Christopher Jesina 3/14/25 Christopher Jesina 3/14/25

OUT TODAY: Marcin and Hayato Sumino Unite On New Song I Wish – Out Today via Sony Music Masterworks

Polaroid photo of Hayato Sumino (left) and Marcin (right) holding a guitar. The polaroid is signed at the bottom by Hayato and Marcin — Single Artwork (Download)

Marcin and Hayato Sumino Unite On New Song

I Wish

Out Today via Sony Music Masterworks
Listen Here | Watch Here

The superstar guitarist and piano virtuoso deliver a new take on the Stevie Wonder classic

Guitar wunderkind Marcin and pianist-composer extraordinaire Hayato Sumino today release their new collaboration, a cover of Stevie Wonder’s 1976 Billboard No. 1 hit song, I Wish via Sony Music Masterworks – LISTEN HERE. Each a social media sensation with millions of followers tuning in to their captivating live performances, the two artists recorded the song live in-studio in Tokyo, their unique instrumental arrangement blending elements of jazz, funk, R&B, and soul in a showcase of their distinctive playing styles. Today’s track arrives alongside an accompanying music video for I Wish – WATCH HERE.

“Working with Hayato on I Wish was one of the most challenging and fun experiences,” notes Marcin. “We arranged the song in about two hours at Hayato’s studio in Tokyo, and two days later we were already recording it live in the studio! It was the first time I was tracking a true, live, jazz-style performance with another artist and Hayato is such a beast! I knew how crazy he was on the piano before, but actually seeing how he worked in the studio was so inspiring for me. Take 12 is the one that we used. It’s a fun and pure piece of music – just two friends from completely different continents jamming in a studio.

"I’m beyond excited to collaborate with my friend, the incredibly unique and charismatic guitarist, Marcin,” exclaims Hayato Sumino. “The blend of guitar and piano isn’t something you hear every day, which makes this project even more thrilling. The chemistry between us was absolutely electric!"

ABOUT HAYATO SUMINO

Hayato Sumino, known as ‘Cateen’, is an exceptional artistic phenomenon with nearly 1.5 million followers globally and over 200 million views on YouTube. His participation in the 2021 International Chopin Competition, where he reached the semifinals, caused a sensation, garnering over 8.5 million views on YouTube. In April 2024, Sumino made a spectacular debut at the Royal Albert Hall with his performance of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” capturing the spotlight both online and in the concert hall. His debut Sony Classical album, Human Universe, released in November 2024 to critical acclaim, showcases his multi-faceted talents with a diverse selection of works ranging from Bach, Handel, and Chopin to film composers like Hans Zimmer and Ryuichi Sakamoto, as well as Sumino’s own compositions and arrangements. A prodigious composer, Sumino effortlessly combines his diverse musical interests, spanning classical, jazz, film music, post-classical, and electronica. He is also in high demand for film and TV scores in Japan and is rapidly becoming a leading figure among the next generation of musicians for whom genre borders are no obstacle. This year, Sumino is set to make his performance debut at the Hollywood Bowl on July 22 and Carnegie Hall on November 18, further solidifying his rise on the global music scene.

CONNECT WITH HAYATO SUMINO:
Website | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | X

HAYATO SUMINO 2025 TOUR DATES

JAPAN

TAIWAN

Sun, April 25 | Taipei, TW | National Theater & Concert Hall

NORTH AMERICA

EUROPE

ABOUT MARCIN

Named “one of the most talented guitarists of his generation” by Guitar World, Marcin is one of the pioneers of a new percussive style, rooted in flamenco and classical. With nods from Rolling Stone, Billboard, Guitar World, Premier Guitar and more, plus a performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and his first-ever cover for Total Guitar, Marcin continues to captivate millions of fans and followers with his show-stopping guitar style across multiple platforms. In a few short yet explosive years, Marcin’s virtuosic technique has been championed by the likes of Tom Morello, Paul Stanley, Madonna, BTS’ Jungkook, Timbaland, Ty Dolla $ign and Wyclef Jean, to name a few. In 2022, Marcin launched a signature guitar with Ibanez Guitars as ambassador for the Japanese brand. The electrifying performances by this Polish-born musician extend far beyond the screen, with his first global headlining tour selling out across Asia and Europe in weeks. Marcin now gears up to take his debut album, Dragon in Harmony (Sony Masterworks), on the road with his first-ever North American headline tour kicking off in September – tickets on sale now.

CONNECT WITH MARCIN:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

MARCIN – SOLO DRAGON
2025 HEADLINE TOUR DATES

EUROPE

TURKEY

NORTH AMERICA

Christopher Jesina 3/14/25 Christopher Jesina 3/14/25

April 25: Composer Thomas Newman Records His First Ever Ballet Score Of Mice And Men – to be Released on Sony Classical

Composer Thomas Newman Records His First Ever Ballet Score Of Mice And Men
to be Released on Sony Classical

Album Release Date: April 25, 2025
Pre-Order Available Now

From Academy Award-nominated and GRAMMY Award-winning composer Thomas Newman (The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, Skyfall) comes the premiere recording of his debut ballet score, Of Mice and Men. Composed for The Joffrey Ballet’s critically acclaimed 2022 production and choreographed by Cathy Marston, Newman’s evocative music explores themes of loneliness and the aspiration for a new life in the face of hardship. The Sony Classical album will be released on April 25, 2025 and is available for pre-order now. Accompanying today's announcement is the release of the single Bucking Grain - listen here.

“One of the things that has always interested me about writing music for film is a sense of empathy towards characters and an ability to relate to story,” says Newman. “So, in some ways it's not much different working on a ballet based upon a classic novel, because I still have to put myself in the mindset of a place and time, and have the music express character, as much as that character is going to be expressed through bodily movement.”

Of the working relationship with Thomas Newman, choreographer Cathy Marston says, “we had a fabulous collaboration that extended over two years due to the pandemic, with almost weekly Zooms. I was struck by how he uses textures I’ve not discovered with other composers—it wasn’t just about rhythm, tempo, and melody, but about the music’s role in storytelling. There were no shortcuts with him. I was amazed by the intimate working relationship we could build, even over a screen.”

Newman’s score incorporates elements of folk music, designed to fit both the characters and the world they inhabit. “California still evokes a feeling of dust and weeds, but it’s not quite Texas or the South,” Newman explains. “At the same time, you accept these sounds—high string guitars, mandolins, and country fiddle—as part of the story. It’s about finding groove and rhythm that best express the movement and emotion of the piece." Newman himself conducts the recording which features full symphony orchestra and instrumental solos from collaborators Steve Tavaglione, George Doering, Luanne Homzy and Rick Cox.

Thomas Newman is an acclaimed composer best known for his scores for more than eighty film and television projects including The Shawshank Redemption, Angels in America, Little Women, American Beauty, Finding Nemo, Skyfall, 1917, Scent of a Woman, WALL-E, Bridge of Spies and Elemental. His work has earned him numerous nominations and awards, including fifteen Academy Award nominations and six Grammy Awards.

Of Mice and Men had its world premiere at The Joffrey Ballet in Chicago in 2022, choreographed by Cathy Marston. The ballet, inspired by John Steinbeck’s novel, explores the themes of friendship, loneliness, and the American Dream. The production received widespread acclaim. The score, nearly an hour of music in total, comprises 16 short movements.

Christopher Jesina 3/14/25 Christopher Jesina 3/14/25

May 30: Anna Lapwood Unveils Firedove New Album to be Released on Sony Classical – First Single Limina Luminis Out Today

Anna Lapwood Unveils Firedove New Album to be Released on Sony Classical

Anna Lapwood Unveils Firedove
New Album to be Released on Sony Classical

First Single Limina Luminis
Out Today - Listen

Album Release Date: May 30, 2025
Pre-Order Now

One of the most gifted and visionary artists of her generation, Anna Lapwood, releases her brand-new album, Firedove, May 30, 2025 on Sony Classical. Pre-order is available now. It is the follow-up to Lapwood's acclaimed album Luna.

The lead track is the captivating Limina Luminis, commissioned for and first performed at the 2023 BBC Proms, composed for Anna by Italian composer Olivia Belli. The single is out today – listen here.

“This piece was part of my first solo recital at the BBC Proms, and I’ve played it in nearly every concert since, because I love it so much.” Anna says.

Already renowned for introducing the organ to new generations of music fans through her extraordinary interpretations of both classical and contemporary works, Anna Lapwood has become known to millions through viral TikTok videos, high-profile collaborations an sold-out live concerts.

Anna recorded her new album Firedove through the night at Nidaros Cathedral, a spectacular Gothic masterpiece founded in the 11th century in Trondheim, Norway.

“I wanted to create an album where the listener doesn’t quite know where it’s going to go next,” Lapwood says. “There are lots of little easter eggs in there that you wouldn’t expect – even the first appearance of the choir – and a through-line of flight and spreading wings, because this does feel as though I’ve found what I want to say as an artist. I’m very proud of it.”

Firedove effortlessly demonstrates Anna’s open-minded approach to music, one where a Vierne scherzo can sit alongside a rendition of Robbie Williams’ Angels, and Maurice Duruflé’s Prelude and Fugue with Bob Dylan’s Make You Feel My Love.

