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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Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez – Jacob Kellermann
Inspired by Miles Davis’s legendary album “Sketches of Spain,” this project conjures up Spain “as if through a prism – as a concept rather than a place.” Guitarist Jacob Kellermann and conductor Christian Karlsen worked with young composers Francisco Coll and Pete Harden, who have each contributed a work for guitar and ensemble to join Rodrigo’s masterpiece Concierto de Aranjuez. ...
Ofra Harnoy: On the Rock
Now living in Newfoundland, cellist Ofra Harnoy has been inspired by the immensely rich musical heritage of the island, so much so that she chose to devote her new album, “On the Rock,” to the province’s familiar and wonderful repertoire. She has invited guests such as Fergus OByrne, Alan Doyle, Amanda Cash, Bob Hallett, and Mike Herriott to join her. ...
Locatelli: Violin Concertos – Ilya Gringolts, Finnish Baroque Orchestra
Published in 1733, Pietro Locatelli’s L’Arte del violino took both violin technique and the solo concerto as a genre into a whole new realm. The twelve concertos included in the collection also played a part in forming the image of the violin virtuoso, reaching its full bloom with Paganini towards the end of the century. Locatelli probably composed the set ...
Beethoven: Complete Piano Trios – Trio Sōra
The French label Naïve Classiques releases the debut recording from Trio Sōra. This marks the first time an all-female ensemble has recorded all six Beethoven piano trios that bear an opus number. Building on their meticulous survey of Beethoven’s manuscripts and letters, as well as a rigorous analysis of his scores, Clémence de Forceville (violin), Angèle Legasa (cello), and Pauline ...
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons – Alexandra Conunova
Vivaldi put the whole force of nature into The Four Seasons, one of the most performed works around the world, uniting us in our human condition. Violinist Alexandra Conunova gathers a chamber orchestra to share a thrilling version of this work, celebrating the joy of playing together again. She says, “What is really impressive about Vivaldi’s writing is that he ...
Christian-Pierre La Marca: Cello 360
Christian-Pierre La Marca makes his debut on Naïve Records with Cello 360. The French cellist relishes crossing between genres and historical periods from the 17th to the 21st centuries, in a varied array of modes of performance – including multi-tracking to build up a many-voiced polyphonic texture, a single cello rotating through a full 360 degrees of temporal and technical ...
Patrick Messina & Fabrizio Chiovetta: Songs
Patrick Messina is well known to orchestras and audiences as one of the leading clarinetists of our time. After winning an impressive range of prizes during the first years of his career, Swiss pianist Fabrizio Chiovetta has issued a series of critically acclaimed recordings. Messina and Chiovetta come together to take us to America, with a program of traditional songs, ...
Voices in the Wilderness: Music of the Ephrata Cloister
“Voices in the Wilderness” is an album comprised of a cappella hymns written by the residents of the Ephrata Cloister, an 18th-century celibate community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Some of the music is by the solitary sisters of Ephrata, who are the earliest known female composers in America. This is the first time this music has been performed by a ...
Mysliveček: Oboe Quintets, String Quartets
Josef Mysliveček has most frequently been mentioned in connection with Mozart (who, for a certain time, viewed him as a model and inspiration) and is best known for his operas. A prolific and gifted composer, Mysliveček also wrote instrumental music, including symphonies and chamber pieces. His quartets are characterized by wonderfully refined slow middle movements. Even more unique are his ...
Violin Sonatas of Brahms & Dohnányi – Jenna Sherry, Dániel Lőwenberg
Jenna Sherry is a versatile young American violinist based in London who is a member of the Ensemble Experimental of the SWR Experimental Studio in Freiburg and John Eliot Gardiner’s Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, and is the founder and artistic director of Birdfoot Festival, an international chamber music festival in her native New Orleans. For her debut recording, she has ...
Rising with The Crossing
Philadelphia-based contemporary vocal ensemble The Crossing, under the direction of Donald Nally, releases “Rising with The Crossing,” an uplifting album that serves as an offering of hope amidst a pandemic as well as a journey through the ensemble’s projects over the last several years. The album includes music by Joby Talbot, Eriks Ešenvalds, Dieterich Buxtehude, Paul Fowler, Alex Berko, Ted ...
TENET Vocal Artists: Love Enfolds Thee Round
TENET, a New York City-based early music ensemble, presents a Christmas disc of music spanning medieval to modern-day repertoire. True to the ensemble’s mission, TENET’s pristine, one-on-a-part singing lends itself well to both familiar and rarely heard songs and carols featured in this recording.
Bach: Christmas Oratorio – La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Le Concert des Nations, Jordi Savall
By the end of May 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach had finally been appointed cantor of the four churches in the historic center of Leipzig. Over the following six years, he was to take on the huge task of writing at least four complete cycles of cantatas for the entire liturgical year. This meant composing about sixty cantatas per year corresponding ...
London Oratory Schola Cantorum: Sacred Treasures of Christmas
The London Oratory Schola Cantorum presents the latest release in their anthology of sacred repertoire drawn from the liturgical motets sung at the school. The choir has gathered the motets by season rather than by geography, focusing on works celebrating the Nativity, before moving on to the Feast of the Epiphany and the Adoration of the Magi, and concluding with ...
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge: Carols from King’s 2020
Traditional and contemporary Christmas carols performed and recorded live at King’s College Cambridge make up this collection. Twelve selections are taken from the two Christmas services at King’s in December 2019: “Carols from King’s,” the popular television broadcast, and the cherished Christmas Eve service of “A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.” The Choir is conducted by the new Director ...
Britten: A Ceremony of Carols – Choir of Clare College, Cambridge
The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge and conductor Graham Ross invite you to explore traditional carols in offerings by 20th-century British composers, most notably Benjamin Britten. Arranged around his famous Ceremony of Carols is a selection of wonderful choral pieces, each of which testifies to the meticulous care Britten brought to these musical gems, most of them deriving from English folk tradition.
So Hallow’d the Time – Taylor Festival Choir
Featuring original Christmas works by two distinguished American composers — Brian Galante and Stephen Paulus — So Hallow’d the Time combines poetry and music beautifully. Performed by the Taylor Festival Choir of Charleston, South Carolina, one of America’s finest professional chamber choirs, the recording offers delightful new music at Christmastime.
A Winter’s Night – Winchester College Chapel Choir, Onyx Brass
The addition of a brass ensemble to Christmas concerts and services, combining with the more traditional sounds of choir and organ, has become increasingly popular in recent years. The Winchester College Chapel Choir and Onyx Brass bring together a number of works for the forces of choir, brass quintet, organ, and percussion, some of which have been arranged specially for ...
Chanticleer Sings Christmas
The Christmas concerts of Chanticleer are an institution in the United States, and international tours and recordings have made the brilliant male-voice ensemble familiar to audiences all over the world. On their new Christmas album, Chanticleer embraces traditional carols and gospel numbers, plainsong, European and Mexican music of the 16th and 17th centuries, and composers and arrangers of the present day
Sir Adrian Boult: A Musical Legacy
Timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Sir Adrian Boult’s appointment as Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the five-volume set “Sir Adrian Boult: A Musical Legacy” celebrates the long relationship that the conductor enjoyed with the LPO from his tenure as Principal Conductor (1950–57) to his retirement in 1978. The series explores Boult as a great conductor ...
