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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Eric Coates: Orchestral Works, Volume 2
For the second volume of the orchestral music of Eric Coates, John Wilson and the BBC Philharmonic have built a program around three contrasting works. The Summer Days Suite was premiered in October 1919 and became an immediate hit, receiving rave reviews and many more performances. The Selfish Giant, from 1925, based on Oscar Wilde’s story, was the first in ...
Mäntyjärvi: Choral Music – Trinity College Choir Cambridge, Stephen Layton
The stylistic pluralism which informs so much contemporary choral writing pays rich dividends in the work of Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi. This thrilling program is filled with exciting and accessible music. The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge comprises around thirty Choral Scholars and two Organ Scholars, all of whom are students at the University. The College’s choral tradition dates back ...
Mozart: Piano Quartets Nos. 1 & 2 – Dejan Lazić
Pianist Dejan Lazić is joined by four friends (Benjamin Schmid, Zen Hu, Johannes Erkes, and Enrico Bronzifor) for his first recording of chamber music in a long career. Mozart’s two piano quartets are paired with Lazić’s own arrangement of the Rondo Concertante, K. 333. The result is the joyful, intimate music-making that can be achieved by musicians who have a ...
Beethoven: Violin Concerto – Daniel Lozakovich
“Immensely gifted emerging artist” (The New York Times) Daniel Lozakovich has been dreaming about recording the Beethoven Violin Concerto since he was eight. He first performed it on stage when he was 13, and at 15 was invited by Valery Gergiev to perform the concerto with him in Moscow. A few short years later, he has reunited with his mentor Gergiev to record ...
The King’s Singers: The Library, Volume 2
This is the second volume in the series “The Library” from the King’s Singers. The idea behind this series is to explore both the history, and the new horizons, of the ensemble’s close-harmony repertoire. Close-harmony is the part of their work for which they are best known, and their library of thousands of arrangements is one they’re determined to explore, ...
Jess Gillam: Time
Jess Gillam is the trailblazing young artist forging a new path in classical music and carving out a new repertoire landscape for her instrument – the saxophone. Curated by Gillam herself, Time features music rooted in minimalism, with a track sequence shaped to mirror the flow of energy in a 24-hour cycle. The album is centered around Michael Nyman’s virtuosic Where the ...
John Rutter: Anthems, Hymns and Gloria for Brass Band
John Rutter, Britain’s most successful contemporary choral composer, has written most of his sacred music to commission and for use in church services. His music shows influences of the French and English choral traditions of the early 20th century, as well as influences from light music and American classic songwriting. Almost every choral anthem and hymn has an orchestral accompaniment ...
Simone Dinnerstein: A Character of Quiet (Music of Schubert and Glass)
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein plays the music of Franz Schubert and Philip Glass on the album A Character of Quiet. She recorded it over the course of two evenings at her home in Brooklyn in June 2020, during the quiet of the New York City lockdown, with her longtime producer and friend Adam Abeshouse. The album includes three Etudes by Glass paired ...
Bach: Goldberg Variations – Parker Ramsay
Recorded in the unique acoustics of the King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, England, this version of the Goldberg Variations was created by harpist Parker Ramsay in part to make a statement about the harp: “I wanted to show the world that the harp is an instrument of beauty, sincerity, and transcendence, standing alongside the keyboards and string instruments as a ...
Music We Love – Viktoria Mullova, Misha Mullov-Abbado
Violinist Viktoria Mullova and her son, bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado, present an album of some of their favorite music – a very personal and affectionate collection of music ranging from traditional Brazilian folk songs to Bach, via Antonio Carlos Jobim and Schumann. Mullov-Abbado says, “The album contains a broad selection of music from many different cultures that we’ve arranged for violin ...
Schubert: Octet – Modigliani Quartet & Friends
Schubert’s Octet for strings and winds bears witness to a new creative force during a dark chapter of the composer’s life, when he was haunted by illness. Powerfully imaginative, interweaving joy and apprehension, the work pays homage to Beethoven’s septet while revealing a poetic and lyrical language in which the dawn of Romanticism emerges. For this recording, the Modigliani Quartet ...
Bach: Soli Deo Gloria – Andrew Balio, Bruce Bengtson
Virtuoso trumpeter Andrew Balio’s superlative transcriptions of music by J.S. Bach delight the listener with both new and familiar sounds. Bach affirmed that “the aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” At the end of his compositions he wrote Soli Deo Gloria, “To God alone, ...
Joan Manén: Violin Concerto No. 3, Symphony No. 2
Joan Manén was an admired and prolific Catalan composer who wrote in all genres, from opera to transcriptions. He was also one of the leading violinists of his day and made the first recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Manén’s Violin Concerto No. 3, Ibérico, is a brilliantly written and unashamedly Romantic work that exudes Iberian vitality. Cast on a huge ...
Seiji Ozawa Conducts Beethoven
Renowned conductor Seiji Ozawa has released a new Beethoven recording marking his 85th birthday on September 1, 2020. He leads the Saito Kinen Orchestra in performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Leonore Overture No. 3, recorded live in 2016/17. Ozawa formed the orchestra with Kazuyoshi Akiyama in 1984 to commemorate their late mentor, Hideo Saito. The orchestra’s successful concerts ...
Brandon Patrick George: Flute Sonatas & Solo Works
This is the solo debut recording from Brandon Patrick George, flutist of the Grammy-nominated Imani Winds. The album spans 300 years of music history and features works by J.S. Bach, Pierre Boulez, Kalevi Aho, and Sergei Prokofiev. George describes his album as “a dialogue between the past and the future.” Recorded in collaboration with pianists Steven Beck and Jacob Greenberg, ...
Montéclair: Beloved and Betrayed
Michel Pignolet de Montéclair (1667–1737), a noted bass violin player in Paris, composed a small but exquisite body of innovative works in a variety of forms, including an opera-ballet. He was also an important figure in the composition of music for flute at a time when innovations in design brought it to prominence as a solo instrument. This album traces his ...
Aquarelles: Bonita Boyd, Steven Doane, Barry Snyder
“Aquarelles” brings together three world-class musicians – Bonita Boyd, Steven Doane, and Barry Snyder, performing four classics from the flute, cello, and piano repertoire. Bonita Boyd began her career with the Rochester Philharmonic under David Zinman, becoming the youngest principal flutist of a major American orchestra. Steven Doane and Barry Snyder have recorded extensively for Bridge, their recordings receiving rave ...
La Rêveuse: London circa 1720, Corelli’s Legacy
Founded by Benjamin Perrot and Florence Bolton, La Rêveuse is a flexibly sized ensemble of solo musicians which aims to bring back to life works of the 17th and 18th centuries. In their first recording for Harmonia Mundi, La Rêveuse explores the musical scene in London in the 1720s. The period witnessed a feverish demand for music that led many ...
Beethoven: Complete String Quartets, Volume 1 – Dover Quartet
The Dover Quartet, “the young American string quartet of the moment” (The New Yorker), launches its emerging, three-volume complete Beethoven quartet cycle with the six Opus 18 quartets, often cited as the epitome of the classical string quartet as developed by Haydn and Mozart while foreshadowing Beethoven’s future innovations.
Purcell: Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II – The Sixteen
Henry Purcell’s genius abounds in this, the fourth volume in The Sixteen’s series devoted to the composer. Purcell grew from young childhood to established professional adulthood in the service of Charles II. He identified strongly with the court, but he was well aware of Charles’s unreliability as a patron. Wisely, Purcell made an early decision to diversify, flaunting his court ...