The repertoire choices on her album clearly indicate that it is Anna’s most personal record to date. She is no stranger to blending classical music with pop having performed with RAYE, Florence & The Machine & Aurora, even finding time to give Tom Cruise an impromptu organ lesson during a late-night rehearsal at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Anna was appointed Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridgeshire when she was 21, the youngest person ever to hold that position at either an Oxford or Cambridge University College. Now, nine years later, she is stepping down to pursue her live and recording career full time.

On Firedove Anna Lapwood brings a breath of fresh air into classical musical making. “Since I started focusing on the music I loved and stopped worrying about what others felt I ‘should’ be doing, I have fallen in love with the organ again in a completely new way” she says.

The results are staggering, and Anna’s intense musical passion is evident throughout Firedove. An intoxicating listen.

Firedove Track list

Christopher Jesina 3/7/25 Christopher Jesina 3/7/25

May 9: Pentatonix Powerhouse Kevin Olusola Announces Debut Solo Album Dawn Of A Misfit on Sony Music Masterworks – Debut Single & Music Video Out Now

Pentatonix Powerhouse Kevin Olusola Announces Debut Solo Album Dawn Of A Misfit

Singer, Cellist, and Beatboxer Shares
Debut Single and Music Video for Dark Winter
Listen | Watch

Album Showcases Works by a Wide Range of Women Composers
Album Release Date: April 25, 2025
Pre-Order Available Now

Kevin Olusola, the dynamic singer, cellist, and beatboxer best known for his work with the 3x-GRAMMY® Award-winning a cappella group Pentatonix, will release his debut solo album, Dawn of a Misfit, on May 9, 2025 via Sony Music Masterworks. The record is available to pre-order and pre-save here.

The multi-faceted artist previews his new LP with the electrifying lead single Dark Winter, out now, which blends samples from Vivaldi's Four Seasons and symphonic strings with Olusola's potent beatbox percussion, 808s & elastic R&B hooks."

The song introduces a bit of edge for a musician often recognized for exuberant joy—and the music video for Dark Winter directed by Ron Jaramillo, follows in that spirit, following Olusola and his “Misfit Mafia” as they destroy objects from the classical tradition, including cellos, paintings, and statues. “My misfits and I are completely demolishing them,” Olusola says. “We don’t have to destroy the past, but we have to break the things that have been traditional or stereotyped in us to become exactly who we’re called to be. I want to shatter boundaries, only to bring all the pieces back together with a newfound harmony.” The official music video for Dark Winter is out now – watch here

Dawn of a Misfit follows two EPs: The Renegade, which explored classical music and celloboxing, and Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, which delved more into pop influences. This new LP seamlessly blends elements from both projects while continuing to expand his already-vast musical canvas. Dawn of a Misfit draws on his classical virtuosity and the graceful soulfulness of his vocals, partly fueled by his Nigerian and Grenadian heritage. While recording the new album, he was influenced by a diverse range of artists, including Sting, multi-hyphenate artist Jon Batiste, Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, American singer and actor Harry Belafonte, country-rap artist Shaboozey, cellist Jacqueline du Pré, pianist Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn Jr., and Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff.

The wide-ranging album touches on spirituality, fatherhood, and being a first-generation person in a Western country, all while fusing classical, pop, R&B, and hip-hop. It even includes a nod to Pentatonix with “Kevin’s Fifth,” a fan-favorite expansion on Beethoven’s 5th that he often performs during their live shows. The beloved quintet—who broke out after winning NBC’s The Sing-Off in 2011—have released 12 albums in total, including 2022’s GRAMMY-nominated Holidays Around the World. More recently, they starred in the #1 Netflix rom-com Meet Me Next Christmas.

KEVIN OLUSOLA - DAWN OF A MISFIT

Tracklisting

1. Dark Winter
2. Hallelujah (I Don't Think About You)
3. I Feel Misunderstood
4. Crazy
5. Like Us
6. Smile
7. A Change Is Gonna Come
8. Have I Told You
9. Love, Leigh & Kaia
10. Kaia's Swan
11. Showdown
12. Hymn for Christian
13. Kevin's Fifth

PR Photo (Credit Xavier Sotomayer) Download

ABOUT KEVIN OLUSOLA
As one-fifth of multi-platinum-selling a cappella phenomenon Pentatonix, the multi-faceted artist, Kevin Olusola defies stereotypes by reimagining classical musicianship through a modern sonic and lyrical lens, all the while balancing his dynamic background of Nigerian and Grenadian heritage. With his debut solo album, Dawn of a Misfit, out May 9, 2025 via Sony Music Masterworks, Olusola uses his love of classical music as the backdrop to tell his story as a first-generation person growing up in a Western country. He hopes to unlock entry points for those unfamiliar with the classical genre and reach those in and outside the Black diaspora who may still be finding themselves through life’s hardships. “My purpose is to spread love far and wide with the unique frequency l've been given. I want to shatter boundaries, only to bring all the pieces back together with a newfound harmony,” Olusola says. “I hope my music makes you feel comfortable in who you are and the love you want to portray to the world.”

Follow Kevin Olusola
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Tiktok | YouTube

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com.

Christopher Jesina 2/27/25 Christopher Jesina 2/27/25

April 25: Violinist Esther Abrami to Release New Album Women on Sony Classical – Music Video for Valse Di Fantastica by Yoko Shimomura Out Now

Acclaimed Violinist Esther Abrami to Release Women
New Album on Sony Classical

Music Video for Valse Di Fantastica by Yoko Shimomura
Out Now - Watch Here

Out Today
Album Showcases Works by a Wide Range of Women Composers
Album Release Date: April 25, 2025
Pre-Order Available Now

Celebrated violinist and social media sensation Esther Abrami announces the release of her highly anticipated new album Women set for release on April 25, 2025 via Sony Classical and available for pre-order now.

A tribute to women composers across history and a range of genres, Women showcases the exceptional talent of 14 remarkable composers, spanning newly composed works and rediscovered masterpieces. The album features Oscar winners Rachel Portman and Anne Dudley, as well as new arrangements of compositions by historic composers such as Pauline Viardot, Chiquinha Gonzaga, Teresa Carreño or Ethel Smyth. Women also includes Transmission, an original composition by Esther Abrami, who has arranged several pieces on the album. At its heart is the world-premiere recording of Ina Boyle’s Violin Concerto, a breathtaking, late-Romantic composition. Esther Abrami carefully chose each piece on Women not only for its musical brilliance but also for the emotional connection it holds for her, highlighting the often-overlooked voices of women in classical music.

“For as far back as I can remember, the only classical music I ever came across was written by male composers. I studied classical music for over 15 years in some of the top music schools and conservatoires in the world. During those years I never played a single piece written by a woman. It wasn’t that I actively avoided them - I simply didn’t know they even existed! Nobody talked about them, nobody played their music, no one ever introduced me to their compositions. It took stepping out of my formal education to question this reality. ‘Did any women ever compose classical music?’ Turns out they did! Just when I thought I knew all about the main classical composers, I discovered a hidden treasure. I spent months researching, drawn into a whole new world of music and stories from women left in the shadows of history. This album is my tribute to them. Women is a journey through centuries of music, told through the voices of women who composed, fought, lived, and created despite the odds. The stories of these women inspired me to create; they showed me the importance of leaving your mark for future generations to discover. I hope Women can inspire a new generation of young girls to compose.”

Throughout her career, Esther Abrami has been dedicated to celebrating and amplifying the voices of women composers. From her popular podcast Women in Classical, where she interviews influential musicians, composers and women working in classical music to her EP Spotlight, dedicated to women composers, Abrami continues her mission to highlight and elevate women’s contributions to classical music. With her new album Women, she is taking another major step towards breaking down barriers and redefining the landscape of the genre.

Women brings together an extraordinary lineup of collaborators, including the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Irene Delgado-Jiménez, pianist Kim Barbier, harpist Lavinia Meijer, and the Esther Abrami Quintet.

“I felt extremely lucky working with such an incredible orchestra and musicians on a project that is so personal. Hearing my own composition brought to life by a whole orchestra is a memory I will never forget.”

Esther Abrami - Women - Tracklist:

1) March of the Women* (Ethel Smyth / Esther Abrami)
2) Valse Di Fantastica* (Yoko Shimomura)
3) Flowers* (Miley Cyrus)
4) Hai Luli! (Pauline Viardot) with Lavinia Meijer and the Esther Abrami Quintet
5) Wiegala (Ilse Weber) with the Esther Abrami Quintet
6) Corta Jaca (Chiquinha Gonzaga) with the Esther Abrami Quintet
7) Medhel an Gwyns* (Anne Dudley)
8) O Virtus Sapientiae (Hildegard von Bingen) with the Esther Abrami Quintet
9) Apple Tree* (Rachel Portman)
10-12) Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (To the Memory of My Mother)* (Ina Boyle)
13) Mi Teresita ‘Little Waltz’* (Teresa Carreño)
14) Lua Branca (Chiquinha Gonzaga) with Kim Barbier
15) Solitude (Rita Strohl) with Kim Barbier
16) Transmission* (Esther Abrami)

* Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Irene Delgado-Jiménez

FOLLOW ESTHER ABRAMI
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Esther Abrami – WOMEN - Track by Track Stories

The stories of these women inspired Esther Abrami to create. They showed her the importance of leaving a mark for future generations to discover. She hopes Women can inspire a new generation of young girls to compose.

