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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Alfven & Rautavaara: Orchestral Works
The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under conductor Neeme Järvi present orchestral works by Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén and Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. Born in Stockholm in 1872, Hugo Alfvén was influenced by Wagner and Richard Strauss, and his style is also permeated by the influence of Swedish folk music. The program features two works by Alfvén: Festspel (Festival Play), Op. 25, ...
Phantasy
The Piatti Quartet present a new album on the theme of “phantasies,” featuring music by Ina Boyle, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, and Malcolm Arnold. The program is inspired by the vision of one extraordinary patron of chamber music: Walter Cobbett (1847–1937), who created a competition for British composers in 1905, and singlehandedly created the ‘Phantasy’ (his spelling), taking inspiration ...
Twelve Blocks
Michael Stephen Brown is a composer and pianist hailed by The New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” Brown performs internationally and receives commissions from orchestras, soloists, and festivals around the world. Recent highlights include a recital at Alice Tully Hall for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and a performance ...
In Her Hands
Neave Trio presents a program of piano trios celebrating three women composers in the early modern era. The album continues the Trio’s longstanding commitment to uplifting historically underrepresented voices in the chamber music repertoire. Written in 1846, Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio Op. 17 in G minor, is widely recognized as one of her finest chamber works, despite the composer’s characteristic ...
Turandot: Christopher Tin Finale (EP)
Giacomo Puccini had composed most of Turandot before his death in 1924 but the final duet and conclusion to the opera remained unfinished. Commissioned by visionary director Francesca Zambello and Washington National Opera, and with a libretto by Emmy-winning playwright Susan Soon He Stanton, composer Christopher Tin’s new ending premiered at the Kennedy Center on May 11, 2024 and was ...
A Child’s Dream
Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu’s new album is a personal reflection of her journey in the music world, from some of the very first pieces she played as a child to significant milestones such as her concerto debut at age 9. The repertoire centers Mozart’s Rondo in D, K. 382, performed with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. The ...
Edmond Dédé: Morgiane, ou Le sultan d’Ispahan
A souvenir from the world premiere production of what may be the oldest opera by a Black American composer in existence. Edmond Dédé was born in 1827 in New Orleans as a free person of color. As the century wore on, life became increasingly difficult for the composer in New Orleans, and around 1855 he left the country permanently to ...
Head Space: Candlelight
The first album in The King’s Singers’ Head Space series, aims to connect choral music with calmness and reflection. Inspired by compline, the Catholic night service, it features plainchant, including “In manus tuas Domine” and “Salva nos Domine vigilantes,” emphasizing breath-led pacing. The album also includes four of Orlando Gibbons’s wordless song settings (two of which include an additional voice ...
Poulenc
Over several decades, Pascal Rogé has gained the reputation as one the greatest interpreters of the French piano repertoire with his recordings of Satie and Debussy regarded as benchmark performances. On his latest release, Rogé is collaborator in a charming program of superbly crafted, elegant, and often witty music by the 20th century French master Francis Poulenc. Rogé is joined ...
Overtures from the British Isles, Vol. 3
Rumon Gamba directs the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra for this third instalment of his exploration of overtures from the British Isles. As in the case of the previous volumes, the recorded repertoire is rarely played, and the album includes three world premiere recordings: Daniel Jones’s Comedy Overture, Robin Orr’s The Prospect of Whitby, and Alan Bush’s Resolution. Other composers include Havergal ...
Piano Heroines
Pianist Claire Huangci’s new album celebrates women composers and the struggles they’ve endured, with a collection of works by Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, Fanny Hensel, and Florence Price. Clara Wieck (who became Schumann after her marriage to Robert in 1840) was a mother of eight and the main breadwinner, constantly on tour. Fanny Hensel composed largely in private, often publishing ...
Zelenka: Two Masses
For two decades now, Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704 have been dedicating concerts and numerous recordings to the work of Jan Dismas Zelenka, the long-underrated composer from their homeland. To mark their 20th anniversary, Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704 present another work from Zelenka‘s extensive sacred vocal oeuvre: the solemn Missa Circumcisionis, for the feast of the Circumcision ...
Spiegel im Spiegel
The Amsterdam Sinfonietta under the direction of violinist Candida Thompson and the Netherlands Chamber Choir led by Martina Batič present an innovative program of Baltic and English works recorded live in concert. The program is bookended by two performances of Arvo Pärt’s meditative work Spiegel im Spiegel, the first with cellist Tim Posner, and the original version for violin (Candida ...
Art Nouveau: French chamber music around 1900
In a program teeming with contrasts and discoveries, Trio Wanderer (violinist Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian, cellist Raphaël Pidoux, and pianist Vincent Coq) explores French chamber music around the year 1900. The ardent lyricism of Édouard Lalo is represented by his Piano Trio No. 3. Maurice Ravel’s shimmering can be heard in his Piano Trio and his Sonata for Violin and Cello. The ...
Kevin Puts: Emily – No Prisoner Be
Emily — No Prisoner Be is a 24-part song cycle by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts, setting the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Written for Grammy Award-winning artists Joyce DiDonato and genre-defying ensemble Time for Three. Emily is a powerful meeting of voices across centuries—each one distinct, yet in perfect harmony. With music which feels at once familiar and new, brimming ...
Finnish Works for Violin & Orchestra
Linda Hedlund and La Tempesta Orchestra led by József Hárs explore the emotional depth, color, and inventiveness of Finnish concertante works for violin and orchestra. The pieces range across the transitional landscape of the country’s national music during the 20th century, where mysticism, modernism, folklore, and experimentation co-exist. Major figures such as Selim Palmgren and Aarre Merikanto are represented, as ...
Chopin Orbit
The multi-faceted New York-based Japanese pianist and composer Hayato Sumino turns his gaze on Chopin, the composer who means the most to him. It was Sumino’s sensational performances at the 2021 International Chopin Competition where he was a semi-finalist that first brought the young musician to wider international attention. In Chopin Orbit, Sumino pairs six of his original compositions with ...
MacDowell: Orchestral Works Vol. 2
John Wilson and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s second volume of works by Edward MacDowell features the tone poem Hamlet & Ophelia; the First Orchestral Suite; the Romanze for cello and orchestra featuring cellist Peter Dixon; and the virtuosic Second Piano Concerto featuring Xiayin Wang as soloist. In 1884, MacDowell and his wife, Marian, spent their honeymoon in England, and were ...
Symbiosis: Tribute to Bill Evans
The Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Clausen Trio, and Jean Thorel celebrate the enduring legacy of one of jazz’s greatest pianists. The album features three jazz, concerto grosso-like orchestral works recorded live. The influential Danish jazz trumpeter and composer Palle Mikkelborg was commissioned by the Danish Radio to compose his Bill Evans Suite for the Bill Evans Trio in 1969, comprising ...
Enescu & Mendelssohn: Octets
Two of the world’s leading string quartets, the Ebène and the Belcea, come together to perform octets written 75 years apart by two phenomenally gifted teenage composers: Felix Mendelssohn and George Enescu. Of the concert of the Mendelssohn and Enescu octets in Philadelphia in November 2024, The Strad said: “The phrase ‘luxury casting’ gets tossed around a lot, but seemed ...
