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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Gisle Kverndokk: Symphonic Dances
In 2013, the Norwegian Ministry of Culture challenged the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Norwegian Constitution by addressing the concept of cultural diversity. SSO commissioned a work by Gisle Kverndokk, who created “Symphonic Dances” by weaving together a diverse musical narrative based on folk music from the different ethnic groups living in the Stavanger area. ...
Perpetual Night: 17th Century Ayres & Songs
The circulation of artists and sovereigns between France and England in the 17th century resulted in the establishment of highly original genres in England. The first recitatives, large-scale airs from masques and dramatic ‘scenes’ provided fertile ground for experimentation and prepared the way for the birth of semi-opera. Sébastien Daucé explores this English vocal art in a program tailor-made for ...
Mozart: The Piano Quartets – Joyce Yang, Alexander String Quartet
Some have claimed that Mozart invented the piano quartet, but he did not. Other composers — including the fourteen-year-old Beethoven — had written quartets for piano and strings earlier, but Mozart was the first to face squarely the challenges of this difficult form, and he wrote the first two great piano quartets. Members of the Alexander String Quartet join with pianist Joyce Yang ...
Binchois Consort: The Lily and the Rose
The Binchois Consort presents a celebration of the Virgin Mary in sound and stone on ‘The Lily and the Rose.’ Following the success of its predecessor, ‘Music for the 100 Years’ War,’ this release further explores the artistic parallels between music and alabaster sculpture in late medieval England. Through a shared exploration in partnership with museums, curators, scholars, artists and ...
Music for Cello by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Inspired by the personality, prodigious technique, and musicality of the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Cello Concerto is a work of imposing scale and demanding virtuosity, but also with a rare beauty and warmth of expression. This live recording documents the first professional performances of the concerto in more than 80 years, and is paired with playful and virtuosic freely ...
Michael Torke: Unconquered
Composer Michael Torke writes of his four-movement symphonic tone poem Unconquered: “The Battle of Saratoga was a decisive turning point of the Revolutionary War, when, after General Burgoyne surrendered his British army, France entered the war, and her support was crucial to the eventual victory, establishing our independence. The title speaks of Saratoga’s victory – an ‘invictus’ – a resolve ...
Seducción: Music for Flute & Piano
“Music is language,” said the legendary French flutist and inspirational teacher, Marcel Moyse, “the flute is one of its mediums of expression, and when I play I try to convey the impression of laughing, of singing, of talking through the medium of my instrument in a manner almost as direct as that expressed by the human voice.” His insight is ...
Dallas Winds: John Williams At The Movies
John Williams is one of the best known, most awarded and most successful composers in history, and his name is inextricably connected to outstanding music for films. He has written scores for over 100 films, and his massive list of awards includes 51 Academy Award nominations and five wins, as well as 24 Grammy awards. This collection of some of ...
Max Emanuel Cencic: Opera Arias by Nicola Porpora
Countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic presents a generous selection of fine opera arias by Baroque master Nicola Porpora, including seven world premiere recordings. A celebrated Neapolitan composer and singing teacher, Porpora’s ability to set the Italian language to music was internationally acknowledged during his lifetime. Cencic has been at the forefront of rediscovering this neglected composer’s operatic legacy. He is joined by ...
Waller & Maxwell Guitar Duo: Favorites
Praised for “their absolutely sublime touch” (La Sicilia), Anne Waller and Mark Maxwell have toured the United States and Europe for over 35 years as energetic proponents of guitar duo playing. Their unique programming of works for both nineteenth-century and modern guitars provides rare insight into the evolution of this captivating art. Waller and Maxwell perform both historical transcriptions as ...
Steven Osborne: Rachmaninoff’s Etudes-Tableaux
Steven Osborne is one of Britain’s most treasured musicians whose insightful and idiomatic interpretations of diverse repertoire show an immense musical depth. His performances of Rachmaninoff’s music have been praised for their “modesty, inner fire and virtuosity” (The Observer). Osborne turns his attention to the wonderful Études-tableaux, or ‘picture-studies,’ which have the power to hold the attention through Rachmaninoff’s command of ...
Vadym Kholodenko: Piano Music of Alexander Scriabin
Scriabin occupies a place apart in the history of Russian music: refusing influences from the folkloric tradition, his evolution is constant and spectacular from the works influenced by Chopin and Liszt through to the tonal deconstruction of the final works. An extremely talented pianist, he found in his instrument a fertile terrain for exploration just as much for technical possibilities ...
Joanna Goldstein: Nasty Women
Five years after the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, 14 women composers staged a “musical march” on Washington, D.C., to showcase their work. The event ranged from piano-accompanied songs to chamber music to works for large ensembles. Pianist Joanna Goldstein’s album “Nasty Women” features seven of the composers who participated in that groundbreaking conference, ...
Vivaldi x2: Double Concertos – La Serenissima
Established in 1994, La Serenissima is recognized as the UK’s leading exponent of the music of 18th-century Venice. Uniquely, the group’s entire repertoire is edited from manuscript or contemporary sources, and it has been praised for “its glorious and all-too-rare ability to make one’s pulse race afresh with every new project” (Gramophone). On ‘Vivaldi x2,’ La Serenissima performs seven foot-tapping ...
Drew Petersen: American Music for Piano
In his young career, American pianist Drew Petersen has achieved some of the highest musical honors, including top prize from the 2017 American Pianists Awards and a 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant. This recital, a daunting showcase of American piano works, is a glimpse of his remarkable musicianship. The program includes music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Charles Ives, Elliott Carter, ...
Cello Sonatas by Chopin, Schumann & Grieg
Israeli-American cellist Inbal Segev, known for her “glowing, burnished tone” (Washington Post), makes her debut on Avie Records with Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen, praised for his “pearly touch, singing tone, and sensitivity” (New York Times), in a recording of the music of three leading Romantic composers. For their first album together, Segev and Pohjonen have chosen the expressive and sometimes ...
Debussy: Preludes; La Mer – Alexander Melnikov, Olga Pashchenko
A century after his death in 1918, many artists are eager to pay tribute to Claude Debussy, the magician of melody and timbre, the great ‘colorist’ and father of modern music. Alexander Melnikov is among those pianists increasingly committed to playing the works of the past on the instruments on which they came into being (or could have done so). ...
European Soloists, Luxembourg: Schubert & Berio
Just before his death in 1828, Franz Schubert was at work on his Tenth Symphony, which was destined to become yet another unfinished work. The extensive sketches are fascinating and show Schubert clearly moving into new sound worlds that anticipate Mahler in the central slow movement. Luciano Berio’s ingenious work ‘Rendering’ brings Schubert’s sketches alive by creating a new work ...
Tango Fado Duo
In their new release, Tango Fado Duo (guitarist Pedro H. da Silva and bandoneonist Daniel Binelli) explore the relationship between the sensuality of Argentine tango and the passion of Portuguese fado, interweaving the traditional sounds of their respective instruments. Although tango and fado originate from two distant countries and differ in rhythm and instrumentation, they are closely related in harmony, ...
Amsterdam Sinfonietta: Bartók & Brahms
Amsterdam Sinfonietta was founded in 1988, with Lev Markiz as its first artistic director. Candida Thompson has been the orchestra’s concertmaster since 1995, as well as its artistic director since 1995. Their approach to music-making without a conductor is what distinguishes the group from other chamber orchestras. The ensemble’s latest recording features Bartók’s Divertimento and a string orchestra version of ...