March of the Women – Ethel Smyth, recomposed by Esther Abrami

A voice appears in the introduction to Esther Abrami’s album saying, “You have to make more noise.” Not just any voice, but the voice of Emmeline Pankhurst, a leading figure in the suffragette movement fighting to obtain women’s right to vote. The sample is taken from an original recording of a speech given by Emmeline in Hyde Park, London in 1908 and Esther Abrami incorporated it into her arrangement of “March of the Women.”

For the music, Esther was inspired by composer Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), who was also a warrior for women’s rights and wrote “March of the Women,” which became the official anthem of the suffragettes. It is said that after being arrested and imprisoned for activism, Ethel met a group of women, also arrested for the same cause, who were singing her anthem. One can picture Ethel in a prison cell, standing in front of a small window, conducting a group of women during their daily prison walk using all she had with her… a toothbrush!

Valse Di Fantastica – Yoko Shimomura

For those who enjoy gaming, this composition might sound familiar. This incredible piece was written for the video game Final Fantasy XV! Like many teenagers, Esther Abrami played video games growing up, and Yoko Shimomura (*1967) was one of the first female composers she ever heard—though she didn’t realize it at the time.

Flowers – Miley Cyrus, arr. Esther Abrami

“Flowers” adds a pop touch to this classical album. Being independent, living life on one's own terms, and working towards realizing a dream career isn't easy. This song by Miley Cyrus (*1992) gave Esther motivation and energy, representing a modern statement of female empowerment.

“Hai Luli!“ – Pauline Viardot, arr. Jan-Peter Klöpfel

Pauline Viardot (1821–1910) was a remarkable figure of the 19th century, often regarded as an “influencer” of her time. She was immensely popular and well-connected with the most significant artists of her era. Viardot had the ability to significantly impact the careers of those around her. Her Parisian salon regularly hosted luminaries such as Chopin, Liszt, the Schumanns, and her close friend George Sand, who also introduced Pauline to her future husband. Unlike many, he supported and financed Pauline’s musical career.

Regarded as a piano prodigy, Pauline took lessons with Franz Liszt from an early age and it is known that her hands would tremble during these lessons—not out of nervousness, but because of her admiration for him, a sentiment shared by many girls of the time. Viardot grew into become a legendary opera singer and composed over 450 pieces (for comparison, Chopin composed only 300 pieces in his lifetime). Esther considers ‘Hai Luli!’ to be one of Viardot’s most beautiful songs.

Wiegala– Ilse Weber, arr. Esther Abrami

“Wiegala” is a haunting lullaby written by Jewish composer and poet Ilse Weber (1903–1944). In 1942, she was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp where she worked as a nurse. Without medicine to ease the children’s suffering, she used music—singing and composing lullabies to comfort them. When the children were sent to Auschwitz, she voluntarily accompanied them, and it is said that they sang “Wiegala” as they entered the gas chambers. Her husband, who survived the Holocaust, buried her music in the ground and later recovered it, ensuring that her voice would not be lost to history. Ilse Weber sacrificed her life out of pure altruism, and her music serves as a poignant reminder of the resilience of the human spirit.

Corta Jaca – Chiquinha Gonzaga, arr. Jan-Peter Klöpfel

Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847–1935) was a trailblazer. Born in 19th-century Brazil, she faced a difficult choice imposed by her husband: music or marriage. She chose music, a scandalous decision at the time. Gonzaga became the first woman in Brazil to conduct an orchestra and composed over 2,000 pieces, including the music that became the official hymn for the Brazilian Carnival. As the daughter of a Black slave, she fought for the abolition of slavery and women’s rights, selling her music to support these causes. Gonzaga was also a pioneer in copyright law, founding the first company to protect and advocate for composers’ rights, long before it became standard practice. “Corta Jaca” is a Brazilian tango and one of her most famous works, known for causing quite a scandal due to its title, which apparently had a sexual innuendo.

Medhel an Gwyns – Anne Dudley

Anne Dudley (*1956) is one of the very few women to have won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. Esther Abrami had the incredible experience of working directly with her in arranging the music from the Netflix show Poldark for violin and orchestra. “Medhel an Gwyns” has a folk music influence, which Esther felt inspired to express through her violin.

O Virtus Sapientiae – Hildegard von Bingen, arr. Penelope Axtens

Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179) is the earliest composer featured on this album, having lived during the Middle Ages. She is one of the first identifiable composers in the history of Western music. Hildegard was not only a composer but also a medieval nun, healer, writer, and visionary. She wrote music as well as one of the first known medical texts on women's health, openly discussing topics like menstruation and female pleasure in an era when such subjects were unspeakable. Hildegard was an extremely powerful figure, exchanging letters with Henry II, King of England, and Emperor Frederic I, both of whom held her in high regard. “O Virtus Sapientiae” offers a glimpse into her world, where spirituality and music were inseparable.

Apple Tree – Rachel Portman

Rachel Portman (*1960) is the first female composer to win an Oscar for Best Original Composition. “She is one of my biggest musical inspirations and I am honored to have collaborated with her on all my albums so far!,” says Esther. “Apple Tree” is a very sweet piece of music with a touch of nostalgia, personally reminding Esther of childhood moments in the countryside of southern France.

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (To the Memory of My Mother) – Ina Boyle

“I think it is most courageous of you to keep going with such little recognition. All I can say is that it sometimes does finally come.” This quote comes from composer Ralph Vaughan Williams in a letter to his student Ina Boyle (1889–1967). Ina lived during a challenging time, between two world wars, and received countless rejections for her compositions, yet she never stopped writing. This is the first-ever professional recording of her violin concerto, a piece Ina dedicated to her mother, based on a poem and filled with deep emotions. It is astonishing to think that she spent her entire life in a small Irish village, composing symphonies that the world is only now beginning to discover. Esther hopes that today is the day when “it does finally come” for Ina Boyle.

Mi Teresita / Little Waltz – Teresa Carreño, arr. Esther Abrami

Teresa Carreño (1853–1917), known as “The Lioness of the piano,” was one of the greatest piano virtuoso of her time. She was humorously described as a musician with “a male head, male fingers, and a female heart.” Born in Venezuela, she was a true child prodigy, invited at the age of nine to perform for President Lincoln at the White House. Admired by Liszt, Brahms, and Rubinstein, Carreño led a whirlwind life, marrying four times and constantly touring due to her remarkable performing career. Despite her immense fame as a performer, her compositions were often overlooked and forgotten, likely due to the fact that she was a woman from South America. “Mi Teresita,” a waltz inspired by Venezuelan rhythms, was written for her daughter.

Lua Branca – Chiquinha Gonzaga, arr. Esther Abrami

Another piece by Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847–1935), “Lua Branca” translates to “White Moon.” It features a very seductive melody, and the first time Esther Abrami hummed it, she knew she had to arrange it for the violin. Listening to this piece, one might imagine traveling all the way to the streets of Brazil.

Solitude – Rita Strohl, arr. Esther Abrami

Rita Strohl (1865–1941) decided at one point in her life to completely isolate herself from the world, moving away from society to be left with only music and solitude. She spent her days composing tirelessly. This piece resonates deeply with Esther Abrami, reminding her of the beauty found in countless hours spent alone, completely alone, with only her violin and music for company.

Transmission – Esther Abrami

Esther Abrami's grandmother was a violinist who stopped her career when she got married. Esther knows her grandmother never imagined that her only granddaughter would one day take up the instrument she had left behind. This piece is Esther's way of continuing her grandmother's story while also telling her own. “Transmission” represents the passing of music through generations. This is the first time Esther has ever recorded one of her own compositions.

Christopher Jesina 2/21/25 Christopher Jesina 2/21/25

March 28: Lorin Maazel conducts the Cleveland Orchestra – The Complete CBS Masterworks Recordings

Lorin Maazel and Cleveland Orchestra Complete CBS Masterworks box set contents on white background.

Lorin Maazel conducts the Cleveland Orchestra – The Complete CBS Masterworks Recordings

This is the first release of Lorin Maazel’s complete commercially released Cleveland recordings in a single 15 CD edition

Includes the first release on CD of two special records once distributed through Columbia Special Products with recordings from Blossom Music Festival and Sydney Opera House, remastered from broadcasting tapes using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology

Original LP sleeves and labels, booklet with full discographical notes

Album Release Date: March 28, 2025
Reviewer Rate: $43.77
Pre-Order Available Now

When he was called to succeed George Szell as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1972, the 42-year-old American conductor was hardly known in his home country. But over the next ten years, as the recordings collected for the first time in Sony Classical’s new 16-CD box set amply demonstrate, this enigmatic genius by the name of Lorin Maazel burnished the Cleveland image and maintained the exalted standards set by Szell, who had elevated his ensemble to pre-eminence among the US “Big Five” orchestras. This set will be released on March 28, 2025. Pre-order is available now.

