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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Radiant Dawn
Acclaimed British vocal consort The Gesualdo Six present their tenth album, featuring a collaboration with trumpeter Matilda Lloyd in works by Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Tallis, James Macmillan, Roxana Panufnik, and others. “From religious processions to military victories, the combination of voices and trumpet has played a prominent role in concerts and ritual for centuries,” says artistic director Owain Park. ...
Joel Puckett: Short Stories in London
Creative collaboration is a fundamental aspect of American composer Joel Puckett. The three works receiving their premiere recording here exemplify this spirit, each reflecting synergy between Puckett’s dynamic creative vision and the musicians for whom he composes. Puckett’s new Trumpet Concerto was written for the distinguished jazz trumpeter Sean Jones as an homage to Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, commissioned and ...
Price: Choral Works
The Malmö Opera Chorus and Orchestra led by John Jeter, a noted champion of the music of Florence Price, present world premiere recordings of Price’s largest choral work, Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, and of the spiritual-inspired Song of Hope, set to the composer’s own text. A series of shorter choral works with piano accompaniment complement the two pieces with ...
Breaking Waves
This album comprises three works by three composers of three different nationalities performed by Finland’s Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra led by artistic director Malin Broman (who is also an accomplished violinist). The Sea Sketches by Welsh composer Grace Williams opens the program, inspired by the beaches of Glamorganshire and by its seascape. Grażyna Bacewicz’s Fourth String Quartet is played here in ...
Silvestrov: …flowering Over Lethe…
Many of Valentin Silvestrov’s smaller form works for piano are addressed to fellow composers both past and present, including Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Purcell, Glinka, and Silvestrov’s contemporaries Leonid Hrabovsky, Alexander Knaifel, Arvo Pärt, and Andre Volkonsky. Pianist Alexei Lubimov, who has been performing Silvestrov’s works for more than half a century, curated this program as a musical dialogue with those ...
Telemann: VI Ouvertures à 4 ou 6 (1736)
Telemann remains a paradox: the deeper one delves into his oeuvre, the more boundless his legacy seems. The sheer abundance of his orchestral works and concertos seems to grow exponentially with each new publication. Six previously lost overtures from 1736, of which only a single printed copy survives, have unexpectedly resurfaced and are presented here by L’Orfeo Barockorchester. The collection ...
Song of the Birds
Mandolinist Avi Avital explores the music of Italy, Iberia, and the Black Sea interweaving folk and Western classical musics from the past and present. Avital is joined by his ensemble Between Worlds and renowned musical ambassadors (Flamenco singer Marina Heredia from Spain, singer Alessia Tondo from southern Italy, and the Georgian choir Ensemble Rustavi) to bring centuries-old traditions and compositions ...
Fields of Wonder
Minneapolis-based low-voice ensemble Cantus presents a program of five choral song cycles, including four premiere recordings. The album is anchored by the recently rediscovered Fields of Wonder by Margaret Bonds set to the poetry of Langston Hughes. Three featured works have been written specifically for Cantus by contemporary composers Gavin Bryars, Melissa Dunphy, and Griffin Candey. “These contrasting song cycles ...
Zygmunt Noskowski: Symphony No. 3, “From Spring to Spring”
The Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic led by Antoni Wit music by the Polish conductor’s countryman Zygmunt Noskowski (1846–1909). Although Noskowski is less well known than his teacher Stanisław Moniuszko or his students Karol Szymanowski and Mieczysław Karłowicz, he was nonetheless the primary exponent of modern symphonic music in Poland for most of the 19th century. He also introduced the idea of ...
King of Kings: Bach Orchestral Transcriptions
Sir Andrew Davis was a talented keyboard player as a child and teenager, and after study with Peter Hurford at St Albans he spent four years at the University of Cambridge as organ scholar at King’s College, under Sir David Willcocks. It was this period of his life that sparked his love for the organ works of J.S. Bach, which ...
