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.
Stay on top of New Releases with WFMT's curated Spotify and Apple Music playlists
Elisabeth Remy Johnson: Quest
The harpist Elisabeth Remy Johnson has gathered a substantial collection of works by women in her new album, Quest. The recording features new works by living composers Kati Agócs, Sally Beamish, Johanna Selleck, and Niloufar Nourbakhsh; gems from the 19th and 20th centuries by Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger, and Amy Beach, all transcribed by Remy Johnson; and Remy Johnson’s own ...
Music of Debussy – Daniel Barenboim, Martha Argerich, Michael Barenboim, Kian Soltani
On this album of music by Claude Debussy, Michael Barenboim and Kian Soltani partner with Daniel Barenboim in the Violin Sonata and Cello Sonata respectively. Maestro Barenboim conducts the Berlin Staatskapelle in La Mer, and orchestra and conductor are joined by pianist Martha Argerich in her first recording of the Fantaisie – an early work that remained unperformed until after Debussy’s ...
Lise de la Salle: When Do We Dance?
Pianist Lise de la Salle presents When Do We Dance?, a deeply personal program inspired by a lifelong love of dance. “I’ve been surrounded by dance since childhood, and I adore it,” says De la Salle. “But with so many dances and so much music to play, I could take ten albums to tell this whole story. So, I decided to ...
One Movement Symphonies – Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern
Reference Recordings presents a unique album of one-movement symphonies composed by Samuel Barber, Jean Sibelius, and Alexander Scriabin, in an outstanding interpretation from conductor Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony. This album was recorded in the acoustically acclaimed Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. It was produced by David Frost, seven-time winner of the Classical Producer of ...
Rodrigo: Guitar Works, Volume 3 – Celil Refik Kaya
Joaquín Rodrigo, composer of the renowned Concierto de Aranjuez, is acknowledged as one of the great Spanish composers of the 20th century. Rodrigo’s guitar music explores the Spanish nature of the instrument and blends tradition with innovation. Always filled with variety, contrast, and compelling atmosphere, his music is now appreciated as one of the central pillars of the entire guitar ...
J.G. Graun: Chamber Music From the Court of Frederick the Great
A quartet of four renowned period-instrument musicians with a new and unique collection of trio sonatas from the late Baroque: music fit for a (very discerning) king. The four composers represented here all worked at the Potsdam court of Frederick the Great, who was himself a flautist and composer of professional ability. The G minor Trio Sonata by Johann Gottlieb ...
American Discoveries – Lansdowne Symphony Orchestra, Reuben Blundell
The Lansdowne Symphony Orchestra and conductor Reuben Blundell release American Discoveries, a continuation of their series of promoting previously unrecorded orchestral repertoire unearthed at the Fleischer Collection in Philadelphia. This collection features music by three female composers whose work merits more attention: Priscilla Alden Beach, Linda Robbins Coleman, and Alexandra Pierce.
Saint-Saëns: Symphonies 1 & 2 – Liège Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Jean-Jacques Kantorow
The present disc is the first of two dedicated to the symphonies of Saint-Saëns and recorded by the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège and Jean-Jacques Kantorow to commemorate the centenary of the composer’s death.
Paganini: 24 Caprices – Alina Ibragimova
The transcendental heroics of Paganini’s Caprices have presented the ultimate test for generations of violinists; Alina Ibragimova’s accounts of this most exclusive repertoire join a select few of the most celebrated.
Hymns of Kassianí – Cappella Romana, Alexander Lingas
A first volume in a series that will record all of Kassianí’s works, Cappella Romana gives us excellent, state-of-the-art performances of chants from male and mixed choirs, including two versions of her well-loved hymn for Holy Week. They are beautifully realized under the direction of Alexander Lingas, an album for anyone seeking to experience an important element of historical lifeways ...