Born in 1930 in Paris, Maazel moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1932 and began violin lessons, then conducting lessons with the associate conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He was not yet ten when he mounted the Pittsburgh Symphony’s podium and only eleven when he was invited by Toscanini to conduct the NBC Symphony in a concert broadcast nationally. In 1953, he made his European début; by 1960, he had conducted some 300 concerts with more than 20 European orchestras and become the youngest and the first American conductor to appear at the Bayreuth Festival.

When he arrived in Cleveland, By the time this brilliant young man reached the age of 15, he was determined to get a university education and withdrew from conducting engagements to study languages and philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh – meanwhile also giving violin recitals and playing in the Pittsburgh SO and the Fine Arts Quartet. After graduation, a Fulbright Scholarship took Maazel to Rome, and in 1953 he made his European debut, standing in for an indisposed conductor in Catania. A Rome Radio recording followed, and his career was now well underway. By 1960 he had conducted some 300 concerts with more than 20 European orchestras and, aged 30, became the youngest conductor, the first American and the first Jew since the fall of the Third Reich to appear at the Bayreuth Festival.

Maazel was already recording regularly for DG and Decca; immediately he joined the artist stable of Columbia/CBS, his new orchestra’s label. Their first album – works by Berlioz, Brahms and Barber– was released in 1973. The next one, also now being reissued for the first time in Sony’s new box, was a gripping performance of Brahms’s First Symphony taped in October 1973, when the Clevelanders became the first visiting orchestra to play in the concert hall of Sydney’s recently opened Opera House.

A decade earlier, Maazel had begun an association with the Vienna Philharmonic, recording, along with much else, works by Richard Strauss which he would revisit and record in Cleveland for Columbia/CBS. He seems to have had the Viennese sound in his ear in those interpretations of Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel and Tod und Verklärung set down in Cleveland’s acoustically excellent Masonic Auditorium in May 1979. The Penguin Guide called the Don Juan “one of the most thrilling accounts on record.”

Also in Masonic Auditorium, in January 1977, Maazel set down an urgently paced, finely played Ein Heldenleben as well as the first of his three traversals of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique: “Rarely have the ‘March to the Scaffold’ and the ‘Witches Sabbath’ achieved fiercer bite and impact or sounded more terrifyingly demoniac” (High Fidelity). The last three Tchaikovsky symphonies collected here date from the early 1980s. Two decades earlier, he had undertaken the complete cycle in Vienna; comparing the versions in his review of this Cleveland remake, Gramophone’s reviewer enjoyed the newer recordings’ instances of more flexible phrasing, added breathing space and crisper ensemble.

A complete cycle of symphonies that Maazel committed to disc on only one occasion is Beethoven’s, and it naturally forms the centerpiece of this collection. The set, released complete in 1979, was acclaimed by the critics: “The music‐making is full-bodied, intense, hearty and impassioned,” wrote the New York Times. “The First, Second, Fourth, and Eighth symphonies are breathtaking, and the Fifth and Seventh are truly exciting, as well.” High Fidelity’s reviewer called the “Pastoral” a ravishing performance – “crystalline and beautifully graded in sound, patrician and well sprung in rhythm.” Gramophone found the First, Second, Fourth and Eighth Symphonies “played with the kind of inspiring directness we have come to expect from Cleveland … Led by outstandingly lucid readings of the Sixth and Seventh symphonies and distinctive readings of the three overtures, [Maazel’s cycle is] a bracing experience aesthetically and intellectually.”

Finally, the new set brings a curiosity, Lorin Maazel’s own “symphonic realizations” of chansons by the French pop star Serge Lama. After accompanying the singer-songwriter on the violin on a French TV show, he hatched the idea of “lending Lama’s poetry a new, larger dimension”. This is the 1980 album’s first international release, as well as its CD début.

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:

Berlioz: Le carnaval romain, H 95: Overture
Brahms: Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80
Barber: The School For Scandal, Op. 5: Overture
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68

DISC 2:

R. Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40

DISC 3:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36

DISC 4:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55 "Eroica"

DISC 5:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B-Flat Major, Op. 60
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93

DISC 6:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67
Beethoven: Egmont Overture, Op. 84
Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72

DISC 7:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 "Pastoral"

DISC 8:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92
Beethoven: Fidelio Overture, Op. 72

DISC 9:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 "Choral"

DISC 10:

Strauss: Don Juan, Op. 20
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Op. 28
Strauss: Death and Transfiguration

DISC 11:

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14

DISC 12:

Lama: Les P'tites Femmes de Pigalle
Lama: Chez Moi
Lama: Je t'aime à la folie
Lama: Je suis malade
Lama: L'esclave
Lama: La Chanteuse a vingt ans
Lama: La Salle de Bains
Lama: Ah!
Lama: L'enfant au piano
Lama: Femmes, Femmes, Femmes
Lama: L'enfant d'un autre
Lama: An old-fashioned Waltz

DISC 13:

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64

DISC 14:

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 "Pathétique"

DISC 15:

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36

Christopher Jesina 2/21/25 Christopher Jesina 2/21/25

March 21: Sony Classical Presents the Guarneri String Quartet – The Complete RCA Victor Collection

Sony Classical Guarneri String Quartet box set contents on white background

Sony Classical Presents the Guarneri String Quartet
The Complete RCA Victor Collection

9 recordings new to CD and 1 recording previously unreleased

Album Release Date: March 21, 2025
Reviewer Rate: $120.16
Pre-Order Available Now

In the early 1960s, four young musicians who had been playing chamber music at Rudolf Serkin’s Marlboro School and Festival in Vermont were encouraged to form a string quartet. In July 1964, the Guarneri Quartet gave its first concert and less than a year later made its first recordings under contract to RCA Victor. For the next 45 years, with only one change of personnel, the Guarneris performed all over the world and amassed a large, wide-ranging, prize-winning discography. Sony Classical now presents, for the first time in a single collection, all the recordings made by the Guarneri Quartet for RCA between 1965 and 2005. Pre-order is available now. The set will be released on March 21, 2025.

When the announcement came of its retirement at the end of the 2008–09 season, the eminent British critic Rob Cowan wrote a perceptive, affectionate tribute to the Guarneri Quartet in Gramophone, comparing it to the Juilliard Quartet, the other superb ensemble that had dominated the American quartet catalogue for so many years. Using their respective Bartók recordings as an example, he contrasted the “cut-glass precision” of the Juilliard’s early-60s set to the Guarneri’s “volatile, free-spirited, generously expressive and tonally rich” performing style in its RCA cycle from the mid-70s.

That characterization of the Guarneri Quartet’s playing runs through virtually all the reviews garnered in their long recording career, a story that began with the 1966 release of two of Mozart’s late “Prussian” Quartets and an album coupling Dvořák and Smetana. HiFi Stereo Review wrote that “not since the Juilliard String Quartet set the New York music world on its collective ear some 25 years ago has a new chamber group created such a furor as the Guarneri Quartet on the occasion of its New York début in February, 1965. This pair of discs demonstrates eloquently what all the shouting was about, for these players – Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley, Michael Tree, and David Soyer – blend precision with flexibility of phrasing and rhythm in a way not often encountered in contemporary American string groups. Here, indeed, is the influence of the seed bed from which the quartet stems – the Marlboro of Rudolf Serkin, Alexander Schneider, and Pablo Casals … To the Smetana [‘From My Life’] the Guarneri Quartet brings blazing intensity and fierce rhythmic verve, while the wonderful slow movement of the Dvořák [Op. 105] comes forth from the stereo speakers with an almost orchestral lushness, yet with inner voices flawlessly balanced.”

Other critics concurred in their reviews of these two LPs: “The foursome produces an unfailingly luscious tone, plays with letter-perfect intonation, and displays all sorts of felicitous pinpoint balances and coloristic effects. And how these gentlemen stay together … even in the most wayward of tempo changes. In short, this is ensemble work of a transcendental variety … The Guarneri Quartet is the most gifted group of its kind I have heard in years” (High Fidelity). “This is distinguished Mozart playing indeed. Its technical excellence needs little comment: as with the Dvořák/Smetana record … last month, with this team you take technical mastery for granted as soon as you hear the first phrase, and straightaway it's the intensely musical quality of the playing which strikes you. Theirs is Mozart played with the classical virtues, above all with firm line, poise and sensibility. The surface of the music is polished, but how much the Guarneri Quartet find beneath” (Gramophone).

Arthur Rubinstein was the quartet’s longtime keyboard partner. In 1966, they recorded the Piano Quintets of Schumann and Brahms: “Rubinstein and the Guarneris search out to equally convincing effect the flowingly lyrical aspects of the music, and this yields special rewards in a ravishing slow movement [the Brahms]” (HiFi Stereo Review). Dvořák’s followed in 1971: “The performance is beautifully balanced between the gentleman at the keyboard and the gentlemen with strings, and the sense of give and take comes from the experience of many collaborations” (High Fidelity).

