Curating the best new classical recordings
There’s always wonderful music to discover, from instrumental to vocal music, new recordings of old favorites, or albums featuring cutting-edge contemporary works. Discover more about each selection below.
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Wagner: Orchestral Music from the Ring Cycle – Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
The essential meaning of Wagner’s magnum opus Der Ring des Nibelungen is wrapped up in the composer’s own lifetime pursuit of transcendent romance, with the redemption of eternal love one of the primary tenets of this and his other music dramas. Wagner’s gift for orchestral color and scenic characterization make his operas highly suited to the genre of the tone ...
Maurizio Pollini: Debussy
Maurizio Pollini’s new album features the second book of Debussy’s Preludes – released 18 years after his hallmark recording of the first book. Completing the album is the two-piano suite En blanc et noir, performed with his son and burgeoning pianist and conductor, Daniele Pollini. The Guardian says of Pollini’s Debussy: “(His) awareness of color and texture is as acute ...
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 – Vienna Symphony/Philippe Jordan
Considering its more than a century long history, it comes as a surprise that the Vienna Symphony has never before recorded a full cycle of the nine symphonies by Beethoven. This shortcoming is about to be remedied: the orchestra is releasing the complete symphonies on five albums. With a new release to be issued every six months, the cycle will be ...
Stewart Goodyear: For Glenn Gould
Stewart Goodyear, one of the most respected pianists in the world today, pays tribute to a giant of the piano. Goodyear says, “It was the year Glenn Gould died when I first heard his legendary name. It was his Bach that introduced me to his playing. His sound struck me immediately… a sound that was compelling and uncompromising. It was ...
Mahler: Symphony No. 9 – Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding
Although a valedictory mood underpins it, Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 offers above all a profound meditation on the fate of humanity and a sense of the composer’s immense love of life. Sustained by the commitment and excellence of Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, this recording reveals the formal, technical and orchestral modernity of a work that was ...
Jerusalem Quartet & Friends: Chamber Music of Dvorak
The Jerusalem Quartet explores two aspects of Dvořák’s chamber music. His String Sextet, Op. 48, was one of the first big successes in the genre by a Bohemian composer who was beginning to enjoy a well-established reputation in Europe. The String Quintet, Op. 97, is one of the works from Dvořák’s years of American exile which brought him worldwide fame. The musicians ...
Zuill Bailey: Haydn Cello Concertos
Cellist Zuill Bailey is a Grammy Award winner, distinguished soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, artistic director, and teacher. After several recordings of 20th and 21st century works and American music, Bailey shifts his focus to the delightfully effervescent, elegant, and melodic works of Haydn, one of the earliest composers to write concertos for the cello. The two concertos by Haydn, written ...
Eybler Quartet: Beethoven – String Quartets Op. 18 Nos. 1-3
The Toronto-based Eybler Quartet was founded in 2004 to explore the works of the first century-and-a-half of the string quartet repertoire. The group plays on instruments appropriate to the period of the music it performs. Adding to their superb discography, they have recorded the first three quartets of Beethoven’s Opus 18, his supremely confident first step in total mastery of ...
Stephen Schultz & Jory Vinikour: Bach – Sonatas for Flute & Harpsichord
Stephen Schultz, called “among the most flawless artists on the Baroque flute” by the San Jose Mercury News, is joined by Grammy-nominated harpsichordist Jory Vinikour. The four sonatas recorded here belong to a type of chamber music that was at the cutting edge of developments during the 1720s and 1730s. One might alternatively describe such works as trios, since the harpsichordist’s ...
Alexander Melnikov: Four Pieces – Four Pianos
On this fascinating recording, Alexander Melnikov performs four masterworks of the piano repertoire on four different instruments. Each of the pianos has characteristics corresponding to those of the instruments on which these virtuoso pieces were first performed. Featured works include Schubert’s Wanderer-Fantasie, Chopin’s Etudes, Op. 10, Liszt’s Variations on Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Stravinsky’s Trois Mouvements de Pétrouchka.