The Devil’s Caprice – Mabel Millán
Acclaimed concert artist and laureate of numerous awards, Mabel Millán brings her stunning technique and remarkable musical expressiveness to this programme of some of the most spectacular and best-loved repertoire ever composed for the guitar. From the Andalusian rhythms and atmosphere of Turina and Malats, the Romantic expressiveness and national colours of Ponce and Mertz, to the lyrical beauty and ...
Bach: Klavierwerke – Rinaldo Alessandrini
Rinaldo Alessandrini usually records with his ensemble Concerto Italiano: his solo harpsichord recital discs are far less frequent and all the more cherished for their rarity value. Here Bach has a special place, as in his previous releases A la manera italiana and Præludien & Fugen. This third all-Bach recital brings together around thirty short pieces from among the composer’s ...
John Brancy & Peter Dugan
A companion to baritone John Brancy and pianist Peter Dugan’s critically acclaimed “A Silent Night: A WWI Memorial in Song,” which commemorated the centennial of the beginning of World War I and the Christmas Truce of 1914. “The Journey Home” features music from Schubert’s “Der Wanderer” and Vaughan Williams’ “Songs of Travel” and popular WWI era tunes by Oley Speaks ...
La clarinette parisienne – Michael Collins, Noriko Ogawa
Up until around 1900 the clarinet repertoire was dominated by music from the German-speaking lands, largely due to the influence of three outstanding clarinettists. Inspired by Anton Stadler, Heinrich Bärmann and Richard Mühlfeld respectively, Mozart, Weber and Brahms composed some of the finest clarinet works ever written. But especially after the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French ...
Festmusik: A Legacy – Onyx Brass
A recording based on a family’s hidden collection of letters from the great Romantic masters featured on the disc. New transcriptions of music by Richard Strauss, Schumann, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Rubinstein and Franz sit alongside a superb new recording of Strauss’ masterpiece, Festmusik der Stadt Wien. Directed by John Wilson and joined by the acclaimed brass ensemble, Septura, this recording is ...
Mendelssohn: The Complete Solo Piano Music Vol. 5
Today, in the midst of a full-scale Mendelssohn revival, Volume Five of Howard Shelley’s survey of the complete solo piano music in six volumes offers a welcome opportunity to revisit and reassess this repertoire. As we now know, Mendelssohn composed or began nearly two hundred works for piano. Nevertheless, he saw only about seventy through the press, released in seventeen ...
José Serebrier: Last Tango Before Sunrise
Reference Recordings is proud to present new recordings of a compendium of nine works of José Serebrier, including four world premières and the first digital recording of his dramatic Symphony for Percussion, performed by the Gnessin Percussion Ensemble of Moscow. Grammy-winning conductor and composer José Serebrier is one of the most-recorded classical artists in history. Born in 1938 in Uruguay of Russian and ...
Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, Burleske – Santa Cecilia National Academy Orchestra, Antonio Pappano
Antonio Pappano conducts Rome’s Santa Cecilia National Academy Orchestra in two works from the earlier phase of Richard Strauss’s career: the mercurial, virtuosic Burleske for piano and orchestra, with Bertrand Chamayou as soloist, and the epic, autobiographical tone poem Ein Heldenleben, one of the composer’s orchestral masterpieces. “Strauss always thought dramaturgically,” says Pappano. “Recording this music in Italy, the link has ...
Beethoven & Schnittke: Violin Concertos – Vadim Gluzman
Vadim Gluzman takes on the work that in the beginning of the 19th century mapped out a new course for the violin concerto: Beethoven’s Concerto in D major, Op. 61. With this work, Beethoven presented a symphonic reinterpretation of the concerto, with soloist and orchestra becoming equal partners. Over the years, a number of composers and great violin virtuosos have ...
Mozart: Wind Serenades K. 361 & 375 – Berlin Academy for Ancient Music
When Mozart took up the popular genre of the serenade, it was to transcend it and lend it new luster. A festive masterpiece of simplicity and emotion, his Gran Partita quickly became a hit. Thanks to the distinctive, spellbinding timbres of their period instruments, the Berlin Academy of Ancient Music gives a unique flavor to these two extraordinary serenades.
