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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Lara Downes: Love at Last
Billboard chart-topping pianist, cultural catalyst, and media personality Lara Downes’ album Love at Last is a collection of solo works conceived by Downes to express a message of hope, community, and perseverance — each piece a symbol of art’s ability to console and enlighten, emphasizing the connective possibilities of music. The album takes its title from a poem by the ...
C.P.E. Bach: Sonatas for Keyboard & Violin – Rachel Podger, Kristian Bezuidenhout
The Baroque dream team of violinist Rachel Podger and keyboardist Kristian Bezuidenhout interpret the music of C.P.E. Bach’s Violin Sonatas in C minor, B minor, D major, and G minor, filled, as Podger says, with “surprises and unpredictable turns.” The two early sonatas, from the 1730s, resemble the older style of the composer’s father. The later sonatas, written 30 to ...
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 – Sinfonia of London, John Wilson
John Wilson and Sinfonia of London release their second album of Rachmaninoff. The Second Symphony was mostly composed in Dresden – where Rachmaninoff was escaping the political and professional pressures of Russia – in 1906. An hour’s worth of music, the symphony is one of his largest works after the operas, and is widely viewed as one of his greatest ...
Bruce Liu Plays Bach
Bruce Liu showcases his extraordinary talent in a recording for Deutsche Grammophon of Johann Sebastian Bach’s French Suite No. 5 in G major, BWV 816. Bach wrote this suite, one of a set of six, in the early 1720s, possibly as a wedding present for his second wife, Anna Magdalena. The collection later became known as the “French Suites,” but the ...
Rolling River: American Choral – Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, Graham Ross
Choral singing enjoys astonishing vitality in America. Alongside Leonard Bernstein’s prodigious Chichester Psalms, Samuel Barber’s Two Choruses, and James Erb’s much-loved arrangement of Shenandoah, Graham Ross and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge introduce us to the colorful works of a younger generation of composers on the other side of the Atlantic. A splendid panorama of American choral music from ...
Louise Farrenc: Symphonies 1-3, Overtures – Insula Orchestra, Laurence Equilbey
Laurence Equilbey conducts the Insula Orchestra in the first complete recording on period instruments of Louise Farrenc’s symphonies and overtures. This 2-CD set expands upon the 2021 Erato release of Farrenc’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3, adding Symphony No. 2, Overture No. 1 in E minor, and Overture No. 2 in E-flat Major. Farrenc (1804-75) was a prominent figure in ...
Haruma Sato: On Wings of Song – Mendelssohn Works
25-year-old cellist Haruma Sato, who in 2019 won the cello division of the long-established and prestigious Munich International Music Competition, releases his third album, On Wings of Song – Mendelssohn Works. With pianist Wataru Hisasue, Sato performs Mendelssohn’s two sonatas for cello, Variations Concertantes, and an arrangement of On Wings of Song, Mendelssohn’s best-known piece.
Mozart: Complete Piano Sonatas – Yeol Eum Son
Yeol Eum Son makes her label debut on Naïve playing Mozart’s complete piano sonatas in a 6-CD box set. The Korean pianist has achieved distinction in numerous international competitions, including the Tchaikovsky, Viotti, Rubinstein, and Van Cliburn. While recording, Yeol Eum emphasized bringing out the different characters of each sonata. She says, “You can enjoy the young, curious, experimental, and ...
Haydn: String Quartets, Opp. 42, 51, 77 – London Haydn Quartet
With Haydn’s String Quartets Opp. 42, 77, and The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, the London Haydn Quartet completes a much-admired survey of their namesake’s mature quartets. This final installment provides a fitting conclusion to a series which throughout has communicated a real sense of joy, both in Haydn’s inexhaustible inspiration and in the collaborative music-making which ...
Gesualdo: Tenebræ Responsoria – Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew
Founded in 1979 by William Christie, Les Arts Florissants is one of the best-known Baroque-music ensembles in the world. Established in the name of creativity, the ensemble has played a pioneering role in the revival of a repertoire that had been largely forgotten and which is now enjoyed across the globe. This pioneering spirit has never died, and Les Arts ...
