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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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 ...
Lodestar Trio: Bach to Folk
Lodestar Trio presents their striking debut album, one that not only exhibits the three performers’ outstanding musicianship but also presents new interpretations of Baroque classics (Bach, Lully, and Couperin), folk tunes, and new compositions. Together, they push the boundaries of their mystical and magical Scandinavian string instruments. With Max Bailie on violin, Olav Luksengård Mjelva on Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, and ...
Vincent Larderet: The Scriabin Mystery
With The Scriabin Mystery, French pianist Vincent Larderet celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Russian composer. Making his Avie label debut, Larderet presents a comprehensive survey of the scope of Alexander Scriabin’s output and the evolution of his style, from his early, post-Romantic works influenced by Chopin and Liszt, through to the modernism of the 20th century in ...
Chineke! Orchestra: Coleridge-Taylor
The Chineke! Orchestra’s new album features music by the celebrated African-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with an appearance by award-winning American violinist Elena Urioste, plus a world premiere recording of a work by the composer’s daughter, Avril Coleridge-Taylor. The album includes the famous Violin Concerto in G minor, which was originally written for Minnie “Maud” Powell, a champion of music by ...
Abel Selaocoe: Where Is Home (Hae Ke Kae)
The award-winning South African cellist, composer, and singer Abel Selaocoe blurs Western and non-Western musical traditions with his genre-bending debut album. Where Is Home (Hae Ke Kae) is fiercely ambitious in its musical range and features a selection of Selaocoe’s own compositions and improvisations alongside his unique take on solo cello works by the likes of Johann Sebastian Bach and ...
Mikhail Pletnev: Verbier Festival Concertos & Encores
Among the great pianists today, Mikhail Pletnev is regarded as a magician. The latest release on Verbier Festival Gold showcases his powerful artistry in the realms of concertos and encores. This album opens with Franz Joseph Haydn’s D major Concerto, Hob. XVIII (led by Iván Fischer) and Alexander Tsfasman’s Suite No. 1 (led by Kent Nagano). These works are followed ...
Vivaldi: Violin Concertos, Intorno a Pisendel – Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de la Loge
Julien Chauvin and his Concert de la Loge return to Naïve Classics’ Vivaldi Edition with a volume of violin concertos linked to Johann Georg Pisendel, a major musical figure in the court of Dresden in the 18th century. Vivaldi was introduced to Pisendel circa 1716 when the Crown Prince of Saxony traveled to Venice accompanied by musicians from the Dresden ...
Fábio Brum: Alchemy – New Music for Trumpet & Orchestra
Like alchemists of old, attempting to recombine the four elements, here Fábio Brum presents four distinct musical languages in a program forged during lockdown. Gabriele Roberto’s Tokyo Suite charts the astonishment of a traveler dazzled by the vast megapolis, whereas Dimitri Cervo’s Brazilian Four Seasons offers a colorful, energetic panorama of the natural and human worlds. Brum’s very personal musical ...
Bach: Italian Concerto, French Overture – Mahan Esfahani
Mahan Esfahani releases the next installment in his Bach series. With couplings including a compelling rendition of the Capriccio “on the departure of his beloved brother” and performances offering a rare blend of interpretative exuberance and scholarly insight, harpsichord playing really doesn’t get any more exciting than this. Esfahani again highlights the radicalism, virtuosity—and sheer joyousness—of the works recorded here, ...
Christopher Tin: The Lost Birds – Voces8, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Lost Birds is Christopher Tin’s soaring elegy for the loss of bird species due to human activity. The album is a memorial for their loss and a celebration of their beauty–as symbols of hope, peace, and renewal. “To put their story into words, I turned to four 19th-century poets–Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Sara Teasdale,” ...
Esther Birringer: Debussy
For her second solo recital album for Rubicon, Esther Birringer turns to Claude Debussy with a recital that includes both books of his Images. Composed in 1901-05 (Book 1) and 1907 (Book 2), the composer was very pleased with the music. He wrote about the first set, “Without false pride, I feel that these three pieces hold together well, and ...
Mendelssohn: Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante
Naïve Classics presents the latest from violinist Fabio Biondi and his early music ensemble Europa Galante. This new album of early works by Felix Mendelssohn, all written when the composer was between the ages of eleven and eighteen, showcases the influence his predecessors in the German tradition had on his compositional style. The album also offers an opportunity to discover ...
Barokkbandið Brák: Two Sides
Two Sides is the debut double album from period-instrument ensemble Barokkbandið Brák, one of Iceland’s best-known chamber groups. Founded in 2015 and led by renowned violinist Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir, the ensemble has made its name not only for excellence in the interpretation of Renaissance and Baroque music but also as a commissioner of new music for period instruments. Reflecting this two-sided ...
Mozart y Mambo: Cuban Dances – Sarah Willis
Following the phenomenal success of the first Mozart y Mambo album, Sarah Willis returns to Cuba not only to record two more Mozart horn concertos but also to create a landmark original work that takes its place in Cuban music history. In Mozart y Mambo: Cuban Dances, Willis has commissioned the very first Cuban horn concerto – calling on six ...
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 – London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Rattle loves Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, and on this new recording from LSO Live, he conducts the work in all its splendor. Rattle is aware, too, that Bruckner’s inspiration burned so brightly that he ended up with more ideas than he could actually use. “There is much wonderful music which remains almost entirely unplayed,” he says. On this album, ...
