On his new album Canadian virtuoso pianist Jan Lisiecki brings the diverse sounds of the prelude to life, illustrating the genre’s potential to be more than just a curtain-raiser to something else. Frédéric Chopin’s extraordinary 24 Preludes Op. 28 are inspiration and centerpiece of this recording. For Lisiecki, Chopin was a “master of the short form” who “brought the prelude …

Pianist Dmitry Masleev, who took first prize in the 2015 Tchaikovsky International Competition, leads the Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra (a.k.a. Russian State Symphony Orchestra) from the piano in a program that centers two piano concertantes utilizing the chant melody Dies irae: Liszt’s Totentanz, and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The program also includes Liszt’s Rhapsodie espagnole in a version …

The new album from British virtuoso trumpeter Matilda Lloyd with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lee Reynolds explores the many meanings of the word “resonance.” The two featured concertos echo music of the past, with Mieczysław Weinberg’s containing fanfares harking back to the trumpet’s military beginnings, as well as snippets of music by other composers, including Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, …