Hovhaness: Concerto No. 2 for Violin & Strings; Works for Violin and Piano
The mother-daughter team of violinist Zina Schiff and conductor Avlana Eisenberg present the music of Alan Hovhaness, one of America’s most prolific composers, with music characterized by a signature synthesis of East and West. Influenced by his Armenian heritage and a fascination with nature and spirituality, he sought to create music “for all people, music which is beautiful and healing.” ...
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Toussaint L’Ouverture; Ballade Op. 4; Suites from “24 Negro Melodies”
Michael Repper leads the National Philharmonic in a celebration of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – an album of world-premiere recordings commemorating the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth.. The program features new performance editions of Toussaint L’Ouverture, Ballade in D minor, Op. 4, and the Suite from 24 Negro Melodies. Grammy-nominated violinist Curtis Stewart is featured in the Ballade and in his ...
Dialogue: Debussy & Schumann
The debut solo album of French cellist Juliette Herlin — noted for having given the first performances since 1919 of a lost cello sonata by Camille Saint-Saëns — pairs her with Canadian pianist Kevin Ahfat. This repertoire features original works for cello and piano (Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Debussy’s Cello Sonata, etc.) as well as song transcriptions, exploring the subtle connections between ...
PRISM, Vol. 2
Saxophonist Jess Gillam and her ensemble continue their innovative exploration of sound in the second EP (five tracks) in the PRISM series, blurring boundaries between classical, folk, and contemporary music. Arrangements of Debussy’s “Clair de lune” and Nadia Boulanger’s “Cantique” showcase the lyrical tone of the soprano saxophone. Transcriptions of Baroque works include Scarlatti’s F minor sonata and Telemann’s Oboe ...
Next Generation Mozart Soloists, Vol. 12
The current volume in this series showcases a vibrant pairing of young soloists with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in concertos by Mozart. The Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat, K. 271 has long been known as the ‘Jeunehomme’ — but it was discovered in 2004 that it was actually composed for Louise Victoire Jenamy. Mozart misspelled her name ...
Play, Music! Songs from Shakespeare’s Plays
Founded in 2020 by tenor and lutenist Brian Kay, THEATRO is dedicated to creating memorable theatrical experiences that transport audiences to different eras and places, illuminating the stories of the past. THEATRO’s debut album on Avie Records gathers Renaissance instruments and voices for a program of songs and dances from Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare frequently directed his characters to burst into ...
Just Biber
Following up on her critically acclaimed recording of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Rosary Sonatas, violinist and musical director Rachel Podger—“the unsurpassed British glory of the baroque violin” (The Times)—leads Brecon Baroque on Just Biber, an album of sonatas from Biber’s 1681 collection Sonatæ Violino Solo and his theatrical Sonata Representivo. These works are extremely virtuosic, with extensive multiple stopping ...
An American Affair: American Works For Flute
The latest album from English flutist Lisa Friend — who has performed as a soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra — is a collection of American works for flute and piano, featuring composers such as Copland, Price, Bernstein, Beach, and Griffes. Joined by pianist Rohan de Silva, Friend explores ...
Visiting Rachmaninoff: Chopin Variations; Romances
Pianist Alexander Melnikov new album is dedicated to music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, centering his Variations on a Theme by Chopin. Melkinov traveled to Villa Senar, Rachmaninoff’s Bauhaus summer home on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, to record on the composers’s own grand piano, a birthday gift from Frederik Steinway. The album also features the luminous soprano Julia Lezhneva who joins Melkinov ...
Silvestrov: Symphony No. 8 & Violin Concerto
Valentin Silvestrov was forced to leave his native Ukraine after the Russian invasion of 2022, and his earlier music has an almost prescient quality that seems to express the fate of his homeland. The intimate Violin Concerto and the heartfelt, one-movement Eighth Symphony are notable for their economy of expression and emphasis on beauty, depth and harmony. Silvestorv’s “metaphorical style,” ...
