Today's new releases include Bach's complete keyboard concerti from Mahan Esfahani and the Britten Sinfonia on Hyperion, Rachmaninoff's The Bells and Symphonic Dances from Karina Canellakis and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra on Pentatone, a celebration of Sally Beamish's seventieth birthday (and her career as both viola-player and composer) on Delphian, and Arte Dei Suonatori and Marcin Świątkiewicz's second album of CPE Bach symphonies on BIS.
Bach: The Complete Keyboard Concertos
Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord), Britten Sinfonia
A bold switch-up from Esfahani, and yet not out of character - a harpsichordist as well-known for his explorations of the contemporary repertoire as he is for his accounts of the Baroque classics pairing with the Britten Sinfonia for a modern-instrumental performance of Bach's complete keyboard concertos. Fans of Esfahani's Bach series will not want to miss this - a real treat of an album.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Rachmaninoff: The Bells & Symphonic Dances
Dmytro Popov (tenor), Kristina Mkhitaryan (soprano), Alexander Vinogradov (bass), Netherlands Radio Choir, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Karina Canellakis
A diptych of some of Rachmaninoff's best-loved works - the emotionally-charged The Bells and the exhilarating Symphonic Dances. Commenting on Canellakis's 2025 recording of Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard's Castle, BBC Music Magazine praised the conductor's capacity for 'understanding the aching angularity of Bartók’s score and exploring every musical shiver and chordal creak.' These two Rachmaninoff pieces may lack the former's lurid horror, but that same intensity of attention will surely be at work. (And for those who, like me, hold opinions on the Dances' very final tam-tam crash - I'm overjoyed to report that Canellakis lets it ring gloriously out instead of quickly damping it like a suppressed sneeze...)
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Katia & Marielle Labèque - 55
Katia & Marielle Labèque (pianos)
A very straightforward anniversary album - 'let's just name it after how many years we've been recording together'! From an acclaimed début under the wing of Messiaen, via works by the Mendelssohns, Bizet and Ravel, through to more modern composers such as Pärt, Glass - and the likes of Bonds, Jaëll and Montgeroult reclaiming their rightful place in history. A densely-packed three discs of pure piano joy.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
House of Wonder: Sally Beamish celebrates 70 years
Sally Beamish, Ryan Corbett, Imogen Whitehead, Joseph Havlat, Stephanie Irvine, Peter Thomson, Rosalind Ventris (viola)
A birthday milestone, this one - having exploded in popularity over the last ten or fifteen years, Sally Beamish (known to many for her Christmas miniature In the stillness) looks back over her own musical life, which started out as a viola player. Works by family and friends come together on this touchingly personal collection.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
CPE Bach: Berlin Symphonies
Arte Dei Suonatori, Marcin Świątkiewicz
Prequels don't always live up to the hype, but this prequel to Arte Dei Suonatori's 2024 album of CPE Bach's 'Hamburg' symphonies - looking now at the six 'Berlin' symphonies written a little earlier - delivers the goods. Despite their names, the symphonies' chamber nature is to the fore here, accentuated by Marcin Świątkiewicz's decision to perform the original versions for strings and harpsichord alone, before the later addition of wind parts.
Available Format: SACD
Haydn: Keyboard Works, Vol. 2
Peter Donohoe (piano)
A varied bag of gems from right across Haydn's lifespan - from refined sonatas to works that wear their folk legacy on their sleeve. Following on from the first volume in 2022, which Gramophone praised for its 'utmost directness, high-definition clarity and scrupulous rhythmic accuracy', this album is likewise sure to capture what International Piano's Bryce Morrison described as 'a sense of ‘rediscovery’ of Haydn’s ambiguity, indeed, unique character'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Colin Matthews: Seascapes
Claire Booth (soprano), Marcus Farnsworth (baritone), Nash Ensemble, Jessica Cottis
Influential composer Colin Matthews turns 80 this year, and it's an apt time to reflect on his legacy so far. This album comprises four of his song cycles, with Claire Booth in command of the twists and turns - from coastal inspirations to dissident Czechoslovak writers to British poet Nicholas Moore's almost obsessive preoccupation with a single one of Baudelaire's heady, bohemian Spleen poems.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
in between: Choral Works By Jessica Ulusoy-Horsley
Tenebrae, Nigel Short
Following in the footsteps of composers such as Karl Jenkins and John Tavener, Jessica Ulusoy-Horsley explores commonalities between faiths, expanding the palette of theological inspiration beyond merely the Judeo-Christian inheritance. Settings of Arabic and Aramaic, juxtapositions of Muslim and Christian texts as well as the poetry of Rumi, are all performed with the impeccable touch that audiences have come to expect from Nigel Short and Tenebrae.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Zelenka: Missa Paschalis
Zeronove, I Pizzicanti, Lukas Wanner
One to watch (or more accurately two) - Zeronove and I Pizzicanti are not yet household names among the early music community, but if this album is anything to go by, that might be about to change. Czech Baroque master Jan Dismas Zelenka's joyful Easter Mass (featuring violin obbligati thought to have been written for fellow composer Pisendel to perform) has only recently been rediscovered; it is offset effectively by Handel's Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline, in which the composer combines personal and professional mourning at the loss of a friend and patron, setting a selection of Biblical texts.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Richard Strauss: Intermezzo
Philipp Jekal, Maria Bengtsson, Thomas Blondelle, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Sir Donald Runnicles
Strauss's 'bourgeois comedy with symphonic interludes' (his own words!) receives a stirring new recording here under Donald Runnicles; the composer's experimentation with more faithfully speech-like word-settings, and the homeliness of his self-deprecating self-insertion into an opera about a fairly mundane misunderstanding are emphasised here, at the expense of the cosmic bombast heard in some of his other works.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Colin Davis: The Boston Legacy
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis
While pride of place within this magnificent set surely has to go to the Sibelius symphonic cycle, the other fruits of Davis's long and fruitful cooperation with the BSO (on what was then the Philips label) shouldn't be overlooked - the sparkling Mendelssohn and Schubert, the stirring account of Debussy's La Mer, the collection of Tchaikovsky tone-poems and more.
Available Format: 13 CDs
Infrastructure: The Songs of David Sisco
David Fung, Michael Kelly, Elizabeth Mondragon, Laura Strickling, David Sisco
Not just a big, bold début recording - though it is certainly that - but an invigorating exploration of what art song can look like in our own time. Sisco draws on poems about travels in Italy, the lonely hearts and ships-in-the-night of 'missed connection' ads on semi-defunct websites from the early days of the Internet, the caustic and often unhinged wit of today's online reviews, the unfiltered naïveté of prayers written by children, and more. An album to brandish in the face of anyone that thinks classical song has nothing new to say and nowhere left to go.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Cries, Sighs and Dreams
Steven Banks, Xak Bjerken, The Dover Quartet
Fighting the good fight for the saxophone as a classical instrument, Steven Banks presents a varied programme including works by Saint-Saëns, Paul Creston and Carlos Simon, alongside compositions of his own. Saint-Saëns's brief oboe sonata sounds wholly natural in this new guise, while Creston's sonata lets Banks explore the composer's unique combination of neo-Romanticism and a Classical-flavoured chamber mood.
Available Formats: Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
