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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Duo Kalysta: Origins
Duo Kalysta writes of this new release: “The title of this album, Origins, is meaningful to us on many levels. It’s our debut album, recorded in Montreal where we first met in 2012. It reflects our Canadian origins by including music by two of our favorite Canadian composers. It is inspired by the heritage of our instruments, as the traditions ...
Passions: Venezia (1600-1750) – Les Cris de Paris
Alternating between transcendental secular music and theatrical sacred music, this latest recording from Geoffroy Jourdain and Les Ris de Paris invites us to explore the many expressions of human passion. Built around several settings of the Crucifixus (including Antonio Lotti’s extraordinarily intense versions), the performers urge us to walk the Via Dolorosa to the very heart of Venetian Baroque music.
Mozart: Piano Concertos, Volume 1 – Anne-Marie McDermott
BrIdge Records launches Anne-Marie McDermott’s Mozart Piano Concerto cycle with Volume 1 of the series offering Concerto No. 6, K. 238, and Concerto No. 13, K. 415. The Odense Symphony Orchestra (Denmark) is conducted by Scott Yoo. In a career that has spanned over 25 years, McDermott has played concertos, recitals, and chamber music in hundreds of cities throughout the ...
My Time Is Now: Inspirations from the Gershwins – Haerim Elizabeth Lee, Alex Brown
My Time is Now features the first ever recording of George Gershwin’s personal Steinway piano from his New York City apartment since it was recently restored. Inspired by Gershwin’s quote, “My people are American, my time is today. Music must repeat the thought and aspirations of the times,” violinist Haerim Elizabeth Lee and pianist Alex Brown celebrate his music with new ...
Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 71 & 74 – London Haydn Quartet
The London Haydn Quartet continues its critically acclaimed series celebrating their namesake, which the Guardian raves has, ”too many pleasures to enumerate.” Haydn wrote his six ”Apponyi” quartets in 1793 for performance during his second London visit the following year. This is a world in which the members of the London Haydn Quartet are very much at home, and they ...
Catharinus Elling: Works for Piano – Rune Alver
The Norwegian composer Catharinus Elling (1858-1942), who was championed by Edvard Grieg, left a large and interesting body of music for the piano. The music has never previously been recorded. Now, we can get a look into his musical world with this new recording by Norwegian pianist Rune Alver. The album offers a wide variety of pieces, from Elling’s earliest ...
The Raritan Players: Sisters, Face to Face
This new album from the Raritan Players tells the story of how women of the 18th century shaped the legacy of the Bach family through their use of the harpsichord and fortepiano, the precursors to the modern piano. Previously, musicians have been taught that the fortepiano replaced the harpsichord suddenly and completely around 1780. But researcher Dr. Rebecca Cypess of ...
Schumann: Symphonies Nos 2 & 4 – London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Eliot Gardiner
Following the success of his Mendelssohn cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Eliot Gardiner turns to the music of Robert Schumann, launching an exploration of his symphonic works that begins with the Second and Fourth symphonies and a rare glimpse of his only opera. Gardiner says, “Every opportunity to perform the Schumann symphonies is an opportunity to marvel ...
Tessa Lark: Fantasy
American violinist Tessa Lark has chosen a selection of some of her most cherished fantasies and rhapsodies for violin for her debut solo album “Fantasy.” Conjuring up a world of make believe and freedom, the musical form of fantasy has been with us for centuries, way before the earliest work in Lark’s recital, although she brings us right up-to-date with ...
Gloriae Dei Cantores Men’s Schola: The Chants of Mary
Gloriae Dei Cantores Schola is dedicated to the singing and study of Gregorian chant. Its expertise and experience come from daily chanting of the Liturgy of the Hours as well as the Ordinary and Proper of the Mass at the Church of the Transfiguration in Orleans, Massachusetts. On this CD, the Men’s Schola sings Gregorian chants of love and devotion ...
Jennifer Koh: Limitless
Violinist Jennifer Koh’s Limitless, based on her groundbreaking recital project of the same name, bridges the modern divide between composer and instrumentalist, celebrates artistic collaboration, and revives the grand tradition of composers performing their own music. The album features world-premiere recordings of Koh-commissioned duets by a diverse roster of highly accomplished contemporary composers, which she performs with the composers themselves.
Alexander String Quartet: Locale
The Alexander String Quartet has performed in the major music capitals of five continents, securing its standing among the world’s premiere chamber ensembles. The quartet’s recordings of the Beethoven cycle (twice), Bartók and Shostakovich cycles have won international critical acclaim. On their latest album, the quartet performs beloved works by Dvořák: the “American” Quartet and the Piano Quintet, with renowned ...
Music for Violin & Orchestra – Margaret Batjer, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
Violinist Margaret Batjer and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra cross great distances in both time and space in this album of works for violin and orchestra. The disc opens with the world-premiere recording of the Violin Concerto by American composer Pierre Jalbert, followed by J.S. Bach’s Concerto in A minor. The remainder of the program returns to our own time ...
Wei Luo: Debut Album
Currently in school at the Curtis Institute and studying with Gary Graffman (teacher of Lang Lang and Yuja Wang), pianist Wei Luo gave her orchestral debut at age ten with the Shanghai Philharmonic and went on to claim first prize in the 11th Chopin International Competition for Young Pianists. Recently granted the 2018 Gilmore Young Artist Award, Luo releases her ...
The Tchaikovsky Project – Czech Philharmonic, Semyon Bychkov
The Czech Philharmonic’s first major undertaking with its Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov – The Tchaikovsky Project – will see an illustrious culmination in 2019. Over the past seasons, since the project’s inception in 2015, the orchestra and conductor have been delving into an exhaustive exploration of Tchaikovsky’s music. The complete boxed set on Decca contains all of the composer’s ...
Zuill Bailey: Music of Schumann, Brahms, Bloch & Bruch
Steinway & Sons has released a new album from cellist Zuill Bailey: a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Wimbledon International Music Festival, where Bailey has often appeared. The album includes performances of the Schumann Cello Concerto, with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Robin O’Neill, and the Brahms Double Concerto with violinist Philippe Quint, recorded live with the North Carolina ...
Buffalo Philharmonic Live in Concert: Music of Brahms & Prokofiev
Grammy-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta’s latest recording with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra on the BPO’s own Beau Fleuve label features Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83, with Italian pianist Fabio Bidini, and selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. The recording was made during the orchestra’s 2019 Florida tour.
Brahms: A German Requiem – Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra & Choir, Daniel Harding
Ein deutsches Requiem, Brahms’s longest choral work, was composed during three different periods of his life but completed between 1865 and 1868, perhaps as a result of the death of the composer’s mother. It is a sacred work, but non-liturgical. It features text chosen by Brahms from the German Lutheran Bible, with passages from both the Old and New Testament. ...
Machaut: The Single Rose – Orlando Consort
The Orlando Consort brings their customary virtues of ”supreme text-sensitivity and beauty of tone” (Early Music Today) to another recital showcasing the breadth of Guillaume de Machaut’s musical and poetic inventiveness. The rose as a symbol of both the beloved and of love itself is paid due homage in this latest installment of their essential series which continues to garner ...
Bach: The Toccatas – Mahan Esfahani
Mahan Esfahani has made it his life’s work to bring the harpsichord to the concert mainstream, and to that end his creative programming and work in commissioning new works have drawn the attention of critics and audiences alike. The exuberant vitality of Bach’s toccatas—works which the young composer probably wrote to demonstrate his own brilliance and technique as a performer—here ...
