Below is a list of all classical CD titles released in the last 120 days.
LUDWIG PHILIPP SCHARWENKA
Scharwenka: Works For Violin & Piano Amalia Hall (violin), Christopher Park (piano) [ Atoll Records / CD - released 12/Jan/2024 ] Amalia Hall describes this music as lush, emotional, intimate, dramatic. Full of changing colours and flexibility. Evocative and gorgeous. Noted by The Strad for her "blazing insight and dazzling virtuosity", New Zealand violinist Amalia Hall... |
LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN / FREDERIC CHOPIN
Beatrice Rana - Chopin / Beethoven Sonatas Beatrice Rana (piano) [ Warner Classics / CD - released 29/Mar/2024 ] Beatrice Rana, characterised by Gramophone as a pianist of "fire and poetry, imagination and originality, temperament and charm, all on top of fearless technical address", brings together two monumental sonatas: Beethoven's Hammerklavier Piano Sonata... |
PROKOFIEV / SAIDAMINOVA / RAVEL
Shadows of My Ancestors Behzod Abduraimov (piano) [ Alpha / CD - released 12/Jan/2024 ] "Throughout this release, one consistently gets caught up in Abduraimov's gorgeous and focused sonority, his rock-solid rhythm." Gramophone Recording of the Month February 2024 |
GUSTAV MAHLER
Mahler: Symphony No. 8 Carolyn Sampson, Jacquelyn Wagner (sopranos), Sasha Cooke (mezzo), Jess Dandy (contralto), Barry Banks (tenor), Minnesota Orchestra [ BIS SACD / CD - released 16/Feb/2024 ] For its final concert of the 2021-22 season and Osmo Vänskä's last as artistic director, the Minnesota Orchestra chose to present Mahler's mammoth Eighth Symphony, which calls for one of the largest complement of performers in the history of music, a... |
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Mendelssohn: The Great Edition Daniel Adni, Martha Argerich, Wayner Marshall, Marie-Claire Alain, Emmanuel Pahud, Maxim Vengerov, Victoria de los Angeles, Janet Baker, Sabine Meyer [ Warner Classics / 40 CD Box Set - released 16/Feb/2024 ] A child prodigy, Felix Mendelssohn is considered one of Europe's greatest composers. A virtuoso conductor and pianist, he was a respected all-round musician for whom Robert Schumann had great friendship and admiration. This boxed set offers a... |
SERGEI RACHMANINOV
Rachmaninoff for Two Daniil Trifonov (piano), Sergei Babayan (piano) [ Deutsche Grammophon / 2 CD - released 29/Mar/2024 ] The two piano virtuosos Daniil Trifonov and Sergei Babayan celebrate Rachmaninoff's 150th birthday with a double album of his most beautiful compositions for two pianos, including the Suites Nos. 1 & 2, the Symphonic Dances and Trifonov's... |
NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV / MODEST MUSSORGSKY
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade / Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain Deyan Vatchkov (bass-bartone) / Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Antonio Pappano [ Warner Classics / CD - released 22/Mar/2024 ] Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain are two of the most popular works in the Russian repertoire. Programming them together as Music Director of the Orchestra and Chorus dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.... |
VARIOUS COMPOSERS
Elina Garanca - When Night Falls ... Elina Garanca (Mezzo), Orquesta Filarmonica de Gran Canaria, with Raphaël Feuillâtre (guitar), Raimonds Pauls (piano), Albrecht Mayer (oboe) [ Deutsche Grammophon / CD - released 15/Mar/2024 ] This intimate album, says Elīna Garanča, is meant for "that time of day when you withdraw to your own private life". The celebrated mezzo has selected songs to help her listeners "tune out the world for two or three minutes and immerse themselves in... |
VARIOUS COMPOSERS
Classic Hauser II Hauser, London Symphony Orchestra [ Sony Classical / CD - released 19/Apr/2024 ] Global cello sensation HAUSER brings his artistry and passion to a new selection of classical music's greatest melodies with the release of his new album Classic II, a follow-up to the worldwide success of 2020's Classic. For the new album, which... |
