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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Sinfonia of London: English Music for Strings
During the 1930s, Arthur Bliss, Benjamin Britten, and Lennox Berkeley all contributed major works to the repertoire for string orchestra, following in the footsteps of Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams. They are joined on this album by Frank Bridge whose Lament was composed during the First World War. This is the fourth recording by conductor John Wilson with the ...
Alexander Fiterstein: A Clarinet in America
The clarinet has long been embraced by American composers for its jauntiness and jazzy flexibility, qualities heard in abundance on this album. Alexander Fiterstein plays Leonard Bernstein’s Cuban-influenced Sonata and the Sonatina by Budapest-born Miklós Rózsa, who made his name as a Hollywood movie composer. These pieces are bookended by two Aaron Copland works – his Concerto, written for Benny ...
Duke Ellington: Assault on a Queen
Dragon’s Domain Records presents the world-premiere soundtrack release of Assault on a Queen, featuring music by the legendary Duke Ellington for the 1966 adventure/thriller directed by Jack Donohue. The film starred Frank Sinatra, Vina Lisi, Anthony Franciosa, Richard Conte, Alf Kjellin, and Errol John. The music has been mastered by James Nelson at Digital Outland and satisfies a long-missing entry ...
Johannes Fleischmann: Exodus
Violinist Johannes Fleischmann gives heartfelt and deeply insightful interpretations of the music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Eric Zeisl, Viennese composers who escaped the rise of Nazism by journeying to America shortly before the Second World War. Once there, both composers adapted their talents to the world of Hollywood, becoming defining voices in the golden age of film scores. 2020 ...
Bright Sheng: Let Fly, Zodiac Tales, Suzhou Overture
Inspired by the image of a violin melody “flying off,” Chinese-American composer Bright Sheng’s virtuosic three-movement concerto Let Fly interweaves Chinese and Western classical elements. Vivid legends of astrological animals inform Zodiac Tales, a tour de force concerto for orchestra. Reflecting the city of Suzhou’s ancient, continuous cultural heritage, traditional nostalgia fuses with contemporary rhythms in the exciting Suzhou Overture. ...
Schnittke: Works for Violin and Piano – Daniel Hope, Alexey Botvinov
Daniel Hope was fifteen when he first encountered the music of Alfred Schnittke in 1989. The experience launched a love affair with the Russian composer’s work that has continued to deepen ever since. The violinist’s latest album pays homage to this maverick genius, whose elegant explorations of past styles and free-thinking experiments in “polystylism” were both original and iconoclastic, at ...
Bruckner & Wagner: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Andris Nelsons
Andris Nelsons and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra continue their award-winning Bruckner cycle with the Symphonies Nos. 2 and 8, coupled with Wagner’s Meistersinger Prelude. About Bruckner’s Second Symphony, Nelsons says, “He has formulated everything very clearly: the wonderful themes are clearly separated from each other by general pauses, and yet the result is a great whole. It is astonishing that ...
Nicholas Angelich: Prokofiev
Nicholas Angelich’s new album is dedicated to the music of Sergei Prokofiev, the so-called unclassifiable artist – considered revolutionary by some, neo-classical by others. Prokofiev left a fascinating body of work, that of a composer torn between two societies, between the culture of his homeland and the unchallenged culture of the West. Angelich gives nuanced performances of Prokofiev’s Sonata No. ...
Uncovered: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – Catalyst Quartet
The Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet has released the first album in “Uncovered,” a multi-volume series on the Azica label. The opening volume features the works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, including his Piano Quintet in G minor with pianist Stewart Goodyear, Fantasiestücke, and Clarinet Quintet in F-sharp minor with clarinetist Anthony McGill. The Catalyst Quartet poses, “Over the course of time there ...
Tõnu Kõrvits: You Are Light and Morning
This new album by the award-winning Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir together with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra led by Risto Joost includes a recent work by Tõnu Kõrvits – You Are Light and Morning (Sei la luce e il mattino). Kõrvits, one of the most prominent Estonian composers of our time, has created an impressive 60-minute piece for choir and orchestra ...
Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 76 – London Haydn Quartet
One of the world’s leading period-instrument string quartets, the London Haydn Quartet was born out of a passion for Haydn. The ensemble’s series of recordings of the complete Haydn quartets on the Hyperion label has met with international critical acclaim. On the ninth volume in the series, the London Haydn Quartet performs the six works in Op. 76, the summit ...
The Golden Renaissance: Josquin des Prez – Stile Antico
Decca Classics presents the release of the first in a trilogy of recordings from the internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble Stile Antico to celebrate major anniversaries of three Renaissance masters. The first in the series, The Golden Renaissance: Josquin des Prez, is dedicated to the Franco-Flemish composer to mark the 500th anniversary of his death. One of the most important composers ...
Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier – Piotr Anderszewski
Piotr Anderszewski takes a characteristically creative approach to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Rather than recording all 48 of its prelude-and-fugue pairings, he has focused on 12 pairings from Book Two. “I decided to put the pieces together in a sequence of my own subjective choosing, based sometimes on key relationships, at other times on contrasts. The idea behind this specific order ...
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1, Symphonic Dances – Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Sergei Rachmaninoff’s symphonic works hold a special place in the story of one of America’s greatest musical ensembles. The Philadelphia Orchestra and its Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin are about to add a thrilling new chapter with the launch of a cycle of Rachmaninoff’s three symphonies and other orchestral scores for Deutsche Grammophon. The first album pairs the early Symphony No.1 with the Symphonic ...
Paganini: 24 Caprices + 1 – Ning Feng
Ning Feng is recognized internationally as an artist of great lyricism, innate musicality, and stunning virtuosity. He performs across the globe with major orchestras and conductors, and in recital and chamber concerts in some of the most important international series and festivals. Feng has recorded Niccolò Paganini’s complete Solo Violin Caprices, to this day considered the bible of violin technique. ...
Orchestra of the Swan: Timelapse
“Timelapse” creates a space where sounds of the past and present collide to form a unique musical landscape. Although the pieces were written, in some cases, centuries apart and in culturally disparate eras, it is striking how much these contrasting works inhabit such similar emotional territory. Intriguing pairings of works by Rameau and Radiohead, Schubert and The Smiths, Adés and ...
Josquin: Motets & Mass Movements – Brabant Ensemble
Biographical certainties may be in short supply in the life and work of Josquin Desprez, but there’s no denying the magnificence of the music recorded here: a program of shorter works, most in unusual guise, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Josquin’s death. The Brabant Ensemble is one of the most highly regarded professional vocal groups specializing in Renaissance polyphony.
Stephen Hough: Vida breve
The brevity of our allocated time on earth is the subject of Stephen Hough’s Piano Sonata No. 4, Vida breve (Short Life), from which this album takes its name. Piano Sonatas by Chopin (No. 2) and Hough are the twin peaks of a typically stimulating recital which – as always from Stephen Hough – spans centuries and styles with assurance.
Michael Brown: Noctuelles
Pianist Michael Brown has been hailed by the New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” His artistry is shaped by his creative voice as a pianist and composer, praised for his “fearless performances” (New York Times) and “exceptionally beautiful” compositions (Washington Post). On “Noctuelles,” Brown performs Miroirs by Maurice Ravel and Improvisation ...
Telemann: Polonoise – Holland Baroque
The players of Holland Baroque, together with violinist Aisslinn Nosky, take the listener on a journey to the wild nature and lively folk culture of Poland, viewed through the lens of Georg Philipp Telemann, whose Polish travels left a profound mark on his compositional style. Arranged by the ensemble’s artistic leaders Judith and Tineke Steenbrink, Telemann’s Polish concertos and dances ...
