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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Brahms: Cello Sonatas – Daniel Müller-Schott, Francesco Piemontesi
The two Cello Sonatas by Johannes Brahms are in very stark contrast to each other. This is not solely due to the more than twenty years separating the works. Brahms had a preference for pairs of works with the same instrumentation, which he frequently composed according to the principle of contrast. A cello version of the Violin Sonata Op. 78 ...
Beethoven Philharmonie: Voices
Pianist Javier Negrín and conductor Thomas Rösner are joined by the Beethoven Philharmonie, soprano Chen Reiss, tenor Jan Petryka, and baritone Paul Armin Edelmann to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with a sumptuous album of rarely heard works. The collection opens with Beethoven’s vocal trio Tremate, empi, tremate and ends with the Piano Concerto arrangement of his Violin Concerto. These ...
Liszt & Thalberg: Opera Transcriptions & Fantasies – Marc-André Hamelin
No matter the repertoire, pianist Marc-André Hamelin never ceases to astonish. This recital, featuring high-octane transformations of nineteenth-century operatic favorites, is electrifying. The featured work, Liszt’s Hexaméron, was dubbed “a monster” by the composer. It certainly holds no terrors for this virtuoso pianist, and instead makes for some thrilling listening.
David Chesky: Abreu Dances
Meticulously designed, intense, and streetwise, David Chesky’s music proposes a variation on an old musical gambit. Classical composers have long drawn from their national folk music for their work. Chesky’s source for The Abreu Danzas is the sound and energy of New York City or, to be precise, a Latin New York City. The centerpiece of the album is a five-movement ballet ...
Beauty Crying Forth: Flute Music by Women Across Time
On “Beauty Crying Forth,” flutist Sarah Frisof presents repertoire spanning one and half centuries for flute by female composers, including Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger, Kaija Saariaho, Tania León, Shulamit Ran, and Amy Williams. Frisof, with cellist Hannah Collins and pianist Daniel Pesca, charts two parallel lineages – the evolution of flute repertoire from the Romantic era to the current day, ...
Sergei Babayan: Piano Music of Rachmaninoff
Sergei Babayan is one of the leading pianists of our time, hailed for his emotional intensity, bold energy, and remarkable levels of color. Le Figaro has praised his “unequaled touch, perfectly harmonious phrasing, and breathtaking virtuosity.” Following the 2018 release of Prokofiev for Two with Martha Argerich, Babayan’s latest album features Rachmaninoff’s short-form gems, including selections from the Études-Tableaux, the Préludes and Six Moments Musicaux.
Music of Brahms – Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard
Begun in 2012 with the release of Symphony No. 1, Thomas Dausgaard’s four-album traversal of the symphonies of Johannes Brahms is brought to a close with the composer’s final work in the genre – the E minor Symphony. The smaller forces of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra contribute to a transparency and clarity which bring out the finer details. As in ...
François Leleux: Bienvenue en France
The oboe has held a special place in France’s culture since the time of Louis XIV, and on “Bienvenue en France” the oboist François Leleux, partnered by pianist Emmanuel Strosser, performs works originating from the 20th century. The composers are Debussy, Saint-Saëns, and Dutilleux, the lesser-known Pierné, Bozza and Sancan, and the contemporary Thierry Pécou. This music could not find ...
ORA Singers: Music of Tallis & MacMillan
The award-winning ORA Singers have released a new recording on Harmonia Mundi, the group’s seventh album in its series of critically-acclaimed recordings. The focal point of the new disc is Thomas Tallis’ iconic 40-part motet, Spem in alium, which was believed to have been composed around 1570. To mark the 450th anniversary of this choral masterpiece, ORA Singers commissioned the ...
Dunhill & Erlanger: Piano Quintets – Piers Lane, Goldner String Quartet
The Goldner String Quartet has a long-standing reputation, not only as Australia’s preeminent string quartet but as an ensemble of international significance. Joined by pianist Piers Lane, they explore two rarely heard English quintets from the early years of the 20th century. Frédéric Alfred Erlanger’s chamber music is small but distinctive. His piano quintet of 1902 is notable for its ...
