Concerto No. 1 of Alexey Shor. “By juxtaposing these two works, I want to offer listeners a striking contrast: the depth and complexity of Prokofiev’s world against Shor’s more lyrical and accessible approach,” says Abduraimov. “Each piece reflects different facets of the human experience, and I believe there is value in sharing this diversity of sentiment, texture, and mood. I hope this pairing brings something refreshing and thought-provoking to listeners.”
Alpesh Chauhan and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra continue their survey of Tchaikovsky’s orchestral works, combining established repertoire with lesser-known works. For this third volume, the former are represented by excerpts from Eugene Onegin and the Marche slave. Less well-known music includes the “Dance of the Tumblers” from the rarely performed opera The Enchantress, while the overture The Storm was a student exercise inspired by Alexander Ostrovsky’s play of the same name. The most substantial work on the album is the Second Orchestral Suite, the format of which freed Tchaikovsky from the strict formal demands of the symphony and gave him greater license for experimentation.
This album from the celebrated Borusan Istanbul Phiharmonic Orchestra and their new chief conductor, Carlo Tenan, presents a program of vibrant eastern European orchestral music. Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, close friends and musical collaborators, did much to explore and preserve traditional Hungarian music which shines through in the Dance Suite and Dances of Galánta. Bohuslav Martinů’s radiant Frescoes of Piero della Francesca was by the composer’s visit to Arezzo to see the famous 15th century frescoes ”The History of the True Cross” in the Basilica of San Francesco. The popular Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 by George Enescu brings this survey of orchestral gems to an ebullient conclusion.
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein releases her first album with the string ensemble she founded and directs, Baroklyn (a portmanteau of Baroque and Brooklyn), and featuring the music of J.S. Bach and Philip Lasser. The program features new arrangements of chorale settings for piano and strings, the Keyboard Concerto in E major, BWV 1053, and Cantata 170, Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust with mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano.
The album concludes with Lasser’s In the Air, a recomposition of Air on the G String. Dinnerstein writes, “I asked Philip Lasser if he might write a continuo realization for me of the Air on the G String, but as an independent piece of music, like a jazz improvisation, that would happen simultaneously with the performance of the original air by the strings. What Philip wrote is truly a striking composition on its own, and it acts as a lens through which we see Bach’s music in a new light. This composition feels like a new medium – one piece of music inside another.”
