Beethoven: The Late String Quartets
Quatuor Diotima presents an album of Beethoven’s late string quartets, bringing renewed clarity and passion to some of the most profound works in the chamber repertoire. Written in the final years of his life, these late quartets unfold as deeply expressive explorations of form, counterpoint and human emotion. ...
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
Pianist Charlotte Hu presents Goyescas, an album featuring Granados’ monumental Goyescas alongside two Spanish Dances. A cornerstone of Spanish piano literature, Goyescas was inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya and unfolds as a richly poetic suite where passion, tenderness, shadow, and light coexist across six vividly characterised movements. ...
Composer: Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Instrumental
Grammy Award-winning flautist Brandon Patrick George and pianist Bryan Wagorn present “The Deep Has Always Known Me”, a programme that draws thematically on the myth of the Undine. The selection, developed from 2022 onwards from joint concert programmes, revolves around themes such as transformation, intimacy and loss. The focus is on Romantic literature for flute and piano: works by Franz Schubert and Carl Reinecke combine narrative elements, images of nature ...
Composer: William Grant Still (1895-1978), Carl Heinrich Reinecke (1824-1910), Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), Florence Price (1887-1953), Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Instrumental
This thirty minute concerto for six percussionists, video projection, and string orchestra is at the nexus of the percussive art soundscape and the visual celebration of our endangered oceans. Just as rhythm and the percussive voice are the heartbeat of music, our precious oceans are the lifeblood of the planet and thus our very existence. Seaborne awakens sensibilities in the listener / viewer to both the importance and beauty that our ...
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Instrumental
Andrés Gabetta (violin & direction), Veronica Cangemi (soprano), Mario Stefano Pietrodarchi (bandoneon and accordion), and the Gabetta Consort present From Venice to Buenos Aires, a remarkable journey from 18th-century Venice to the streets of Buenos Aires. Anchored by Vivaldi’s dazzling concertos and the fiery passion of Ástor Piazzolla’s María de Buenos Aires, the album traces Italian music across centuries and continents. Luca Salvadori’s inventive compositions, including ...
Composer: Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747), Leonardo Vinci (1690-1730)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Concertos
With Plucked Bach III, Alon Sariel deepens his acclaimed Bach cycle, shaping a sound world marked by exceptional refinement and inward focus. This final volume enriches the series with new colours: a further relative of the lute family—the Ottoman bağlama—and a rare Tuscan-type mandola, whose octave-lower tuning lends Bach’s Third Cello Suite a dark, velvety resonance. ...
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Nicola Matteis (1670-1737), Johann Paul von Westhoff (1656-1705)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Instrumental
The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and conductor Kirill Karabits, joined by an outstanding cast led by Corinne Winters, present the world premiere recording of Thomas de Hartmann’s lost opera Esther. Often written by candlelight during the Nazi occupation of Paris, Esther was composed as de Hartmann—a non-Jewish Ukrainian expatriate—lived through the unfolding horrors of the ...
Composer: Thomas de Hartmann (1884-1956)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Vocal
Mahler: Symphony No. 9 in D Major
Symphony No. 6 in A minor (1903–04) stands as a tragic case in point. Outwardly the most ‘Classical’ work in the cycle, with its four movements and a repeated exposition in the first, it is also an act of disavowal – if not of complete destruction. A nefarious spirit runs through the militaristic first movement and Scherzo, while the Finale’s hammer blows drive the point ...
Composer: Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Orchestral
Mahler: Symphony No. 7 in E Minor
Czech Philharmonic & Semyon Bychkov present Symphony No. 9 in D minor (1909), a work that stands as one of Mahler’s most profound and searching final statements. Cast in the same key as his First Symphony, it suggests a return to origins, yet the music moves inexorably forward, shaped by a heightened sense of finality and reflection. ...
Composer: Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Orchestral
Mahler: Symphony No. 6 in A Minor "Tragic"
Czech Philharmonic & Semyon Bychkov present Symphony No. 7 in E minor (1904–05), a work of striking contrasts and dissonances. Eerie nocturnes, a central dance on the edge of madness, and an Orphean descent into the most extreme sonorities create a journey of compelling intensity. The Finale, in C major, appears to strive for simplicity, with echoes of Wagner’s Meistersinger ...
