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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Matiegka: Six Guitar Sonatas – David Starobin
Guitarist David Starobin has recorded six rarely heard sonatas by Wenzeslaus Thomas Matiegka, performed on a Viennese guitar. Born in 1773 in Bohemia under the rule of the Habsburg empire, Matiegka studied the pianoforte in Prague. In the early 1800s he moved to Vienna, where he circulated among an elite group of musicians. He made a name for himself as ...
Chopin: Piano Concertos (chamber versions) – Emmanuel Despax, Chineke! Chamber Ensemble
Following his acclaimed Brahms recording in 2021, Emmanuel Despax presents Chopin’s Piano Concertos in chamber versions with the Chineke! Chamber Ensemble. “Chopin’s Piano Concertos are among his first and most significant points of departure, a marked liberation from the constraints of an early but short-lived respect for custom and tradition… I would say that the exceptional nature of this Chopin ...
Bach: Mass in B minor – RIAS Chamber Choir, Berlin Academy for Ancient Music, René Jacobs
A composition as brilliant as it is protean – the earliest sections date back to 1724, others were written in 1733 in the hope of obtaining a post in Dresden – the Mass in B minor occupied Bach until the end of his life. The work, which is more ecumenical than strictly Catholic, offers a digest of his art at ...
Dora Pejačević: Piano Concerto, Symphony – Peter Donohoe, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo
Countess Mária Theodora (Dora) Paulina Pejačević was born in 1885 in Budapest. Young Dora grew up with all the advantages of an aristocrat. From an early age, though, she defied convention and walked her own path. Her parents arranged private lessons with teachers at the Croatian Music Institute in Zagreb, which lead to further instruction in Dresden and Munich. Dissatisfied ...
Neave Trio: Musical Remembrances
Hailed by BBC Music magazine for its “generous and warm-hearted, utterly beguiling playing,” the Neave Trio has emerged as one of the finest young ensembles of its generation. Here, the trio presents a program of music connected by the theme of remembrance. Rachmaninoff’s early first piano trio was inspired by Tchaikovsky’s trio in A minor, and shows illuminating glimpses of ...
Rameau: Concerts en sextuor – Les Accents, Thibault Noally
Transcriptions for string sextet of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts of 1741, the Concerts en sextuor were published by Camille Saint-Saëns in the monumental edition of Rameau’s works that he undertook in the 19th century. Previously, they had existed only in a manuscript bearing the name Decroix and dated 1768 (four years after Rameau’s death). These concerts, consisting ...
Yoav Levanon: A Monument for Beethoven
For his debut on Warner Classics, the 17-year-old pianist Yoav Levanon has chosen a demanding program of works by Liszt, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. Liszt’s mighty Sonata in B minor forms the centerpiece of A Monument for Beethoven, an album honoring the four composers’ contribution to fundraising for a monument to Beethoven in 1845 in the city of Bonn, Beethoven’s birthplace. ...
Andris Nelsons: The Strauss Alliance
As part of an artistic alliance established between his two world-class orchestras, visionary conductor Andris Nelsons has recorded all the major orchestral works of Richard Strauss with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. The BSO is joined by cellist Yo-Yo Ma in Don Quixote, while pianist Yuja Wang appears with the Leipzig players in Burleske. The two orchestras join forces on the ...
Anne Akiko Meyers: Shining Night
Anne Akiko Meyers has amassed a multitude of fans and admirers for her exquisitely curated recordings, often exploring her passion for new music, and old music in new guises. Her quest for creative collaborations has inspired countless commissions and world-premieres, with the results infusing Shining Night, an album that embraces themes of love, poetry, and nature. Meyers’ fruitful association with composer Morten Lauridsen ...
Confluence: Balkan Dances & Tango Nuevo – Zachary Carrettin, Mina Gajić
Confluence features Balkan dances by Marko Tajčević interspersed with contemporary tangos by Ray Granlund. After many years of performing these works in recitals, the husband-and-wife duo of violinist Zachary Carrettin and Mina Gajić wanted to record them—not as two separate sets but as a confluence of dance-inspired music influenced by two distinct regions and cultures. They chose to travel back ...
