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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Schumann: The Symphonies – Berlin Staatskapelle, Daniel Barenboim
Deutsche Grammophon honors the supreme artistry of Daniel Barenboim on his 80th birthday. The great pianist and conductor’s remarkable legacy of recordings for the label remains the focus of a major campaign comprising three albums, two DG Stage concerts, and a series of e-video releases. The first release holds his latest readings of Schumann’s four symphonies, recorded live with the ...
Carl Friedrich Abel: Cello Concertos – Bruno Delepelaire, Berlin Baroque Soloists
It is a constant source of amazement that to this very day, musical gems even by famous composers often fail to receive the exposure they deserve or have even – despite modern digital access – been unjustly consigned to oblivion. The four works by Carl Friedrich Abel presented here are just such treasures, and two of them – the Sinfonie ...
Florence Price: Songs of the Oak, Concert Overtures – Württemberg Philharmonic, John Jeter
The rediscovery of Florence Price’s music has revealed one of the most significant bodies of work by an African American composer in the 20th century. The variety of genres represented on this release place Price’s immense artistic imagination on full display. The two Concert Overtures explore her engagement with spirituals, both episodically and coloristically, in music that embraces the somber, ...
Guitarra a Seis: Works for Guitar Sextet
With specially made instruments and a range that can emulate that of a whole orchestra, the acclaimed Guitarra a Seis bring us a colorful program that includes works written specially for the ensemble. Opening with a real feast for the ears in Bach’s lively Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, we further encounter the magical moods of Ravel’s Ma mere l’Oye, a ...
Sarah Cahill: The Future is Female, Volume 2 (The Dance)
Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by the New York Times, presents the second volume of The Future is Female. The project celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe and include many new ...
An Unexpected Mozart
Always curious about unjustly neglected repertoire, organist and conductor Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas introduces us here to a Mozart we have not met. Above and beyond his church sonatas, works written on commission, pieces meant to showcase a vocalist or an instrument (such as the rarely heard glass harmonica) or as a mark of friendship with another musician, this is ...
Anne Akiko Meyers: Mysterium
In violinist Anne Akiko Meyers’ latest program, Mysterium, the “musical wizard” (San Diego Union-Tribune) teams up with conductor Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale to present four world-premiere arrangements of popular works. The program is anchored by composer Morten Lauridsen’s choral masterpiece O Magnum Mysterium, reworked by the composer and Gershon for violin and choir, and also includes ...
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5; Rimsky-Korsakov: Kitezh Suite – London Symphony Orchestra, Gianandrea Noseda
History, heritage, and fate combine in this recording from Gianandrea Noseda and the London Symphony Orchestra, bringing together the music of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, brimming over with drama and emotional intensity, charts a course from darkness to a final, life-affirming glimmer of optimism. Rimsky-Korsakov dug deep into Russian legends and folk tales for his opera The Legend ...
ARC Ensemble: Chamber Works of Alberto Hemsi
It is indeed ironic that composer Alberto Hemsi, who spent much of his life rescuing music that faced extinction, should have his own brilliantly original works threatened with a similar fate. As part of its mission to research and recover 20th-century music suppressed, or marginalized by repressive regimes, war, and exile, Canada’s ARC Ensemble focuses on this overlooked and prodigious ...
Doppio Espressivo: Double Concertos for Bass Instruments – Rick Stotijn
Antonio Vivaldi was one of the first composers to investigate the possibilities of concertos for two instruments, but he didn’t compose a single one for double bass. This recording rectifies Vivaldi’s omission and offers arrangements of two of his double concertos. A little more than century later, Giovanni Bottesini displayed a dazzling virtuosity in his numerous compositions that highlight the ...
Hélène de Montgeroult: Études – Clare Hammond
Hélène de Montgeroult’s life reads like a novel: showing a precocious musical ability as a child in pre-revolutionary France, she became fêted as one of the finest pianists and improvisers of her time. Imprisoned during an attempt to reach Naples at the time of the Revolution, she was able to return to France. She worked for the Institut National de ...
Sophie Webber, Ines Irawati: Roots
British cellist Sophie Webber is an internationally accomplished soloist, chamber musician, and educator. For her latest recording, Roots, Webber is joined by pianist Ines Irawati, with whom she has collaborated for many years. The album features a selection of Romantic and early 20th-century works transcribed for cello and piano.
Arutiunian, Weinberg, Shostakovich: Trumpet Concertos – Paul Merkelo
The trumpet has had many concertos written for it by composers from the Soviet era and beyond. Appealing in its unabashed melodies and colorfully nostalgic feel, Alexander Arutiunian’s Concerto became popular in the West, while Mieczysław Weinberg’s emotive Concerto in B flat major was summed up by Dmitri Shostakovich as a “symphony for trumpet and orchestra.” Shostakovich’s own playful Piano ...
Amanda Lee Falkenberg: The Moons Symphony
International award-winning composer Amanda Lee Falkenberg has composed a dynamic new work that merges music and science. The seven-movement Moons Symphony dramatizes past, present, and future moon explorations, and highlights discoveries that have been made in our search for other worlds that could possibly sustain life. Through the persuasive and powerful forces of music, the symphony offers Earthlings a chance ...
Hilary Hahn: Eclipse
Hilary Hahn’s latest album, Eclipse, celebrates the power of authenticity. Recorded with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and its Music Director, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, the album sees the triple Grammy-winning violinist deliver interpretations of three works charged with universal emotions yet rooted in their composers’ musical heritage: Antonín Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, Alberto Ginastera’s Violin Concerto, and Pablo de Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy. “This recording tells stories ...
Ruth Gipps: Orchestral Works – BBC Philharmonic, Rumon Gamba
Ruth Gipps was a prolific and original composer who was only sparsely appreciated during her lifetime, but she has been the subject of renewed interest in the 21st century. She was also active as a conductor and, early in her career, as a pianist and oboist. Three of the works on this album were composed during the war: the Oboe ...
Beethoven: The Late Quartets – Dover Quartet
The celebrated Dover Quartet, the young, Grammy-nominated ensemble brimming with prestigious awards and residencies, concludes its critically acclaimed, three-volume Beethoven cycle with the composer’s five monumental, revolutionary Late Quartets and imposing Grosse Fuge. The triple-CD release comprises Beethoven’s very last compositions — remarkable and often daunting works that upended the concept of the string quartet.
Víkingur Ólafsson: From Afar
Celebrated for his innovative programming and award-winning recordings, Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson is offering a window into his musical life story with his new album, From Afar. The highly personal double album reflects Ólafsson’s musical DNA, from childhood memories growing up in Iceland to his international career and contemporary inspirations. Recorded on both upright and grand pianos, the album captures ...
Frank La Rocca: Mass of the Americas – Benedict XVI Choir & Orchestra, Richard Sparks
Frank La Rocca extends the genre of the festal Missa solemnis in his Mass of the Americas, a sublime setting of the traditional Latin mass for choir and orchestra. La Rocca weaves a rich tapestry with serene Gregorian chants, folk melodies from 18th-century regions of Mexico, and florid praises in Nahuatl, the language spoken by Our Lady of Guadalupe to ...
Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 9, 18 – Kristian Bezuidenhout, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra
Kristian Bezuidenhout, Artistic Director of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, returns to his series of Mozart Piano Concertos. For this release, the Jeunehomme Concerto, K. 271, a vehicle of rather unexpected musical daring, is paired with K. 456. The origins of these concertos may each be traced to a woman. K. 271 takes its nickname from the work’s dedicatee: the piano ...