Freiburg Baroque Orchestra: Handel Concertos
In Handel’s time, it was customary to include instrumental interludes during performances of large compositions such as oratorios and operas. The three Concerti a due cori (concertos for strings and two groups of wind instruments) are fine examples of works written for this purpose. The musical content of all three concertos is drawn from previous, often well-known compositions (Messiah, etc.) ...
Pablo Ziegler: Solo
Pablo Ziegler, 2018 Grammy Award winner for Best Latin Jazz Album, writes music imbued with Buenos Aires soul. Following up on 2016’s Tango Nuevo with Christopher O’Riley, Pablo Ziegler Solo presents the composer and pianist on his own terms with new arrangements of his works, along with music by Juan Carlos Cobián, Alejandro Dolina, and Ziegler’s mentor, Astor Piazzolla.
Exiled: Music by Philips and Dering
The Rose Consort’s new album features music by exiled English Catholic composers Peter Philips (c.1560-1628) and Richard Dering (c.1580-1630). Consort music is complemented by keyboard pieces from Philips performed by David J. Smith, and the program is framed by two eight-part motets in which the Rose Consort is joined by Canadian soprano Frauke Jürgensen and the Choir of King’s College, ...
Lisa Batiashvili: Visions of Prokofiev
Lisa Batiashvili has been described by The Times as “outstanding even among the very many fine violinists of her generation.” Visions of Prokofiev is her new recording with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The album features Prokofiev’s two violin concertos as well as select movements from his famous ballets and opera (Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet, The ...
Murray Perahia: Beethoven Piano Sonatas
Grammy-winning pianist Murray Perahia stands in the tradition of the great keyboard artists, armed with consummate technical skills and boundless imagination. After years of studying the original manuscripts, working sketches, and editions published during Beethoven’s lifetime, and having edited the new Henle Urtext edition of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, Perahia records two sonatas for the first time: Op. 106 ...
Ernest Bloch: Music for Viola and Piano
After this vibrant program of Ernest Bloch’s music for viola and piano was recorded in 2001, the tapes disappeared for fifteen years. When they resurfaced, artists Paul Neubauer and Margo Garrett were thrilled that the tapes were not only salvageable, but also featured playing that they felt presented their best possible efforts to bring these works to life. Among the ...
Nikolaj Znaider: Mozart Violin Concertos Nos. 4 & 5
Nikolaj Znaider performs at the highest level as both conductor and virtuoso violin soloist, and for this album, the first of two releases exploring all five Mozart violin concertos, he directed the London Symphony Orchestra from his instrument, the ‘Kreisler’ Guarnerius ‘del Gesu’ of 1741. Mozart’s five violin concertos were all written when he was a teenager, but there is ...
Xiayin Wang: Piano Music of Granados
A pianist of keen musicality and sweeping virtuosity, Xiayin Wang presents a fascinating exploration of works by Enrique Granados, revealing a technically challenging and complex musical language, yet full of color and emotional intensity. Perhaps because the source of their inspiration was so close to the composer’s heart, the Goyescas piano pieces are the most liberated examples of the genius ...
Bruckner & Wagner: Gewandhaus Orchestra, Andris Nelsons
Andris Nelsons releases the second installment in his Bruckner cycle with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, released in time for the orchestra’s 275th birthday and Nelsons’ inauguration as its new music director. He brings youthful energy, fluidity, and rhythmic impulse, while still leaving room for Bruckner’s monumental sound blocks. By including selected instrumental works by Wagner in the cycle, Nelsons’ idea is to demonstrate ...
Lara Downes & Friends: For Lenny
Lara Downes’ album “For Lenny” celebrates the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein with a special friends-and-family tribute to the man behind the music. The recording features Bernstein’s aptly-named Anniversaries for Piano, new arrangements of his songs, and world premieres of works dedicated to Bernstein by leading American composers, including Stephen Sondheim, John Corigliano, and Stephen Schwartz. The album is introduced ...