Jorge Federico Osorio: The French Album
Distinguished international pianist Jorge Federico Osorio brings his flair for French music to works of the Baroque, Romantic, and early 20th century eras by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Emmanuel Chabrier, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel. The Mexican-born, European-trained pianist offers eight of Debussy’s pictorial Préludes, each with its unique sound world. A set of Spanish-flavored works includes Chabrier’s Cuban-inspired Habanera, Debussy’s lively La ...
Brahms & Mozart: Clarinet Quintets – Eli Eban, Alexander String Quartet
Clarinetist Eli Eban and the Alexander String Quartet celebrate the two masterpieces widely considered the preeminent works in their form: the clarinet quintets by Mozart and Brahms. These works are invariably paired in recordings, as they are on this album. And it is quite right that they should be. They are two of the finest chamber works by two of ...
Kenneth Fuchs: Point of Tranquility – United States Coast Guard Band
This new album reveals Kenneth Fuchs’ mastery of the band medium and features the exceptional United States Coast Guard Band, in definitive performances of seven works for symphonic winds by one of America’s leading composers. Fuchs has written music for orchestra, band, voice, chorus, and various chamber ensembles. This release features the alto saxophone concerto Rush, in its version with ...
Ethel Smyth: The Prison
August 18th marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Constitutional Amendment, granting women in the United States the right to vote. A fitting time then for the release of the world-premiere recording of Ethel Smyth’s late masterpiece The Prison. Smyth left home at nineteen to study composition in Leipzig, where she met and won the admiration of composers such as ...
Music of Dvořák: Kian Soltani, Berlin Staatskapelle, Daniel Barenboim
Praised by The Washington Post for playing with “an easy warmth, drawing the orchestra after him like a halo around a candle flame,” cellist Kian Soltani follows his debut album, Home, with an album of works by Antonín Dvořák, centered on the famous Cello Concerto. Featuring conductor Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Staatskapelle, the concerto is paired with five arrangements of beloved ...
Elgar: Sea Pictures, The Music Makers – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Vasily Petrenko
Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra continue their critically acclaimed Elgar project with Sea Pictures and The Music Makers, with Kathryn Rudge as soloist. Sea Pictures is one of the composer’s most popular works and, as an orchestral song cycle, stands alongside those by Mahler and Strauss. The Music Makers, however, has had a more troubled history. Elgar ...
Beethoven: Complete String Quartets – Kuss Quartet
Recorded live in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall in the space of only three weeks, the acclaimed Kuss Quartet performs the complete Beethoven quartet cycle. These works reflect the journey of the composer – starting with the Haydn and Mozart-influenced early works and tracing the mastery of his technique and style into the fully-fledged composer who today still casts a colossal shadow ...
Respighi: Roman Trilogy – Sinfonia of London, John Wilson
Following the widespread critical acclaim of their first two recordings, John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London turn to Respighi’s Roman Trilogy for their third release. Fountains of Rome was the first of these three great tone poems, inspired by a series of photographs given to the composer by the artist Edita Broglio. Pines of Rome was completed in 1924 ...
Dall’Abaco: Cello Sonatas – Elinor Frey
Cellist Elinor Frey, along with harpsichordist Federica Bianchi, lutenist Giangiacomo Pinard, and cellist Mauro Valli, present the first recording of cello sonatas by Giuseppe Clemente Dall’Abaco (1710-1805). These sonatas are full of singing melodies with the lightness of folk songs, passage work that demands brilliance and facility, and extraordinary slow movements that bring out the natural beauty of the cello’s ...
Beethoven: Violin Sonatas, Vol. 3 – James Ehnes, Andrew Armstrong
This is the third release in the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas from violinist James Ehnes and pianist Andrew Armstrong. The earlier albums received outstanding reviews. Gramophone said, “With some discs, you can just tell that everything’s going to go like a dream.” On the new album, the popular Spring Sonata is framed by the strange, beguiling Fourth and the good-natured ...