They also recorded the piano quartet literature, beginning in 1967 with “beautiful performances” (High Fidelity) of Brahms. Their reading of Fauré’s Op. 25 in C minor was judged (also by High Fidelity) to be “beautifully played and exquisitely well reproduced. The instrumental lines are wonderfully clear in this highly directional recording … Rubinstein displays his regal style.” And in a disc containing both of Mozart’s piano quartets, “the playing throughout both sides is extremely beautiful … and superbly integrated – at once expressive and elegant, making all of Mozart’s points with clarity, straightforwardness, and the exalted give-and-take that is the life’s breath of real chamber music. The recorded sound, too, is exceptional for its richness, balance, and clarity” (HiFi Stereo Review).

One of many other composers who feature prominently in Sony’s Guarneri collection is Haydn. About the ensemble’s 1977 recording of the two Op.77 quartets, HiFi Stereo Review wrote that “these spirited, attractive performances of Haydn's two greatest string quartets are marked by a sense of real involvement. Articulation is crisp, ensemble is impeccable, and there is an organic flow from the first phrase to the last in each work”, while Gramophone praised their “deeply thoughtful, powerfully paced” 1986 reading of Haydn’s Seven Last Words.

With reinforcement from the Budapest Quartet in 1965, the Guarneris produced an “absolutely stunning performance (HiFi Stereo Review) of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence sextet. In 1966, they recorded quartets by Mendelssohn and Grieg (the latter receiving its CD première in this set): “The Guarneri ensemble does itself proud throughout this disc – most notably in the Mendelssohn, in which they display a tonal homogeneity and a warmth of phrasing that are truly striking. It is as though one instrument, not four, were producing the lovely sound that emerges from the speakers. Happily, the RCA recording staff has come up here with a string quartet sonority of the utmost intimacy, yet endowed with just enough room tone to enhance the naturally warm tone of the Guarneris” (HiFi Stereo Review).

But the heart of any string quartet’s repertoire is inevitably the Beethoven cycle, and it is with these works that the Guarneris were most closely associated. They made their complete recording for RCA between 1966 and 1969. Gramophone described the Early Quartets as “elegant and buoyant, with well-chosen tempos, subtle bowing, crisp articulation, telling contrasts between staccato and legato, and a consistent sense of style.” HiFi Stereo Review enumerated the virtues of their Middle Quartets: “(1) excellent intonation; (2) glowing tone; (3) ensemble that is balanced and accurate but always flexible and natural; (4) superb phrasing and line-building; (5) good feeling for a high Beethoven style. These are strong and expressive readings that often achieve great poetic insight and a powerful dynamic impulse.” The HiFi Stereo Review’s critic rhapsodized over their Late Quartets: “If I had to make the choice of a very few records to take with me to a desert island, I’d choose recordings of the last five Beethoven string quartets. Now, with the arrival of this new album (complete with the Grosse Fuge) by the Guarneri Quartet, I’ve got my island package. All I need is the island. The Guarneri is, without a doubt, one of the most extraordinary string quartets before the public these days: the group has an absolutely stunning sense of both soloistic and ensemble color. Indeed, I can’t think of another string quartet that can match them for sheer sensuous appeal.”

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:

Smetana: String Quartet No. 1 in E Minor T.116 "From my life"
Dvorák: String Quartet No. 13 in A-Flat Major, Op. 105

DISC 2:

Mozart: String Quartet No. 22 in B-Flat Major, K. 589
Mozart: String Quartet No. 23 in F Major, K. 590

DISC 3:

Tchaikovsky : Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70

DISC 4:

Mendelssohn: Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13
Grieg: String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 27

DISC 5:

Brahms: Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34

DISC 6:

Beethoven: String Quartet No. 7 in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1, "Razumovsky"

DISC 7:

Beethoven: String Quartet No. 8 in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3

DISC 8:

Beethoven: String Quartet No. 10 in E-Flat Major, Op. 74, "Harp"
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 11 in F Minor, Op. 95 "Serioso"

DISC 9:

Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 60

DISC 10:

Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 26
Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 44

DISC 11:

Beethoven: String Quartet No. 13 in B-Flat Major, Op. 130
Beethoven: Große Fuge, Op. 133

DISC 12:

Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 131
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 12 in E-Flat Major, Op. 127

DISC 13:

Beethoven: String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135

DISC 14:

Beethoven: String Quartet No. 1 in F Major, Op. 18 No. 1
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 18 No. 2
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3

DISC 15:

Beethoven: String Quartet No. 4, in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 5 in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 6 in B-Flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6

DISC 16:

Dvorák: Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81

DISC 17:

Schubert: String Quartet No. 13 in A Minor, D. 804
Schubert: String Quartet No. 12 in C Minor, D. 703 "Quartettsatz"

DISC 18:

Dvorák: Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 87

DISC 19:

Dvorák: String Quartet in No. 11 in C Major, Op. 61
Dvorák: Terzetto in C Major, Op. 74

DISC 20:

Debussy: Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10
Ravel: String Quartet in F Major, M. 35

DISC 21:

Mozart: String Quartet No. 14 in G Major, K. 387
Mozart: String Quartet No. 15 in D Minor, K. 421

DISC 22:

Mozart: String Quartet No. 16 in E-Flat Major, K. 428
Mozart: String Quartet No. 17 in B-Flat Major, K. 458 "Hunt"

DISC 23:

Fauré: Piano Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 15
Fauré: String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 121

DISC 24:

Mozart: String Quartet No. 18 in A Major, K. 464
Mozart: String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465 "Dissonant"

DISC 25:

Schubert: String Quintet in C Major, D. 956

DISC 26:

Dvorák: String Quartet in No. 6 in F Major, Op. 96 "American"
Dvorák: String Quintet No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 97

DISC 27:

Schubert: Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D.810 "Death and the Maiden"
Wolf: Italian Serenade

DISC 28:

Bartók: String Quartet No. 1, Sz. 40 (1909)
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2, Sz. 67 (1915-17)
Bartók: String Quartet No. 3, Sz. 85

DISC 29:

Bartók: String Quartet No. 4, Sz. 91 (1928)
Bartók: String Quartet No. 5, Sz. 102 (1934)
Bartók: String Quartet No. 6, Sz. 114 (1939)

DISC 30:

Mozart: Piano Quartet in G Minor, K. 478
Mozart: Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, K. 493

DISC 31:

Haydn: String Quartet in G Major, Hob.III:81 "Lobkowitz"
Haydn: String Quartet in F Major, Hob.III:82

DISC 32:

Schubert: Quartet No. 15 in G Major, D.887

DISC 33:

Beethoven: String Quintet in C Major, Op. 29
Mendelssohn: Quintet in B-Flat Major, Op. 87

DISC 34:

Haydn: String Quartet in D Major, Hob.III:34
Haydn: String Quartet in G Minor, Hob.III:74

DISC 35:

Brahms: String Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 51 (1909)
Brahms: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 51

DISC 36:

Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 in B-Flat Major, Op. 67
Schumann: String Quartet No. 1, Op. 41 No. 1

DISC 37:

Schumann: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 41 No. 2
Schumann: String Quartet No. 3, Op. 41 No. 3

DISC 38:

Dvorák: String Quartet No. 14 in G Major, Op. 106

DISC 39:

Borodin: String Quartet No. 2 in D Major
Dohnányi: String Quartet No. 2 in D-Flat Major, Op. 15

DISC 40:

Mozart: String Quartet No. 20 in D Major, K. 499
Mozart: String Quartet No. 21 in D Major, K. 575

DISC 41:

Brahms: String Quintet No. 1 in F Major, Op. 88
Brahms: String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111

DISC 42:

Schubert: Piano Quintet in A Major, D. 667 "Trout"
Mozart: Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525

DISC 43:

Verdi: String Quartet in E Minor
Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11

DISC 44:

Haydn: The Seven Last Words of Christ Op. 51

DISC 45:

Mozart: String Quintet No. 1 in B-Flat Major, K. 174
Mozart: String Quintet No. 4 in G Minor, K. 516

DISC 46:

Mozart: String Quintet No. 2 in C Minor, K. 406
Mozart: String Quintet No. 5 in D Major, K. 593

DISC 47:

Mozart: String Quintet No. 3 in C Major, K. 515
Mozart: String Quintet No. 6 in E-Flat Major, K. 614

DISC 48:

Dohnányi: String Quartet No. 2 in D-Flat Major, Op. 15
Kodály: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10
Dohnányi: String Quartet No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 33

DISC 49:

Mendelssohn: Octet for 4 Violins, 2 Violas and 2 Cellos in E-flat Major, Op. 20
Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 44 No. 1 (previously unreleased)

Christopher Jesina 2/14/25 Christopher Jesina 2/14/25

May 23: Sony Classical Releases Moonlight Variations New Album by Cellist Pablo Ferrández – Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33: Var. 6. Andante Out Today

May 23: Sony Classical Releases Moonlight Variations New Album by Cellist Pablo Ferrández

Sony Classical Releases Moonlight Variations
New Album by Cellist Pablo Ferrández

Out Today
Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33: Var. 6. Andante - Listen Here

Album Release Date: May 23, 2025
Pre-Order Available Now

Pablo Ferrández Unites Moonlit Nocturnes with Sunlit Tchaikovsky

Star cellist Pablo Ferrández has realized a twenty-year dream to record Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations on his latest album for Sony Classical, combining the spirited work with melancholy nocturnes to create Moonlight Variations - an album he describes as ‘night followed by day.’ The album will be released internationally on May 23, 2025 - pre-order is available now. Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33: Var. 6. Andante is out today – listen here.