Rachmaninoff, Bowen, Medtner: Music for Two Pianos – Joseph Moog, Kai Adomeit
Three pianist-composers from the first half of the last century form the program for Joseph Moog and Kai Adomeit’s new album. For this recording, they perform three works for two pianos – Sergei Rachmaninoff’s late Symphonic Dances from 1940 (premiered in August 1942 by the composer and Vladimir Horowitz at a private party in Beverley Hills, California), York Bowen’s Theme ...
Raphaël Feuillâtre: Visages Baroques
“My first album for Deutsche Grammophon stems from a desire to share my love for Baroque music,” says rising-star French guitarist Raphaël Feuillâtre. Visages Baroques presents music by J.S. Bach and his French contemporaries Forqueray, Rameau, Royer, and Duphly. The carefully curated program translates works mostly conceived for solo harpsichord into the colorful sound world of the guitar. “The title Visages Baroques (“Baroque Faces”) ...
Strauss & Debussy: London Symphony Orchestra, François-Xavier Roth
Opening with its famous “Sunrise” fanfare, there is no mistaking Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra. A bold, intrepid tone poem, famously used by Stanley Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey, it explores mankind’s place in the universe, diving headfirst into themes of religion, science, and individuality. François-Xavier Roth’s interpretation of Debussy’s Jeux completes the album. The kaleidoscopic score begins in a ...
Aria: Luka Faulisi, Itamar Golan
For his debut on Sony Classical, violinist Luka Faulisi takes us into the “world of dreams” that is Romantic opera. Among the operatic jewels are Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy, Henryk Wieniawski’s Fantasy on Themes from Gounod’s Faust, Leopold Auer’s arrangement of Lensky’s Aria from Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin, and Fausili’s own version of Violetta’s glittering aria Sempre libera from Verdi’s ...
Icelandic Works for the Stage: Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Rumon Gamba
Composer Páll Ísólfsson was the first director of the Reykjavík Music School. Like other musicians, he was forced by the lack of opportunity in Iceland to study abroad but, unlike others, he was able to return and work as the Organist at Reykjavík Cathedral to support his activities as a composer. His music for the Ibsen play The Feast at ...
Beauté Barbare: Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, François Lazarevitch
This album owes its title to Georg Philipp Telemann, who described the music he discovered during a trip to Upper Silesia in 1705 as existing “in its true barbaric beauty.” The composer was fascinated: “An attentive observer could gather from [those musicians] enough ideas in eight days to last a lifetime.” François Lazarevitch, the founder and conductor of Les Musiciens ...
Sarah Beth Briggs: Variations
Variations by British pianist Sarah Beth Briggs traces a lineage of the genre through the Classical and Romantic eras, from Mozart and Beethoven to Mendelssohn and Brahms, and includes Beethoven’s mighty variations on the British national anthem, God Save the King, composed in 1803. Beethoven wrote in his diary that he wanted “to show the British what a treasure they ...
Maria Ioudenitch, Kenny Broberg: Songbird
The violinist Maria Ioudenitch joins with pianist Kenny Broberg for a lyrical program inspired – as the album’s name’s suggests – by song. It brings together music by 19th and 20th century composers from western Europe, Russia, and the United States. “I really gravitate towards the human singing voice,” explains Ioudenitch, “and find lots of inspiration for how I shape ...
Carlos Gomes: Opera Overtures & Preludes
Carlos Gomes was not only Brazil’s leading operatic composer, but he also helped pave the way for Italian verismo during the latter part of the 19th century. The preludes and overtures from his operas chart a course from early experimentation with orchestral sonority to a new conception of atmosphere and tension in his historically based dramas. In Alvorada (“Dawn”) from ...
Mozart: String Quintets K. 515 & K. 516 – Ébène Quartet, Antoine Tamestit
The Ebène Quartet welcomes a favorite colleague, viola player Antoine Tamestit, for two of Mozart’s six string quintets – No. 3 in C major, K. 515 and No. 4 in G minor, K. 516. Their last joint album, ‘Round Midnight, won a 2022 Gramophone Award for its thrilling exploration of diverse strands of 20th-century music. “When a fifth member joins ...
