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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Shea-Kim Duo: All Roads
The award-winning Shea-Kim Duo – violinist Brendan Shea and pianist Yerin Kim – have been performing together for over a decade. In “All Roads,” the duo explores the evolving musical styles and sounds that passed through the cultural Mecca of Vienna. “We wanted to present composers who were connected to Vienna in increasingly distant ways, like travelers along a long ...
Christian Li: Discovering Mendelssohn
Decca Classics releases the new album from Australian-Chinese violinist Christian Li. Having topped the classical charts with his debut album in 2021 (with which he became the youngest artist ever to record Vivaldi’s Four Seasons), the award-winning musician releases his second album, entitled “Discovering Mendelssohn.” Here, Li follows the journeys of Felix Mendelssohn – whose music was influenced by travel ...
Takács Quartet: Music of Dvořák & Coleridge-Taylor
Antonín Dvořák’s String Quartet Op. 106 and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Fantasiestücke make a particularly satisfying pairing on this album by the Takács Quartet. The two works are complementary and contemporaneous, albeit from very different stages in their composers’ careers. Dvořák’s quartet is one of the first major works to result from his return to Prague in 1895 after a lengthy sojourn ...
Notturna: Calcutta 1789
Calcutta 1789, the latest album by the ensemble Notturna, is a fascinating portrait of 18th century musical life in India during the British colonial period. Under the direction of Christopher Palameta, the program combines traditional Indian music with works by Purcell, Handel, J.C. Bach, and other European composers. Notturna’s period instrumentalists are joined by the sounds of the sitar, played ...
Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20, 21, 23, 27 – Elizabeth Sombart, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Pierre Vallet
Mozart’s piano concertos are peerless examples of the genre, providing not only a unique insight into his creative world but also his own supreme ability as a virtuoso pianist. Following the success of her recent Beethoven cycle, French pianist Elizabeth Sombart plays four of Mozart’s sublime masterpieces with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The four great concertos on this album span ...
Rachmaninoff: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3, Isle of the Dead – Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra present the final part of their survey of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s symphonic works. Featuring three major compositions – the Second and Third Symphonies, and the symphonic poem Isle of the Dead – the album follows on the same artists’ 2021 pairing of Symphony No. 1 and the Symphonic Dances, which garnered widespread critical acclaim. The new album again draws on ...
Lawrence Brownlee: Rising
Tenor Lawrence Brownlee releases his newest album, Rising, on Warner Classics. For the project, Brownlee has commissioned six of today’s leading African American composers – Damien Sneed, Brandon Spencer, Jasmine Barnes, Joel Thompson, and Shawn E. Okpebholo – to set poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to song, including poems by Alice Dunbar Nelson, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, ...
Haydn: Piano Trios – Guarneri Trio Prague
Since their debut in 1986, Čeněk Pavlík, Marek Jerie, and Ivan Klánský have ranked among the finest chamber musicians of their generation. To mark more than three decades of playing together, the Guarneri Trio Prague immortalizes works by Haydn, playing with all the expressive intensity and spirit that we have come to expect of them. The trio drew the attention ...
Aizuri Quartet: Earthdrawn Skies
The Aizuri Quartet, “a quartet of expert collaborators” (The New York Times), releases a new album, Earthdrawn Skies. The program explores deep connections between humankind and the natural world through the distinct lenses of four composers forging personal relationships with the soil and the stars. These works by Hildegard von Bingen, Eleanor Alberga, Komitas Vardapet, and Jean Sibelius are rooted ...
Vaughan Williams: Job: A Masque For Dancing, Old King Cole – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Manze
Following their highly acclaimed cycle of the nine symphonies of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Andrew Manze and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra have recorded Job: A Masque for Dancing, taken from a live performance at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. Vaughan Williams’ inspiration for Job arose from William Blake’s illustrations for The Book of Job, a collection of water colors from ...