Composer: Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre:
Sean Shibe’s fifth PENTATONE album, Vesper, presents a striking collection of contemporary guitar works by the late Harrison Birtwistle, James Dillon, and Thomas Adès, all composed by musicians who do not play the instrument themselves. Recorded here for the first time, these recent miniatures explore the guitar’s ...
Composer: Thomas Adès (1971), Harrison Birtwistle (1934–2022), James Dillon (1950)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Instrumental
Schubert’s Octet in F Major, D 803 stands as one of the crowning achievements of chamber music – an expansive, symphonic vision distilled into eight voices. For the Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, this masterpiece lies at the very heart of their artistic identity. Founded in 1983 by members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the ensemble takes its name from Hans ...
Composer: Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
J.S. Bach: Lutheran Masses BWV 233-236
The Kölner Akademie, under the artistic direction of Michael Alexander Willens, presents J.S. Bach: Lutheran Masses BWV 233-236, a monumental exploration of the composer’s four Kyrie–Gloria Masses. Written in the 1730s, during a period of profound artistic consolidation, these works reveal Bach at his most resourceful. Drawn largely from his finest cantata ...
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Vocal
Sondra Radvanovsky, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Enrique Mazzola present Puccini: Heroines, a live recording of an all-Puccini program performed in February 2025. Radvanovsky’s extraordinary voice brings vivid individuality to each heroine, from the tender lyricism of Anna and Mimì to the dramatic intensity of Tosca and Turandot, including roles not ...
Composer: Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Vocal
Organist Lukas Hasler presents Gold, a radiant debut album featuring his own transcriptions and arrangements for organ. What began five years ago with a fascination for Mozart’s G Major Sonata in Edvard Grieg’s two-piano version grew into an artistic journey into the transformative world of transcription. Hasler discovered in the organ an instrument capable not only of recreating orchestral ...
Composer: Louis Lefebure-Wely (1817-1870), Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Robert Schumann (1810-1856), Georges Bizet (1838-1875), Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Anton Bruckner (1824-1896), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Sergej Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), Johann Strauss II (1825-1899), Marc-Andre Hamelin (1961)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
Illia Ovcharenko, together with the MDR-Sinfonieorchester under the baton of Oksana Lyniv, presents Manu Sinistra, an album devoted to concertos for the left hand by Bortkiewicz, Prokofiev, and Ravel. These works were written for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I and responded to personal tragedy by commissioning new music. ...
Composer: Serge Bortkiewicz (1877-1952), Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), Serge Prokofieff (1891-1953)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Concertos
In Dialogos, Holland Baroque and Constantinople embark on a musical journey inspired by one of history’s most remarkable encounters: the meeting between Saint Francis of Assisi and Sultan Malik al-Kamil during the Fifth Crusade in 1219. Eight centuries later, their gesture of openness and mutual respect becomes the creative spark for this collaboration ...
Composer: Didem Bașar (1974), Tineke Steenbrink (1977), Judith Steenbrink (1977), Dimitrius Cantemir (1673-1723), Ali Ufki (1610-1675), Kiya Tabassian (1976)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Classical Crossover
Schumann: Violin Concerto & Works for Violin and Piano by Clara and Robert Schumann
Violinist Midori, Festival Strings Lucerne under the direction of Daniel Dodds, and pianist Özgür Aydin present an album of Schumann: Violin Concerto & Works for Violin and Piano by Clara and Robert Schumann, highlighting two deeply connected artistic voices. At the centre is Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto in D Minor, composed in 1853 but withheld from ...
Composer: Robert Schumann (1810-1856), Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Concertos
Invitation: Mozart, Mendelssohn & Schumann
Irish Chamber Orchestra and Jörg Widmann present the album Invitation, featuring masterworks by Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. This album celebrates a remarkable ten-year creative partnership between the ICO and Jörg Widmann, who, while now pursuing new projects, remains closely connected with the ensemble. Marking the ICO’s first recording ...
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847), Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Orchestral
Pianist Christian Blackshaw presents A Moment in Time, an intimate exploration of Franz Schubert’s late masterworks. The album features the Four Impromptus, D. 899, written in 1827, in which Schubert transforms the simple Impromptu into “a harmonically connected cycle of unparalleled beauty.” From the From the dramatic intensity of the first to the serene beauty ...
Composer: Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Instrumental
