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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Hildegard von Bingen: Ordo Virtutum – Seraphic Fire
Grammy-nominated vocal ensemble Seraphic Fire’s latest release is the first complete recording of St. Hildegard’s 12th-century masterpiece Ordo virtutum to include the accompanying gradual Qui sunt hi. Artistic director Patrick Dupre Quigley worked in conjunction with scholar Dr. Honey Meconi – author of the 2018 biography Hildegard of Bingen – to bring this “play of virtues” to life. The women ...
Vivaldi: Violin Concertos, “Le nuove vie” – Boris Begelman, Concerto Italiano
Boris Begelman takes center stage with Rinaldo Alessandrini’s Concerto Italiano in a collection of violin concertos from the Naïve label’s Vivaldi Edition. Begelman – who is concertmaster of Concerto Italiano and who has performed in previous recordings as a member of the ensemble – here lends his “engaging and conversational” playing (The Strad) to Vivaldi’s eminently virtuosic, animated, and improvisatory late ...
Introspection: Solo Piano Sessions – Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin is also a versatile pianist. In the summer of 2020, when the pandemic shut down most of the cultural life all over the world, he found, as he describes it, “kind of a salvation” in playing the piano – and recorded his first solo album. Nézet-Séguin was inspired also by the memory of his admired teacher Anisia ...
Hope Amid Tears – Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax
Yo-Yo Ma and long-time friend and musical partner Emanuel Ax have released Hope Amid Tears, a new recording of Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano, on Sony Classical. The album presents Beethoven’s five sonatas for cello and piano in the order in which they were composed, tracing an important arc in Beethoven’s development and approach as a composer. Joining them are ...
Brahms: Symphony No. 3, Serenade No. 2 – Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer
With this recording of the Third Symphony, the Grammy-winning combination of Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra completes their cycle of Brahms Symphonies on Channel Classics. The recording began one day prior to Hungary closing its borders on September 1st, 2020. Engineer/producer Jared Sacks had just arrived from the Netherlands. Despite the lockdown, the venue remained accessible and the ...
C/O Chamber Orchestra: Divertissement!
The C/O Chamber Orchestra is a collective of 30 young musicians from a dozen different countries. For their first disc, the members have chosen to highlight the genre of the divertimento. The name implies a diversion, light music for entertainment, but many of the best-known examples of the form transcend that definition. The four works recorded here offer different perspectives ...
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 ...