Lucas and Arthur Jussen: Dutch Masters
Lucas and Arthur Jussen present their new Deutsche Grammophon recording – Dutch Masters. The album features a rich variety of compositions for two pianos and piano four hands from the 20th and 21st centuries by Dutch composers. The Jussen brothers say, “Everyone knows Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven, but we also have plenty of lesser-known composers from our home country who ...
Tenebrae: When Sleep Comes
Virtuoso saxophonist Christian Forshaw is joined by a consort of Tenebrae singers, in an ethereal sequence of penitential settings for Passiontide. Combining elements of ancient and modern to stunning effect, Forshaw and Tenebrae bring new colors and context to music by Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Tallis, and Hildegard von Bingen in a series of new arrangements and compositions. Described as “phenomenal” ...
Bach, Volume 2: Works for Violin – Jason Vieaux
Grammy Award-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux releases Bach, Volume 2: Works for Violin on Azica Records. A follow-up to his critically acclaimed 2009 album, Bach, Volume 1: Works for Lute, this second volume completes Vieaux’s Bach cycle. The guitarist says Bach’s music is “not only comforting and inspiring in its musical greatness, it’s humbling in how his notes, phrases, structures, compositional ...
Leif Ove Andsnes: Mozart Momentum 1786
Leif Ove Andsnes and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra follow their award-winning Mozart Momentum 1785 release with its partner album, focusing on the composer’s extraordinary creativity in the year 1786. “When you realize how quickly Mozart developed during the early years of the 1780s, it makes you ask: why did this happen? What was going on? It’s about the momentum of ...
Rebecca Clarke: Works for Viola – Vinciane Béranger
Violist Vinciane Béranger, with Dana Ciocarlie, Hélène Collerette, and David Louwerse, devotes her new album to the viola compositions of Rebecca Clarke and unveils a world premiere. Clarke’s music, at the crossroads of various currents, navigates at different moments through French music, modality, British folklore, harmonic boldness, and exoticism. There is, however, no pastiche: Clarke creates her own style from ...
Grigory Sokolov at Esterházy Palace
“Sokolov is not one for show in any respect: he is clearly focused on the music and its performance, both in his approach to and departure from the piano and in his lack of bodily movement while playing.” So noted Seen and Heard International in its review of Grigory Sokolov’s concert at Austria’s Esterházy Palace in the summer of 2018. The ...
Jacob Reuven: The Mandolin Seasons
Renowned worldwide for his musical integrity and effortless brilliance, Israeli mandolin player Jacob Reuven is one of the most sought-after virtuosos of his instrument. His broad musical horizons encompass everything from Baroque to contemporary music, bringing an exuberance matched with uncompromising musical standards to all he does. On The Mandolin Seasons, Reuven is accompanied by accordion, harpsichord, and a backing ...
Opera in Musica: Carlo Monza Quartets – Europa Galante
The Naïve label has released an album of six never-before recorded string quartets by 18th-century Milanese composer Carlo Monza, performed by violinist Fabio Biondi and members of his Europa Galante ensemble. With their joyful tone and flirtatious style, Monza’s string quartets could easily be taken for youthful works by Mozart, which is hardly surprising, as the 14-year-old Mozart was in ...
Lea Birringer: Sinding and Mendelssohn Violin Concertos
Violinist Lea Birringer’s first concerto recording is a fascinating program of the well-known and a delightful work that doesn’t deserve the obscurity to which it has been consigned. Christian Sinding composed his concerto in 1898. Full of memorable tunes and with brilliant use of the orchestra, this is a cleverly constructed work that should be better known. Felix Mendelssohn’s evergreen ...
Yolanda Kondonassis: Five Minutes for Earth
Harpist Yolanda Kondonassis presents Five Minutes for Earth, her new album that both celebrates our planet and illuminates the challenge to preserve it. She asked fifteen of today’s most innovative composers to create new works for the harp, of approximately five minutes in length, that express a powerful experience inspired by Earth in one of its many conditions or atmospheres. ...