The night-time has long fascinated Ferrández. On his new album, he assembles eleven handpicked gems by composers from Antonín Dvořák to Manuel Ponce that speak of the heightened emotional intimacy of the dark hours. The cellist has arranged songs, piano nocturnes, violin works and an opera aria. ‘I feel more creative at night,’ says the cellist. ‘I’m not alone in that. So many composers have written special music connected to this time. They all felt a difference in the world once the sun had gone down.’

In addition to Tchaikovsky’s extended variation set, recorded in Örebro with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Martin Fröst, Ferrández includes movements from Liszt’s Liebestraum and Schumann’s Kinderszenen, transcriptions of piano nocturnes by Chopin and songs by Schubert and Debussy. The album also includes two additional works by Tchaikovsky including the composer’s own arrangement for cello and orchestra of his ‘Nocturne’ from 6 Pieces for Piano.

‘We made a decision to make our arrangements true to the instrument I’m playing while not removing the piece from its original concept,’ says Ferrández. ‘The idea was to give each piece a personality of its own that suits the cello. I was thinking, of course, of singing - of that more human kind of expression. One reason I love to play lieder is that we always try to sing though the cello.’

The recording constitutes Ferrández’s first on the 1689 Archinto Stradivarius he recently acquired. ‘I haven’t heard any other cello with this warmth and I think it really suits my vocal approach and the mellow feeling I wanted to convey here,’ he says.

Ferrández’s attitude to the night hours is supported by recent scientific research, which suggests the brain’s neurotransmitters shift gear markedly at night, opening up pathways to pleasure and communication. ‘My timing feels different at night,’ days Ferrández, ‘I am somehow more relaxed, more open.’

Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations is a staple of the concertante repertoire for solo cellists. Ferrández has played the work for twenty years. He relished the opportunity to record it with fellow Sony artist Martin Fröst and his Swedish Chamber Orchestra. ‘I just love Martin as a musician, he is full of intuition and sensibility and is incredibly inspiring,’ says Ferrández. ‘I have played with him a few times and I think he must be the best clarinetist in history. As a conductor, I thought he would be a perfect fit for the Rococo Variations because of his expertise in Mozart. Mozart was Tchaikovsky’s favorite composer and Tchaikovsky is clearly channeling something of his Classical spirit in this piece.’

Joining Ferrández for the piano and cello works is his regular piano partner Julien Quentin. ‘Julien is a great musician and a great friend,’ says the cellist. ‘We have previously recorded night-themed music together for Sony, which came out of our Night Sessions project where we would gather musicians and friends together at Julien’s house and play, talk and drink wine. We have tried to capture the same atmosphere in our collaboration on this album. Every time we play together it feels like being at home.’

Pablo Ferrández was born in 1991 Madrid and named after the great Spanish cellist, Pablo Casals. He released his debut solo album on Sony in 2021 to critical acclaim and has since recorded as a concerto partner with Anne-Sophie Mutter and won an Opus Klassik Awards.

Christopher Jesina 2/11/25 Christopher Jesina 2/11/25

APRIL 25: Sony Classical Presents Eugene Ormandy – The RCA Victor Recordings 1935-42

Sony Classical Presents Eugene Ormandy – The RCA Victor Recordings 1935-42

Sony Classical Presents
Eugene Ormandy – The RCA Victor Recordings 1935-42

Album Release Date: April 25, 2025
Reviewer Rate Available Upon Request
Pre-Order Available Now

16 recordings on CD for the first time ever
55 recordings for the first time on CD as authorized releases from the original masters

1931 was the breakthrough year for 32-year-old Hungarian immigrant Eugene Ormandy. First, he was engaged by the Philadelphia Orchestra to deputize for his idol Toscanini, who was briefly indisposed. Then, a few months later, he was asked to step in for the conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, also indisposed – but in this case permanently. Soon Ormandy was hired to take over that rising Midwestern orchestra. At the end of his five-year tenure in Minneapolis, which produced a considerable discography for RCA Victor (available in an 11-CD Sony Classical box set), Ormandy was called back to Philadelphia, this time to become its co-conductor with Leopold Stokowski. In 1936, he began recording regularly for Victor with his new orchestra, picking up the pace in 1938 when he became its sole music director. Sony Classical is pleased to continue its comprehensive documentation of Eugene Ormandy’s discography with a new 21-CD release of everything he set down in Philadelphia before the ban on commercial recording instigated by the musicians’ union in 1942. By the time the strike ended in 1944, Ormandy and the orchestra had moved to Columbia Masterworks. The set will be released on April 25, 2025. Pre-order is available now.

As connoisseurs have long known, these early Philadelphia albums are among the most impressive performances Ormandy set down in over 40 years at the orchestra’s helm. The first to be released – fittingly enough for a Russian music specialist – was Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” Symphony, recorded by Victor on December 13, 1936. That three-hour session in Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, the orchestra’s home, was the first of more than 400 led by Ormandy. And it was highly productive – Ormandy had a reputation as a fast worker – yielding not only the Tchaikovsky, but also two Bach arrangements by Lucien Cailliet, a Philadelphia Orchestra clarinetist and its staff arranger, the first three movements of Schumann’s Second Symphony and, most importantly, Fritz Kreisler’s arrangement of Paganini’s D major Violin Concerto, with Kreisler himself as soloist.

More Tchaikovsky followed during this early Victor stint: in 1941, Ormandy and the Philadelphians recorded the Fifth Symphony and the Nutcracker Suite. The latter’s matrices suffered from processing problems that rendered them too noisy to release until now. The orchestra’s contract, however, allowed them to re-make the recording for RCA in 1945, even though they’d already gone over to Columbia, and it has been possible to include both versions here.

Ormandy recorded Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, one of his most celebrated interpretations, in 1937, but not in the familiar Ravel orchestration that he would always use later. Having just taken over as sole conductor of the orchestra after Stokowski’s resignation, he wanted his own version of the Pictures, so he commissioned a new score from the orchestra’s house arranger, Lucien Cailliet.

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s most famous Russian connection was with Sergei Rachmaninoff, who premièred a number of his works with them during Stokowski’s tenure. When Ormandy assumed the music directorship, he was thrilled to continue the partnership – especially as he had developed a friendship with the composer at his 1931 Minneapolis SO début concert, in which Rachmaninoff was the soloist. The partnership reached its height in late 1939 when Ormandy mounted a “Rachmaninoff Festival” at the Academy of Music and New York’s Carnegie Hall to mark the 30th anniversary of his Philadelphia Orchestra début. They also took advantage of the opportunity to record three of Rachmaninoff’s concertos for RCA, the First, Third and Fourth, legendary performances that have never been out of the catalogue and are, of course, reissued here.

At the Budapest Academy, Ormandy had studied the violin with a pupil of Brahms’s great friend Joseph Joachim – who also encouraged Ormandy as a child, so Brahms’s music was in his blood from the beginning. As a conductor, Brahms’s symphonies were at the core of his repertoire, and he gave more performances of them with the Philadelphia Orchestra than any other conductor in American musical history. He first recorded the Second with the Philadelphians anonymously for the “World’s Greatest Music” series in March 1939, and nine months later conducted a tauter, “official” version for release on RCA. Both are included here along with Ormandy’s other recordings for “World’s Greatest Music”, all made in 1938: the Mozart G minor, Beethoven’s Fifth, Schubert’s “Unfinished” and the Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 2 and 3.

Two other famous Brahms recordings from 1939 are the Alto Rhapsody with Marian Anderson and the Double Concerto with Jascha Heifetz and Emanuel Feuermann, about which Gramophone’s original reviewer wrote: “Rarely can the powers of two string players have been so fully extended, so richly proved … The whole thing is tremendous: a manifestation, for all who have an ear of the soul, of the composer’s greatness of heart and mind.”

Soloists revered Ormandy throughout his career. Said Isaac Stern: “There was not a single conductor who was a greater colleague in the making of a concerto record.” In addition to the Brahms Double and the Paganini First Concerto with Kreisler, mentioned earlier, the new Sony collection reissues the Mendelssohn and Spohr’s No. 8 with another famous violinist, Albert Spalding, and the Grieg Piano Concerto with Arthur Rubinstein: “A glittering specimen and exuberantly played … The best of the modern readings” (Gramophone).

Sibelius was another leading composer Ormandy knew personally and performed regularly – he also visited him in Finland and brought him to Philadelphia. For an album to mark the composer’s 75th birthday in 1940, he recorded three tone poems, while the next year saw a new recording of the First Symphony (Ormandy’s earlier one was made in Minneapolis in 1935), which he identified as “the first of the master’s symphonies I ever conducted”. Two further versions would follow, in 1962 (for Columbia) and in 1978 (for RCA).

Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra were Victor’s chief Richard Strauss exponents during these years, making the first electrical recording of the Symphonia Domestica in 1938, followed in 1939 by Ein Heldenleben and in 1940 by Don Quixote, with Emanuel Feuermann. Hindemith’s “Mathis der Maler” Symphony was still a new work when Ormandy recorded it in 1940, only six years after the composer introduced it with his own Berlin Philharmonic recording. Strauss family waltzes had already featured in Ormandy’s Minneapolis recordings. The three waltzes in this Philadelphia set earned praise from Gramophone in 1942: “You will enjoy the brilliance of the combinations of tone, and their balance – one of the exciting things about all the best American recordings … Here is full-voiced tonal splendour.”

American music was a prominent feature of this conductor’s repertoire – he was always eager to promote the composers of his adopted homeland. Here we find the first recording of any work by Gian Carlo Menotti, his Amelia Goes to the Ball Overture, and the earliest recording of an orchestral work by Samuel Barber, his First Essay for Orchestra, as well as pieces by Roy Harris and two Sousa marches from the orchestra’s last session before the musicians’ strike shut down commercial recording for the next three years. But not before Ormandy and his Philadelphians had amassed the treasures brought together here for the first time.

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Spohr: Violin Concerto No. 8 in A Minor, Op. 47 "Gesangscene"
Paganini: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 6: I. Allegro maestoso - Tempo giusto

DISC 2:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Schumann: Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61

DISC 3:

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 "Pathétique"
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (suite), Op. 71a
Rimsky-Korsakov (arr. Ormandy): Christmas Eve, Act III: Church Scene (first release)

DISC 4:

Mussorgsky (arr. Cailliet): Pictures at an Exhibition
Liszt: Les Préludes, S. 97
Enescu: Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A Major, Op. 11
Debussy (arr. O'Connell) I: Préludes, Book I, L. 117: No. 12, Minstrels (first release)

DISC 5:

Beethoven: Ah perfido!, Op. 65 - Konzertarie für Sopran und Orchester
Weber: Oberon, Act II: "Ozean Du Ungeheuer"
Beethoven: Fidelio, Op. 72, Act I: "Abscheulicher, Wo Eilst Du Hin?"
Wagner: Die Walküre, WWV 86B, Act I: "Du bist der Lenz"
Wagner: Die Walküre, WWV 86B, Act II: "Ho-Yo-To-Ho" - Hans Lange, conductor
Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75, Act I: Elsas Traum - Hans Lange, conductor
Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75, Act II, Scene 2: "Euch Lüften, die mein Klagen "
Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV 70, Act II: "Dich teure Halle, grüß ich wieder" - Hans Lange, conductor
Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV 70, Act III: Elisabeths Gebet - Hans Lange, conductor
Wagner: Götterdämmerung, WWV 86D, Act III: "Starke Scheite schichtet mir dort" (Brünnhilde's Immolation)
Bach, J.S.: Cantata No. 140: Now Let Every Tongue Adore Thee
Charpentier: Louise, Act III: "Depuis le jour où je me suis donnée"
Debussy: L'enfant prodigue, L. 57: "L'année, en vain chasse l'année"

DISC 6:

Wagner: Die Walküre, WWV 86B, Act I: Winterstürme "Spring Song"
Wagner: Siegfried, WWV 86c, Act I: "Notung! Notung! Neidliches Schwert!"
Wagner: Siegfried, WWV 86c, Act I: Schmiedelied "Hoho! Hoho! Hohei" Schmiede, mein Hammer" - Edwin McArthur, conductor
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96, Act I: "Am stillen Herd"
Wagner: Die Meistersinger, WWV 96, Act III: Morgenlich leuchtend "Prize Song"
Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75, Act III: "In fernem Land" "Lohengrin's Narrative"
Wagner: Parsifal, WWV 111, Act III: "Nur eine Waffe taugt"
Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder, WWV 91: No. 4, Schmerzen}
Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder, WWV 91: No. 5, Träume
Wagner: The Flying Dutchman, WWV 63, Act I: Steuermann Lied - Edwin McArthur, conductor
Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV 70, Act I: "Dir töne Lob!" - Edwin McArthur, conductor
Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV 70, Act III: Rome Narrative - Edwin McArthur, conductor
Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75, Act III: Mein lieber Schwan "Lohengrins Abschied und Finale"
Wagner: Parsifal, WWV 111, Act II: "Amfortas! Die Wunde!"
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96, Act III: "Tanz der Lehrbuben"

DISC 7:

Strauss, R.: Sinfonia Domestica, Op. 53
Strauss, R.: Der Rosenkavalier, Suite, TrV 227d

DISC 8:

McDonald: Symphony No. 1 "The Santa Fé Trail"
McDonald: From Childhood "Suite for Harp and Orchestra" – Harl McDonald, conductor
McDonald: Cakewalk - Scherzo from Symphony No. 4
McDonald: 3 Poems on Aramaic Themes

DISC 9:

Vivaldi (arr. Cailliet): L'estro armonico, Op 3, No. 8: Concerto for 2 Violins in A Minor (Arr. Lucien Cailliet)
Purcell (arr. Cailliet): Suite from Dido and Aeneas
Mozart: Divertimento No. 10 in F Major for Strings and 2 Horns, K. 247
Telemann: Ouverture-Suite, TWV 55: a2
Jenkins (arr. Cailliet): Five-Part Fantasy in D Major (first release)

DISC 10:

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 1
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Minor, Op. 40

DISC 11:

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30
Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16

DISC 12:

Brahms: Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, Op. 102
R. Strauss: Don Quixote, Op. 35: Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character

DISC 13:

Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73
Brahms: Alto Rhapsody, Op. 53 "Harzreise im Winter"
Brahms (orch. Hertz): 8 Lieder and Songs, Op. 59, No. 8: Dein blaues Auge hält so still
Brahms (orch. Hertz): 5 Poems, Op. 19, No. 4: Der Schmied
Brahms (orch. Hertz): 5 Lieder, Op. 105: "Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer"
Brahms (orch. Hertz): Von ewiger Liebe, Op. 43, No. 1

DISC 14:

Strauss, R.: Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé - Suite No. 2

DISC 15:

Sibelius: Finlandia, Op. 26
Sibelius: Lemminkäinen Suite, Op. 22, No. 2: The Swan of Tuonela
Sibelius: Lemminkäinen Suite, Op. 22, No. 4: Lemminkäinen's Return
Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39

DISC 16:

Hindemith: Mathis der Maler Symphony
Menotti: Amelia Goes to the Ball - Overture
Barber: First Essay for Orchestra, Op. 12
Harris: 3 Pieces for Orchestra
Sousa: Washington Post March
Sousa: The Stars and Stripes Forever

DISC 17:

Bach, J.S. (arr. Cailliet): Prelude and Fugue in F Minor, BWV 534 (Arranged for Orchestra by Lucien Cailliet)
Bach, J.S. (arr. Cailliet): Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (from Cantata No. 147, BWV 147)
Bach, J.S. (arr. Cailliet): Preludio in E Major from Partita No 3 for Violin Unaccompanied, BWV 1006 – Leopold Stokowski, conductor
Bach, J.S. (arr. Cailliet): Prelude and Fugue in B Minor, BWV 544
Bach, J.S. (arr. O'Connell): St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244: Herzliebster Jesu
Strauss, Johann II: Frühlingsstimmen - Walzer, Op. 410
Strauss, Johann II: Wiener Blut Walzer, Op. 354
Strauss, Johann II: Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437

DISC 18:

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (suite), Op. 71a
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 5. in E Minor, Op. 64

DISC 19:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67
Schubert: Symphony No. 8 in B Minor, D.759 "Unfinished"

DISC 20:

Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550
Bach, J.S.: Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047
Bach, J.S.: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048

DISC 21:

Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73

Christina Jensen 2/4/25 Christina Jensen 2/4/25

March 21: Sony Classical Releases Songs With Words New Album from Vocalist & Composer Malakoff Kowalski – Debut Single When I Died, Love feat. Igor Levit Out Now

Sony Classical Releases Songs with Words
New Album from Vocalist and Composer Malakoff Kowalski
with Pianists Igor Levit, Johanna Summer, and Chilly Gonzales

Out Now: Debut Single When I Died, Love
Featuring Igor Levit
Listen Here | Watch Here

Album Release Date: March 21, 2025
Pre-Order Available Now

Songs With Words is the new album by vocalist and composer Malakoff Kowalski, together with pianists Igor Levit, Johanna Summer, and Chilly Gonzales. Set for release on March 21, 2025 and available for pre-order now, the new Sony Classical album features miniatures by classical composers coupled with sung poems by American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Reflecting on Felix Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words, this extraordinary quartet presents a new kind of music, and possibly a whole new genre that has never before appeared in this form either in classical music, jazz, or pop. Accompanying the album news is the first track release, When I Died, Love featuring pianist Igor Levit - watch the official video .

In his liner notes, Kowalski, the Berlin-based German-American composer and singer of Persian origin, succinctly describes the album thus: “It took about five years to birth these twelve songs. They were assembled from both famous and lesser-known miniatures by Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Aram Khachaturian, Maurice Ravel, Edvard Grieg, Amy Beach, Germaine Tailleferre, Claude Debussy, and Gabriel Fauré. I kept unearthing timeless, intimate, vulnerable poems from Ginsberg’s oeuvre, and for some reason, again and again, these poems, with little or no reworking, functioned very naturally as song lyrics. The quiet, inner-directed vocals strictly followed the piano’s motifs and themes, while the piano parts, in turn, stuck to their original versions, with only the most imperceptible of alterations here and there.”

