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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Corelli: Violin Sonatas, Op. 5
In her 24th release for Cedille Records, violinist Rachel Barton Pine performs Arcangelo Corelli’s 12 Violin Sonatas, Op. 5, with early music specialists David Schrader, John Mark Rozendaal, and Brandon Acker. Known for her dynamic range and versatility, Pine revisits the Baroque period, highlighting Corelli’s influential yet seldom performed sonatas. The ensemble performs on a diverse collection of period instruments—Schrader ...
Origins
In a celebration of his heritage, pianist Jean-Paul Gasparian’s new solo album is dedicated entirely to Armenian music. The program features works by Komitas, Aram Khachaturian, and Arno Babajanian, as well as two pieces composed by his father Gérard Gasparian inspired by the renowned Armenian poet Sayat-Nova. A third selection by Babajanian is also based on a song by Sayat-Nova, ...
Beethoven: The Middle Quartets
Following their award-winning first installment of the complete quartets of Beethoven, Caldidore String Quartet presents the Middle Quartets on a three-disc set. Winners of top prizes at major competitions including the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition, the ensemble has distinguished itself as one of the foremost interpreters of a vast repertory since they were founded in 2010 at the ...
Sarahbanda
Berlin Philharmonic French hornist Sarah Willis’s three-album Mozart y Mambo project fused Mozart with Cuban rhythms. Besides recording all of Mozart’s horn concertos, the project also experimented with the French horn joining the traditional Cuban band mix of saxophone and rhythm section. Willis loved this grouping so much that she subsequently formed the Sarahbanda with some of Cuba’s most talented ...
Kraft & CPE Bach Cello Concertos
A short but stylish recording of two Classical era concertos composed 50 years apart. CPE’s B-flat major concerto feels related to the High Baroque, while Kraft’s C major concerto has more in common with Haydn’s D major concerto. The French cellist JeanGuihen Queyras along with the period instrument Ensemble Risonanz led by Riccardo Minasi wish to shed light on the ...
Prokofiev Piano Concertos
Goodyear’s new recording features some of the greatest works in the repertory: the Op. 16 and Op. 26 Piano Concertos, as well as the Piano Sonata No. 7 in B flat. According to his note in the CD booklet, the recording of this album, with its roots in the struggles of the 2020 pandemic, is inherently personal to Goodyear, as ...
Florence Price, Her Song
Austin based Grammy-nominated baritone, trumpeter, and pianist, Michael Hawes (former Chicagoan and former member of Axiom Brass) has devoted his first solo album to the music of Florence Price. Hawes sings most of the selections with pianist Eugenia Jeong. Four of the songs are performed on the trumpet. A brass ensemble, which includes the distinguished trombonist Randall Hawes, Michael’s father, ...
Life
Mari Samuelsen’s third album for Deutsche Grammophon is inspired by her experience of becoming a mother. Known for her imaginative programming and penchant for electronics and looping, the Norwegian violinist presents music by Olivia Belli, Bryce Dessner, Ludovico Einaudi, Nils Frahm, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Mário Laginha, Hania Rani, Max Richter, and Steve Reich, with a dash of Schubert also thrown into ...
Impressions Parisiennes
Quatuor Van Kuijk explores treasures by Fauré, Debussy, Satie, Ravel and Poulenc that were originally composed for piano or voice. The program includes Debussy’s Petite Suite pour piano à quatre mains, Ravel’s famous Pavane pour une infante défunte and well-known songs by Poulenc, Fauré and Satie in transcriptions made especially for this recording by Van Kuijk violist Emmanuel François and ...
Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 From The New World, American Suite
Nathalie Stutzmann, initially celebrated as a contralto, has firmly established herself as a conductor. Her debut album leading the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra features Dvořák’s Symphony No 9, ‘From the New World’ paired with Dvořák’s American Suite. When Stutzmann inaugurated her tenure as its music director in 2022, she became only the second woman to serve as artistic leader of one ...
Keel Road
This release is the latest chapter in the Danish String Quartet’s exploration of northern folk and traditional sources. Their previous album in this genre, Last Leaf, was a resounding success with press and public and ranked high amongst albums of the year at NPR, The New York Times and Gramophone. Amid the traditional pieces, the album includes compositions by members ...
This Land
Lara Downes’s latest album is a deeply personal collection of American music she is subtitling as “A Path to Hope.” An artist renowned for her musical explorations off the beaten path, Downes celebrates the beauty of the American experiment while offering an unflinching acknowledgement of its flaws and failings, ultimately embracing the power of hope and humanity. The centerpiece work ...
Robert & Clara Schumann: Works for Oboe and Piano
One of Britain’s best-known musicians, Nicholas Daniel has premiered hundreds of works for the oboe and made many critically acclaimed recordings. Daniel’s program with pianist Julius Drake features a wide selection of chamber music by Robert Schumann, alongside the Three Romances, Op. 22 by Clara Schumann. At the time these pieces were written, there was a rapidly growing interest in ...
Shostakovich: Symphonies 4, 5 & 6
These performances are CSO music director designate Klaus Mäkelä’s first Shostakovich on record and shows off the Oslo Philharmonic’s pedigree in the music of Shostakovich, one it learned with former chief conductor Mariss Jansons. Jansons studied with Yevgeny Mravinsky, the Principal Conductor of the Leningrad (now St Petersburg) Philharmonic, the man who premiered no fewer than five of Shostakovich’s symphonies. ...
Bruckner & Klose String Quartets
Quatuor Diotima (former ensemble-in-residence at University of Chicago) celebrates the bicentennial anniversary of Anton Bruckner with a recording of his String Quartet in C minor, Rondo in C minor and, new to the library, the Theme with Variations in E-Flat, alongside the String Quartet in E-Flat from his pupil Friedrich Klose. Bruckner wrote these pieces as composition exercises, yet they ...
Carlos Simon: Four Symphonic Works
The gradual rollout of the National Symphony Orchestra’s recordings of symphonic works by Carlos Simon is completed with his Songs of Separation and Wake Up! Concerto for Orchestra. Based on poems of Rumi, Songs of Separation (four) was commissioned by the NSO and features mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. Wake Up! was inspired by the poem “Awake, Asleep” by Nepali poet Rajendra ...
American Road Trip
Violinist Augustin Hadelich and pianist Orion Weiss perform works by a melting pot of American Composers from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries drawing on a diversity of idioms, influences, and inspirations. Included are beloved classics like Copland’s “Hoe-down” and Bernstein’s “Somewhere,” as well as modern classics like Adams’s “Road Movies” and Beach’s Romance. New music on the album include ...
Mendelssohn
Isata Kanneh-Mason’s fourth solo album on Decca presents music by both Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. Most is for solo piano including arrangements of selections from Felix’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a pair of Songs without Words; and, new to the library, Fanny’s four movement Easter Sonata. The centerpiece work is Felix’s glittering Piano Concerto No. 1 performed with the London ...
Trace of Time
The throughline of the seven works recorded here are the themes and influences of Argentine Tango, West African drumming, and African American Spirituals. The program features works by Héctor Del Curto, Julia Smith, Jessie Montgomery, Adolphus Hailstork, Astor Piazzolla, and Agustín Bardi. Three of the works were commissioned by Apollo Chamber Players with the request that each composer craft a ...
Something Like This – Emily Granger, Sally Walker
American-Australian harpist Emily Granger made an indelible impression with her solo debut recording, In Transit. She follows up with Something Like This, a beautiful collaboration with flutist Sally Walker, featuring original music for flute and harp alongside adaptations and arrangements for the instrumental combination. Woven among classics by J. S. Bach and Mozart are works by living composers including Australians ...