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte [Songs without Words] Igor Levit (piano) [ Sony Music / CD - released 8/Mar/2024 ] "Designed for children and amateurs, their charms are generally underrated by professionals - but Levit finds beauty in them, expressed with a warm touch and pleasing emotional directness." BBC Music |
JEAN-BAPTISTE QUENTIN / ARCANGELO CORELLI
Corelli & Quentin: Flute Sonatas Jean Rondeau (early keyboard instruments), Anna Besson, Myriam Rignol [ Alpha Classics / CD - released 22/Mar/2024 ] In 1700, Corelli published his 12 violin sonatas, Opus 5, in Rome. A veritable revolution in violin technique, they won the admiration of eminent composers (Bach, Dandrieu, Couperin) and greatly influenced the French (Francoeur, Leclair, Senaille,... |
JOHN ADAMS
Adams: Piano Music (LP) Jeroen van Veen (piano) [ Brilliant Classics / LP - released 19/Jan/2024 ] The LP version of a highly successful CD issue of the complete piano music by John Adams (born 1947). "Minimalism, but not as you know it", thus described The Guardian the John Adams' music. John Adams is active in almost every musical genre,... |
Kronos Quartet
Black Angels (LP) [ Nonesuch / Warner / 2 LP - released 16/Feb/2024 ] "Stylishly packaged, intelligently programmed, superbly recorded and brilliantly performed. In short, very much the sort of disc we've come to expect from the talented and imaginative Kronos Quartet." |
RICHTER / RACHMANINOV / ARNALDS / ZWART / GLASS / etc
Lavinia Meijer: Winter Lavinia Meijer (harp) / Alma Quartet Amsterdam, Nadia Sirota (viola), Wishful Singing [ Sony Music / CD - released 8/Mar/2024 ] Winter is the culmination of a year-long project taking inspiration from the changing of the seasons, and the effect climate change is having on them. The album features two new compositions by Meijer. |
GABRIEL FAURE
Faure: Complete music for solo piano Lucas Debargue (piano) [ Sony Music / 4 CD Box Set - released 23/Mar/2024 ] "Debargue is a master when it comes to delineating new developments in Fauré's sound world...Altogether, there is much to compel about this new set." Gramophone |
DOMENICO SCARLATTI
Scarlatti: 52 Sonatas Lucas Debargue (piano) [ Sony Music / 4 CD Box Set - released 8/Mar/2024 ] "Excelling in many of the lesser known sonatas, he revels in Scarlatti's lack of orthodoxy, in the unnerving fluctuation of K250, or in the way contemplation turns into manic bursts of laughter in K242. Sony's sound is superb." International Piano |
JOSEPH HAYDN
Haydn: Cello Concertos in D & C (LP) Mstislav Rostropovich (cello) / Academy St Martin in the Fields, Iona Brown [ Warner Classics / LP - released 22/Mar/2024 ] "A quite extraordinary achievement. Marvellously expressive cello playing. The orchestra gives splendid support and the sound is warm and ingratiating" (Gramophone) |
IGOR STRAVINSKY / CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Stravinsky: Petrushka / Debussy: Jeux & Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune Orchestre de Paris, Klaus Mäkelä [ Decca / CD - released 29/Mar/2024 ] "The headline feature of this terrific Petrushka is characterisation. It's a performance full of animation and incident and from the Orchestre de Paris and their impressive line-up of wind soloists a dancer's sensibility." Gramophone Editor's Choice |
PYOTR Il'yich TCHAIKOVSKY / GEORGES BIZET
Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake Suite / Bizet/Shchedrin: Carmen Suite Rachmaninoff International Orchestra, Mikhail Pletnev [ Warner Classics / 2 CD - released 8/Mar/2024 ] The popular melodies of "Swan Lake" and "Carmen" recorded by the world-class Rachmaninoff International Orchestra (RIO) under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev. |
JOHANNES BRAHMS / MAX REGER
Brahms / Reger: Song transcriptions Rudolf Buchbinder (piano) [ Deutsche Grammophon / CD - released 22/Mar/2024 ] Rudolf Buchbinder, the doyen of Austrian pianists, plays Max Reger's rarely heard, lovingly crafted transcriptions of his idol Johannes Brahms's most beautiful lieder, about which Reger said: "In the case of such masterpieces, any embellishment and... |