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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Fauré & Poulenc: Works for Piano & Orchestra
Following his acclaimed recording of the Saint-Saëns piano concertos with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, French pianist Romain Descharmes reunites with the orchestra for works by Fauré and Poulenc conducted by Michael Halász. The centerpieces of this all-French program are Fauré’s Ballade and the Poulenc concerto, the former graceful and serene with a flamboyant “Liszt-ian” finale, and the latter clever, whimsical, ...
Kaleidoscope
Spanish pianist and scholar Isabel Dobarro has an active international performing career and has performed and lectured at some of the most renowned venues in the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the European Parliament, and the National Auditorium in Madrid and the Palau de la Música Catalana. Dobarro is recognized as a passionate advocate for female ...
American Woman
Cellist Juliana Soltis and pianist Ruoting Li champion women composers Mary Howe, Amy Beach, Margaret Bonds, Helen Crane, Dorothy Rudd Moore, and Florence Price. The new album sheds light on a treasure trove of rarely heard gems of cello-piano literature. Helen Crane’s Six Idylls is of particular interest, and new to WFMT. Written in 1918, the Six Idylls for Cello ...
Destinées
Baroque violinist Sophie de Bardonnèche pays tribute to French female composers of the 18th century. The centerpiece works are three violin sonatas of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, one of which is unpublished. No fewer than ten female composers — most new to the WFMT library – are represented in this programme of sonatas, overtures and dances devised by de ...
Silenced: Unsung Voices of the 20th Century
Tenor Ian Koziara and pianist Bradley Moore spotlight art songs by Franz Schreker, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Viktor Ullmann, and Alexander von Zemlinsky, whose musical achievements were overshadowed by the oppression of the Third Reich. This album marks the first tenor-voice recording for almost all of these rare songs. The musical language of these early 20th century works is more Late Romantic ...
Adrian Sutton: Orchestral Works
Following a devastating cancer diagnosis in September 2022, Adrian Sutton, the composer of the music for War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and other National Theatre productions, made a conscious decision to change his focus, committing himself to working solely on music for the concert hall. This new album of world premiere recordings reflects his ...
Cor Collaborandi: A Transnational Celebration of the Early Modern
Led by trombonist and early music specialist Michael Kris, the Kris Collective brings together musicians from across two continents performing on modern instruments. Their album Cor Collaborandi celebrates the cross-pollination of musical ideas between the Venetian and Spanish schools of the early Baroque. In his program notes, Michael Kris says: “Music of the 16th to 18th centuries was transmitted artist ...
Stravinsky Chamber Works
Grammy Award-winning Conductor and soprano Barbara Hannigan leads an ensemble of outstanding young musicians from the Royal Academy of Music and The Juilliard School on this new recording. Since 2002, the Academy and The Juilliard School, both international leaders in their field, have enjoyed collaborations in performances, exchanges and recordings. In this project, Hannigan conducts this transatlantic group in a ...
Campra: Messe de Requiem & The Masters of Notre-Dame de Paris
Led by harpsichordist and organist Sébastien Daucé, Ensemble Correspondances brings together a group of singers and instrumentalists, all of whom are specialists in seventeenth-century French repertory. Ensemble Correspondances made its Chicago debut in the spring of 2022 at University of Chicago. Their new album centers the Messe de Requiem of André Campra, contextualizing it with works by François Cosset, Jean ...
Brahms: Piano Quartets Nos. 2 & 3
Lars Vogt, who died at age 51, founded the Spannungen festival for chamber music in Heimbach, NRW, Germany. Vogt gave his last concert there, playing Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 3 with Christian Tetzlaff, Barbara Buntrock and Tanja Tetzlaff in June 2022. Vogt had attempted to record the Piano Quartets No. 2 and 3, but only the No.2 was complete at ...
Douce France
French tenor Benjamin Bernheim’s first song recital album pairs him with his regular collaborator, pianist Carrie Ann Matheson. Matheson is artistic director of the San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program and was formerly coach, prompter, and assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. Bernheim made his American debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2019 in Gounod’s Faust ...
Espansiva
Danish pianists Rikke Sandberg and Kristoffer Hyldig have partnered to record dazzling versions of music by Denmark’s most famous composer Carl Nielsen for piano, four hands. Selections include Nielsen’s own piano, four hands versions of his Third Symphony, “Sinfonia Espansiva,” and excerpts from his opera Saul and David. In addition to being promotional tools, four hand arrangements were , in ...
Discovering Imogen
Before Imogen Holst died in 1984, she established the Holst Foundation to support living composers which led to the founding NMC Recordings. Imogen Holst, daughter of Gustav Holst, was a teacher, educator, festival administrator, and one of Britain’s most accomplished composers. Discovering Imogen features many world premiere recordings of her Modern era works for choir and orchestra. Colin Matthews, founder ...
Réveiller
Following their acclaimed recordings of the complete Brahms and Beethoven sonatas, Bella Hristova and Michael Houstoun turn to French works for violin and piano, featuring sonatas by Ravel, Poulenc, and Fauré. Acclaimed as a player with impressive power, passion, and control, a beautiful sound, and a compelling command of her instrument, violinist Bella Hristova is an ardent proponent of contemporary ...
Seven
Award-winning Spanish cellist and composer Andrea Casarrubios returns with Seven, which features seven of her most recent chamber works, all in world-premiere recordings. Alongside works for solo cello or cello and piano, this recording features her Piano Quintet, a Chicago Symphony Orchestra commission for the distinctive combination of clarinet, violin, viola and cello. At the heart of this collection lies ...
Cello Dreams
In a delightful program of lullabies and gentle serenades, husband and wife duo cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand and pianist Pascal Amoyel have gathered a collection of some of the most beloved melodies that touch, console, comfort, and soothe. These are at once a marvelous entry point to listening to music for the very young, and a treat for all music lovers. ...
Nessun Dorma
Pene Pati’s second solo album balances favorite numbers with operatic rarities including the world premiere recording of the aria-cabaletta for the title character of the 1858 version of Gounod’s Faust. In addition to Puccini, the Italian composers are Verdi, Donizetti, Mascagni and Mercadante, while the French school is represented by Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Massenet, Halévy and Guiraud. Joining the Samoan tenor ...
Magnus Lindberg: Viola Concerto, Absence, Serenades
Composer Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) is one of Europe’s leading names in contemporary music. This new album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Nicholas Collon features some of the most recent orchestral compositions by Lindberg culminating with his new Viola Concerto, a performed by Lawrence Power as soloist. Lindberg was commissioned by the Rotterdam Philharmonic to ...
Oiseaux Tristes
Pianist Fazıl Say writes: “Oiseaux tristes brings together works by three prominent French composers… As I was working on the album during the pandemic period, it reflects the mood of that time… (Ravel’s) Miroirs is one of the most comprehensive and interesting works in the piano repertoire. I spent months working on it, and although it’s difficult to play, it ...
Contemplation
The young British baritone Huw Montague Rendall makes his debut as an exclusive Erato recording artist joined by the Rouen Opera Orchestra under its music director Ben Glassberg. The album demonstrates the multiple facets of Montague Rendall’s talent and his exceptional stylistic sensitivity. Huw Montague Rendall has already performed the roles Papageno (Magic Flute), Count Almaviva (Marriage of Figaro), Don ...
