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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Víkingur Ólafsson: Debussy & Rameau
After the remarkable global success of his award-winning Bach recording, celebrated Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson returns with his third solo album. Debussy · Rameau juxtaposes pieces by two of the greatest French composers – both musical revolutionaries – exploring the contrasts and common ground between them. Ólafsson says, “As extraordinary innovators of both harmony and form, with a unique ear ...
Stabat: Music of Pärt, Vasks & MacMillan – Choir of Clare College, Cambridge
Encompassing works by Arvo Pärt (Estonia), Pēteris Vasks (Latvia), and James MacMillan (Scotland), this album charts the evolution of choral music in three regions of Northern Europe that saw the rise of a startling new language beginning in the 1980s. Its subsequent development has had far-reaching implications well beyond the confines of a house of worship or the serial techniques current ...
Pascal & Ami Rogé: Les Six & Satie
Pascal Rogé, long considered among the greatest living exponents of French piano repertoire, is joined by his pianist wife Ami in a program devoted to works by Les Six. This group of composers, brought together by Jean Cocteau in 1917, was formed as a musical reaction to the strong influence of German Romanticism upon French musical culture. The album includes ...
Korngold: Violin Concerto, String Sextet
Violinist Andrew Haveron and conductor John Wilson deliver a fresh and intensely idiomatic reading of Korngold’s Violin Concerto, coupled with the formidable String Sextet. One of the most sought-after violinists of his generation and a laureate of some of the most prestigious international violin competitions, Andrew Haveron performs a broad range of well-known and less familiar concertos with many of ...
Beethoven: Complete Piano Concertos – Stewart Goodyear
Proclaimed “a phenomenon” by the Los Angeles Times and “one of the best pianists of his generation” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Stewart Goodyear is an accomplished pianist as a concerto soloist, chamber musician, recitalist, and composer. Following the success of his previous Orchid Classics albums, Goodyear returns with his spirited, insightful interpretation of the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos, recorded with ...
Philon Trio: Max Bruch
Founded in Switzerland in 2011, the Philon Trio is a chamber ensemble, consisting of clarinetist David Dias da Silva, violist Adam Newman, and pianist Camilla Köhnke. Their latest recording features the music of Max Bruch, who was 72 when he composed Eight Pieces, Op. 83, for his son, Max Felix, a professional clarinetist. This work, composed in a late but ...
Niv Ashkenazi: Violins of Hope
“Violins of Hope” is an artistic and educational project composed of instruments that were owned by Jewish musicians before and during the Holocaust. Violins in the collection were played in the concentration camps and ghettos, providing a source of comfort for some and a means of survival for others. “Niv Ashkenazi: Violins of Hope” is the first solo album to ...
Messiah…Refreshed!
In 1959, the conductor Sir Eugene Goossens re-orchestrated Handel’s famous oratorio Messiah. He dramatically increased the size of the orchestra and added some new instruments. Recorded for the first and only time by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus under Sir Thomas Beecham, this version has stood as a landmark of the classical catalog for sixty years. Now, Goossens’ rich ...
Cappella Romana: Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia
Vocal ensemble Cappella Romana presents Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia, the world’s first vocal album recorded entirely in live, virtual acoustics. This release re-creates medieval sound and ritual in the monumental sixth-century cathedral as an aural virtual reality. For nearly a thousand years, the Hagia Sophia, in what is now Istanbul, Turkey, was the largest building in the world. With ...
Bach: St. Matthew Passion – Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
King’s College presents a new account of one of sacred music’s greatest masterpieces, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, recorded before Sir Stephen Cleobury’s untimely death in November 2019. For this recording, Cleobury conducted the King’s Choir and the Academy of Ancient Music alongside an outstanding team of soloists led by one of the finest Evangelists of our time, James Gilchrist.
Vision String Quartet: Memento
The Berlin-based Vision String Quartet gained notoriety for their original interpretations and innovative concert formats, winning awards in multiple competitions. Their album, Memento, thematically deals with the subject of death through the music of Schubert and Mendelssohn. Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, No. 14 in D Minor, has become a key piece in chamber music repertoire and was composed when ...
Strauss & Rimsky-Korsakov – London Philharmonic Orchestra, Zubin Mehta
Recorded live in concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 1988 and 1992 under the baton of Zubin Mehta, these recordings of Richard Strauss’s Symphonia Domestica and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade are now available from the London Philharmonic Orchestra archives.
Schubert: Piano Sonatas D. 894 & 958 – Adam Laloum
French pianist Adam Laloum achieved international recognition when he won First Prize at the prestigious Clara Haskil Competition in 2009. On his first recording for Harmonia Mundi, he performs two of Schubert’s piano sonatas. Barely two years separate the monumental Sonata in G from its sister in C minor, the first of a trilogy composed on the threshold of death.
Flute Passion: Bach – Nadia Labrie
Canadian musician Nadia Labrie returns with her second album in the Flute Passion series. This second recording features four of Johann Sebastian Bach’s key works for flute, which she performs with Luc Beauséjour on piano and Camille Paquette-Roy on cello.
Ashley Solomon: The Spohr Collection
Ashley Solomon is a British flute and recorder player and founder of the early music ensemble Florilegium. He says his latest album, The Spohr Collection, “came about through a chance encounter with a remarkable private collection of flutes, held in Frankfurt. This collection includes several hundred historical flutes, spanning the history of the instrument.” Solomon has recorded many of these instruments for the first ...
Grieg: The Violin Sonatas – Eldbjørg Hemsing, Simon Trpceski
Following acclaimed recordings of concertos by Tan Dun and Josef Suk, the Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing returns to her roots in this Grieg recital, joined by Simon Trpceski at the piano. Each of Edvard Grieg’s three violin sonatas marks a decisive phase in the composer’s artistic development. Closing the disc, Hemsing plays her own composition Homecoming. It’s a set of ...
Nocturne: A Fauré Recital – Louis Lortie
Louis Lortie’s second volume of the music of Gabriel Fauré features Nocturnes, Barcarolles, and the Theme and Variations in C-sharp minor, along with transcriptions of the Pie Jesu and In paradisum from the Requiem. For over three decades, French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie has performed world-wide, building a reputation as one of the worlds most versatile pianists.
Canadian National Brass Project: Constellations
The Canadian National Brass Project was founded in 2015 by James Sommerville and Sasha Johnson and consists of 25 Canadian brass players and percussionists from 15 major orchestras across Canada and the U.S. The repertoire on their new album “Constellations” consists of works by composers such as Holst (The Planets), Tchaikovsky (1812 Overture), and Revueltas (Sensemaya) arranged for a brass ...
Boundless: Zachary Carrettín, Mina Gajić
“Boundless” features the husband-and-wife duo of violinist Zachary Carrettín and pianist Mina Gajić in Schubert’s Violin Sonatinas, Op. 137. Originally conceived for the salon, the works are performed for this recording on an Érard concert grand (circa 1835) and a rare violin built by Franz Kinberg set up for historical instrument performance. The artists have recreated the atmosphere for which ...
Schumann: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 – London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Eliot Gardiner
The second album in Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Schumann series with the London Symphony Orchestra travels from glorious fanfare to dream-like passages with the lively Spring and Rhenish symphonies. The program includes the heartfelt and elegant Manfred Overture, displaying the intense strife which lies ahead for its protagonist.