Franck: Piano Trio, Piano Quintet, Violin Sonata – Trio Wanderer, Catherine Montier, Christophe Gaugué
Trio Wanderer follows up its multi-award-winning Schumann set with an exploration of the fascinating world of César Franck. The gulf between his youthful trios and the prodigious works of his maturity reveals a fundamental turning point in the history of French chamber music. Continuing along the trail that Franck blazed with such brio, Louis Vierne’s deeply moving Quintet offers an ...
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 – Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Lahav Shani
Lahav Shani, Chief Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra for the past five years, conducts the Dutch ensemble in Bruckner’s epic Symphony No. 7. Shani first encountered Bruckner’s music as a young double bass player in Israel. He admires the Austrian composer for his proverbially grand symphonic architecture, but also for his vision and the atmosphere he creates. Shani emphasizes ...
Mozart: Violin Sonatas – Renaud Capuçon, Kit Armstrong
Renaud Capuçon’s exciting new Mozart project comprises three albums, all to come before the end of the year. The project gets underway with the release of the complete violin sonatas recorded with pianist Kit Armstrong. The works have been central to the duo’s partnership since they made their debut together at the 2016 Salzburg Mozartwoche. Their creative vision brings to ...
Il Boemo Soundtrack
Countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and soprano Emőke Baráth appear on the soundtrack of a 2022 film by the award-winning Czech director Petr Václav. Called Il Boemo (The Bohemian), it tells the story of the Prague-born composer Josef Mysliveček (1737–1781). He became a major figure on Europe’s operatic scene, achieving particular renown in Venice, Naples, and Munich and composing more than two ...
Camille Thomas: The Chopin Project
“The Chopin Project” is French-Belgian cellist Camille Thomas’s most ambitious project to date, comprising a trio of albums that pay tribute to Chopin’s connection to the cello. In “The Franchomme Legacy,” the first chapter of the trilogy, Thomas explores the relationship between Chopin and his close friend and cellist Auguste Franchomme. She reveals the influence Franchomme had on Chopin’s music ...
Ravel: L’Heure espagnole, Bolero – Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth
Since 2003, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles have made a distinctive mark presenting an orchestra for the 21st century. Les Siècles is one of the only orchestras which plays each piece of the repertoire on the appropriate period instruments. Its flexible and historically informed work delivers a unique strand of creative programming. Continuing their exploration of Maurice Ravel’s output, Roth and Les ...
Music of Poulenc, Schumann, and Chaminade – Martina Consonni, Sarah Jégou-Sageman, Jeein You
Cellist Gautier Capuçon, acting through the foundation he established in early 2022, presents three outstanding young musicians, all prize winners in international competitions: the Italian pianist Martina Consonni, the French violinist Sarah Jégou-Sageman, and the South Korean cellist Jeein You. Capuçon says: “This philanthropic project is close to my heart and extends my long-standing commitment to music education and charitable ...
Ashley Jackson: Ennanga
Harpist Ashley Jackson explores the musical and spiritual connections between various forms of American musical expression in her new album, Ennanga. Through the works of notable Black composers who have redefined musical landscapes, the album celebrates the centrality of the African American spiritual to the history of American music. Ennanga features the Harlem Chamber Players and Jackson’s harp transcriptions of ...
Pablo Sáinz-Villegas: The Blue Album
“Blue stands for a particularly intimate mood,” says renowned Spanish guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas. Correspondingly, his latest recording is titled The Blue Album. “Blue symbolizes a mysterious intermediary realm: one thinks of the moment when the sun rises and night slowly withdraws,” Sainz-Villegas goes on to explain. “These are exceptional moments, between silence and waking, between heaven and earth, between light ...
Conciertos Románticos: Jorge Federico Osorio, Minería Symphony Orchestra, Carlos Miguel Prieto
In his ninth recording with Cedille Records, pianist Jorge Federico Osorio has chosen to feature composers Ricardo Castro and Manuel Ponce. Both composers made significant contributions to the development of classical music in Mexico, and their compositions reflect a synthesis of Mexican and European traditions with influences from Chopin, Liszt, and Debussy. Both composers exemplify the highest point of the ...
