Many wonderful albums highlighting smaller ensembles were released in the third quarter of 2025. Bulgarian British composer Dobrinka Tabakova presented an album of expressive, colorful music for creative configurations, including violin and hurdy-gurdy. Star sisters Hina & Fiona highlighted their favorite music for two violins. Celebrated singer Rolando Villazón joined forces with period instrument ensemble L’Arpeggiata to pull together works inspired by the tale of Orpheus from across the ages. Finally, music from Víkingur Ólafsson’s summer recital at Chicago’s Symphony Center is now available for the first time on CD.
New Releases Dec 30: Chamber Music
Rolando Villazón (Photo: Monika Hoefler)
The recording of Dobrinka Tabakova’s Concerto for Cello and Strings on String Paths, her debut album for ECM New Series, brought international acclaim to the Bulgarian British composer. Her follow-up ECM album brings back some of the String Paths ensemble, including violist Maxim Rysanov, violinist Roman Mints, and cellist Kristine Blaumane. Friends and colleagues since conservatory days at the Guildhall School, all now leading soloists, they have grown up with the expressive language and colors of Tabakova’s music and are among its ideal interpreters. Sun Triptych features two works for viola and piano: Whispered Lullaby, a yearning song, and Suite in Jazz Style, an imaginative chamber meditation on jazz gestures, atmospheres, and textures. Spinning a Yarn, for violin and hurdy-gurdy, has a touching, archaic folk-like quality. A Fantasy Homage to Schubert, with Tabakova conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra, transfigures Schubertian melody and directs it heavenward, conjuring images of slowly turning planets. Organum Light, also for strings, draws inspiration from Gibbons and Purcell. The concluding, radiant Sun Triptych evokes the play of light on the natural world over the course of the day.
The debut album by violinist sisters Hina & Fiona showcases two rising stars of the classical music world. Born in New York, these gifted sisters have already achieved remarkable milestones individually: Hina recently won first prize at the 2023 Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition, while Fiona debuted with the New York Philharmonic at 16, and respectively embarked on illustrious solo careers. Together, their playing reveals a profound connection shaped by lifelong collaboration, honest artistic dialogue, and complementary interpretations. Accompanied by the distinguished pianist Rohan De Silva, they present a thoughtfully curated program that balances beloved classics with lesser-known treasures including works originally scored for two violins such as Pablo de Sarasate’s Navarra, Miklós Rózsa’s Sonata for 2 Violins, Johan Halvorsen’s Passacaglia for 2 Violins, Anna Clyne’s October Rose, and Moritz Moszkowski’s Suite for 2 Violins and Piano. Fiona and Rohan De Silva take the spotlight in Ysaÿe’s Poème élégiaque while Hina gets her solo turn with De Silva in Ravel’s Tzigane. The program concludes with the violinists’ own arrangement of Ponce’s Estrellita.
Rolando Villazón has joins forces with period instrument ensemble L’Arpeggiata and its founder-director Christina Pluhar to present an album inspired by the myth of Orpheus. The recording is based on a conceptual program devised by Pluhar which the artists have also performed live to great acclaim. Villazón sings excerpts from Monteverdi’s Orfeo and operas on the same subject by Gluck, Peri and Sartorio, as well as 20th-century songs by Carlos Gardel and Luis Bonfá. Directed by Pluhar from the theorbo or Baroque harp, L’Arpeggiata also weave instrumental works by lesser-known Renaissance and Baroque Italian composers into their Orpheus narrative. “In an inner journey of the soul,” explains Pluhar, “Orpheus tells us about falling in love, the huge joy of his wedding day, the terrible grief unleashed by Eurydice’s death, his desire to save her, and his final farewell to her.” Villazón vividly conveys every emotion Orpheus experiences with beauty and sincerity. “For me,” says the singer, “Orpheus is much more than a mythical figure – he is a mirror of our deepest human truths. Every time I embody him on stage, I am struck by the purity of his fragility and the strength he finds through music. He teaches us to embrace longing as a source of beauty, and to believe in the miraculous power of music to keep love alive.”
The new album from Víkingur Ólafsson features music by Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert in a recital the Icelandic pianist presented at Symphony Center last June, named one of “Top Ten Performances of 2025” by Chicago Classical Review. At the heart of Opus 109 is Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109, which Víkingur places in a musically thrilling temporal dialogue, tracing the lineages that converge on this masterpiece of the composer’s late period. As in his recital program, the album explores works in the keys of E major and E minor including Beethoven’s Sonata No. 27, Schubert’s Piano Sonata No. 6, Bach’s Partitia No. 6, and selections from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, and French Suite No. 6.
