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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Bacewicz: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2
Pioneering twentieth-century Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz’s vibrant and dynamic musical language bridges the gap between neoclassicism and modernism. This second volume of conductor Sakari Oramo’s Bacewicz series features three rarely recorded works. The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra was written in 1949 for the Frédéric Chopin Composers’ Competition, organized by the Polish Composers’ Union to commemorate the centenary of Chopin’s ...
Tania León: Horizons, Raíces (Origins), Stride, Pasajes
Tania León was the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence for two seasons concluding in July 2025. The orchestra’s new album on their in-house label presents four of León’s works which the orchestra has premiered in the UK and Europe including an LPO commission. Horizons (1999) is a shimmering tapestry of asymmetrical rhythms and Latin inflected orchestration. Stride (2020) is a Pulitzer ...
American Vignettes: Contemporary Works for Cello and Piano
Cellist Aron Zelkowicz is the founder and director of the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival which presents rare and diverse works from Jewish musical traditions. In his new album with pianist Christina Wright-Ivanova, Zelkowicz presents late 20th and early 21st century works by six American composers—Carter Pann, Gabriela Lena Frank, Kevin Puts, Margaret Bonds, Stacy Garrop, and Stephen Paulus. Though quintessentially ...
Handel: Chandos Anthems (Anthems for Cannons)
In the summer of 1717, after performing his Water Music during a royal cruise on the Thames, Handel began composing for James Brydges (1674-1744), who became the first Duke of Chandos and created the Cannons Concert at his estate in Cannons. Handel composed eleven anthems and a Te Deum for him, as well as transposing and revising As pants the ...
Handel: Italian Cantatas & Arias
Opera Prima’s second album with soprano Amanda Forsythe features two early works by a young Handel—Armida abbandonata (1707) and Agrippina condotta a morire (1708)—as well as a trio sonata, sinfonia, and selections from his oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno. Highly sought-after for her interpretations of Handel, Forsythe is acclaimed for her agile coloratura, exquisite breath control, and ...
Ellis Island
On her debut album, Hungarian‑American pianist Julia Hamos presents a deeply personal musical journey that weaves together her dual heritage. A graduate of Juilliard, the Royal Academy of Music, and Mannes—where she studied with luminaries like Richard Goode and Sir András Schiff—Hamos brings technical brilliance to the miniatures by György Kurtág and Béla Bartók which anchor the program. The repertoire for Ellis Island, ...
A French Odyssey
UnderStories is a Baroque ensemble consisting of only bass instruments inspired by the botanical term “understory,” referring to the layer of plants that grow in the shade of the canopy of a forest. Founded in 2018, the group focuses on exploring the rise of the cello as a solo instrument, and especially the repertoire for two concertante cellos in the ...
Elsa Barraine: Symphonies 1 & 2
The WDR Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Elena Schwarz present orchestral works by Elsa Barraine, a composer who has long been unjustly neglected. Born in Paris in 1910 and a pupil of Paul Dukas alongside Olivier Messiaen, Barraine won the Prix de Rome in 1929—a remarkable achievement for the fourth woman ever to receive it. The album centers Barraine’s ...
French Impressions: Chamber Music by Chausson & Tailleferre
Rachel Barton Pine’s 25th album on the Cedille label unites her with pianist Orion Weiss and the Pacifica Quartet for French music of the turn-of-the-century and early mid-20th century. As a violinist who adores playing chamber music, but isn’t a member of a string quartet, Pine holds special fondness for the centerpiece work on this program: Ernest Chausson’s Concert for ...
Light and Shadow
Following their acclaimed mixtape series, Light and Shadow is the sixth album from Orchestra of the Swan and David Le Page. Featuring works by Peter Gabriel, Thomas Newman, and Radiohead alongside music by composers more widely accepted in the classical genre such as Ennio Morricone, Bernard Herrmann, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, this latest installment promises to take you on a compelling, ...
Johannes Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4
Recently awarded the prestigious Brahms Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society, Kent Nagano and the Hamburg State Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor from 2015 until 2025, perform the last two symphonies by the Hamburg-born composer, recorded in concert. The most personal of Johannes Brahms’s four symphonies, the Third is both heroic and deeply troubled with each movement ending ...
Transatlantic
Founded in 1993, Onyx Brass has been a leader in cementing the place of the brass quintet as a medium for serious chamber music. The group has commissioned and performed the world premières of more than 200 new works with many more are in the pipeline for performance and recording. Their new album combines pieces for the ensemble’s core quintet ...
Furtwängler: Symphony No. 2 in E Minor
Wilhelm Furtwängler rose to the most important conductorships available, replacing Richard Strauss at the Staatskapelle Berlin in 1920, and then, following the sudden death of Arthur Nikisch, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic. Through the 1930s and ‘40s, his career was defined by his opposition to Nazism, and the determination of the regime to use his international reputation ...
Price: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 / Piano Concerto / Dances in the Canebrakes
During the decade of the 1930s, Florence Price produced two substantial concertos: the romantic Piano Concerto in One Movement and her first violin concerto – an expansive and richly orchestrated work that was apparently never performed during her lifetime. The later Violin Concerto No. 2 was completed just a few months before her death. These three works represent her entire ...
Bach: The 6 English Suites
Francesco Tristano’s two-disc set follows the pianist’s chart-topping album Bach: The 6 Partitas and marks the next chapter in Tristano’s “great life project” to record J.S. Bach’s complete repertoire. The project will continue with the releases of Bach’s 7 Toccatas in the fall of 2025 and the 6 French Suites in 2026. According to J.S. Bach’s first biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, ...
Sky of My Heart
For the ensemble’s tenth commercial album, New York Polyphony has assembled a program of Renaissance compositions by William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons, ingeniously complemented by 20th and 21st century works composed in the same timeless spirit – often by composers with personal and collaborative ties to New York Polyphony. The album’s evocative title comes from the text of a poem ...
Corelli: Concerti grossi Op. 6, 1-6
The Berlin Academy for Ancient Music presents a recording of the first six Concerti grossi, Op. 6 by the composer, ensemble leader and violin virtuoso Arcangelo Corelli, who received the almost cult-like reverence during his lifetime. The composer had been experimenting with this one of the most distinctive forms of instrumental music of the Baroque era since the late 1670s, ...
From Eastern Europe
German cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker caused a sensation by winning both the First Prize and two Special Prizes at the eighth Rostropovich Competition twenty years ago, while her duo partner Martin Helmchen has also been performing on the most prestigious international stages for two decades. Partners both on and off the concert platform, the two artists are passionate advocates of chamber ...
Henriëtte Bosmans: Cello Concertos 1 & 2 – Poème
Henriëtte Bosmans is considered one of the most important Dutch composers of the first half of the 20th century. Having refused to become a member of the Nazi’s Chamber of Culture, her career was put on hold. This new album from cellist Raphael Wallfisch and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra led by Ed Spanjaard is part of Wallfisch’s survey “Voices ...
Forgotten Symphonies
Following the success of his Beethoven and Schubert recordings, Jordi Savall now presents his first album devoted to music of Robert Schumann and Anton Bruckner. Adopting historically informed performance practices, Le Concert des Nations casts light on a repertoire that has been unfairly forgotten. Starting with Robert Schumann’s Zwickauer Symphony, the period instrument orchestra reveals new colors and ardor. The ...