The result is a song cycle reminiscent of Tom Waits, Jim Morrison, and David Bowie, infused with the musicality of Bill Evans, Kurt Weill, and Michel Legrand. Malakoff Kowalski describes it as a great stroke of luck that three of his closest musician friends played the piano on this album in order to transform a mere concept into actual music: “Three personalities with contrasting pianistic spirits, as distinct as the material we engaged with here: Igor Levit, whom I love above all for his three great Bs: Busoni, Bach, Brahms. Johanna Summer, who improvises between jazz and classical so freely and so thoroughly that it makes me dizzy with joy. And Chilly Gonzales, who with SOLO PIANO and its successors, has done more for contemporary miniatures than any other living composer.”

With the album Songs With Words, this remarkable group has created a fascinating interplay between the pristine European piano tradition and the American poetry of the Beat Generation.

“All I know: my parents were born in Tehran, I was born in Boston, I grew up in Hamburg and I now live in Berlin. I love nothing more than music. Everything else equals question marks, exclamation marks and dashes.” This is how musician and composer Malakoff Kowalski describes himself. VOGUE magazine named him “The Piano Poet,” fellow musician Chilly Gonzales regards him as one of his “favorite living composers.”

Kowalski refers to Debussy, Scriabin and Frederic Mompou as his influences—while Jazz and Psychedelic music from the fifties and sixties is just as important to him. “One is being forced to listen closely. Kowalski’s compositions may appear to be rather simple, but the world hidden inside them is most complex. From unresolved harmonic turns to frequent musical quotations—it remains unclear on how many different levels his music takes place. Its calm is only a facade.” (Concerti Magazine)

In addition to his solo music, recorded on seven albums to date, Malakoff Kowalski composes for film and theater as well. As a writer he publishes passionate and controversial music critiques. In his concerts the auditorium is entirely dark, with a small reading lamp above the grand piano and a white spotlight being the only sources of light.

Igor Levit, who recently premiered a work specially written for him by Kowalski at the Salzburg Festival, raves about his compositions: “Ferruccio Busoni once said, ‘Music is sonorous air.’ That’s what this music is. Most wonderful sonorous air.”

Malakoff Kowalski, Vocals
Igor Levit / Johanna Summer / Chilly Gonzales, Piano
Songs With Words

Tracklist:

1. Dry Old Rose (Ft. Johanna Summer)

2. Shadow Changes into Bone (Ft. Igor Levit)

3. When I Died, Love (Ft. Igor Levit)

4. See the World Go Wild (Ft. Chilly Gonzales)

5. Interlude #A

6. A Strange Wild Leaf (Ft. Johanna Summer)

7. The Weight of the World Is Love (Ft. Igor Levit)

8. Until They Try (Ft. Johanna Summer)

9. An Empty Hungry Ghost (Ft. Johanna Summer)

10. Interlude #B

11. One Day (Ft. Igor Levit)

12. The Nightingale at Night (Ft. Chilly Gonzales)

13. Dawn (Ft. Johanna Summer)

14. Awake (Ft. Chilly Gonzales)

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com.

Christina Jensen 2/4/25 Christina Jensen 2/4/25

April 11: Leif Ove Andsnes Releases New Album on Sony Classical – Franz Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works

Water color with gray background and dark gray-blue rectangle at bottom. In the foreground is a yellow and orange water colored person looking down. — Album Artwork (Download)

Leif Ove Andsnes Unveils the Hidden Side of Liszt

New Album to be Released on Sony Classical
Franz Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works

Out Today: Consolations No. 3 – Listen Here

Album Release Date: April 11, 2025
Pre-Order Available Now

The pianist explores the introspective beauty of Liszt’s consolations and the spiritual depth of Via Crucis with the Norwegian Soloist Choir, led by Grete Pedersen

“a pianist of magisterial elegance, power, and insight.” – The New York Times

“as usual with the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, blend is exquisite, intonation perfect and articulation superlative.” – Gramophone

On his latest album Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works for Sony Classical, Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes unveils the often-forgotten side of the famed virtuoso Franz Liszt - the sacred music that offers a more intimate picture of the man and his deeply held faith. The new album, Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works, is set for release on April 11, 2025 and available for pre-order now. The first single, Consolations No. 3 is out today – listen here.

With acclaimed vocal ensemble the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Andsnes has recorded Liszt’s remarkable late work Via Crucis (The Way of the Cross’) for choir and piano. The pianist completes his all-Liszt album with the solo piano work Consolations and two movements from the composer’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses.

Franz Liszt is often described as the ‘first virtuoso’ - a superstar pianist and composer who invented the piano recital and whose fame and following in the nineteenth century were unprecedented. Much of Liszt’s reputation hangs on sweeping virtuosic showpieces so technically challenging that only Liszt could play them.

But that is only half the story. In 1847, at the age of just 35, Liszt retired from public performance to focus on writing and teaching. Thirteen years later he took another step back, taking Holy Orders and embarking upon a new life of religious devotion and creative introspection.

In this later period, a new aesthetic took root in Liszt, one characterized by austere, spare and sometimes inscrutable musical utterances that tended to question more than they assert. ‘I find Liszt’s religious music fascinating,’ says Andsnes, who has lived with Liszt’s music since childhood. ‘This is very different music, with so few notes but with a tension and beauty.’

One of the major statements of Liszt’s late period was Via Crucis, a journey through the Roman Catholic tradition’s Stations of the Cross for choir and piano, written in Rome in 1866 but considered too unusual by Liszt’s publisher and never performed in the composer’s lifetime. It wasn’t until 1929 that the work was given its first airing, on Good Friday, in the capital of the composer’s native Hungary, Budapest.

Via Crucis is unlike any other work in the repertoire: a concentrated ritual drama, ranging from liturgical chant to Lisztian chromaticism at its most searching and expressive. It sets a pianist and choir in dialogue with one another, each performing alone as well as together.

“This is something very different,” says Andnsnes. “It is incredible, the journey Liszt made as a composer, from this very flamboyant virtuosic style to [Via Crucis], which is very bare, with so few notes, but still an incredible tension and beauty. It points forward to the twentieth century while also building on the tradition of scared music.”

The work’s unusual scoring gave Andsnes the opportunity to extend his long-standing collaboration with the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir - one of the finest vocal ensembles in the world and a seasoned recording group, consisting of 26 handpicked professional singers.

“Via Crucis tells a story about a man who gave his life for others, and at the same time is so much about humanity,” says Grete Pedersen, artistic director of the choir; “it is a piece with a lot of question marks, and I hope listeners will feel that.”

“We live in a world of pain and conflict and Via Crucis offers room for empathy, for philosophical thought, and for the taking-in of different emotions,” says Andsnes. “Audiences seem to be mesmerized by it. It really is a special work in which you can discover so much beauty.” He likens the work to ‘14 miniature tone poems’.

The musicians examined the piece extensively before recording it together in Oslo, performing it in concert and attempting to fathom is unusual scoring in which piano and choir are sometimes partners yet sometimes sound diametrically opposed.

“It was inspiring to be in the middle of the sound of a choir of this quality,” says Andsnes; “I was inspired by the exacting way Grete and the Soloists’ Choir do these things. Their attention to detail is so great, which is important in music that is so fragile.” Grete Pedersen comments: “If any pianist can make the piano sing, it’s Leif Ove.”

Completing the program is music from two earlier cycles by Liszt that prove there was always more to his musical outlook than showmanship and virtuosity. A mood of thoughtful reflection dominates the composer’s Consolations, written on the eve of the composer’s retirement from public performance and in a paired-back idiom that alternates the lyrical, the winsome and the forthright before dissolving into silence.

Two of the six movements are cast in the key of E major, the tonality Liszt reserved for music addressing the divine. “ find the Consolations so tender, so intimate, speaking from heart to heart,” says Andsnes. “But still, they have different styles, from the spiritual to the dramatic. They are so wonderfully written for the piano; it always sings.”

Andsnes’s album also includes two movements from Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, a magnificent 10-movement cycle written in 1853, inspired by poetry by Alphonse de Lamartine. Andsnes describes the ‘Andante Lagrimoso’ as “full of sorrow.”

The other movement from the set, which ends the album, is something else entirely. Liszt’s ‘Miserere, d’après Palestrina’ is a startling creation written in homage to Italy’s great Renaissance polyphonic composer, which treats a chant-like theme with an almost improvisatory spontaneity. “It ends with an enormous flourish,” says Andsnes, “it’s a relief after all the intimate music we have been through. But it also brings us back to the very beginning of the album, as the Via Crucis begins with a Gregorian chant.”

Franz Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works
TRACKLIST
Via Crucis, S. 53

1          Vexilla regis
2          Station I: Jesus wird zum Tode verdammt
3          Station II: Jesus trägt sein Kreuz
4          Station III: Jesus fällt zum ersten Mal
5          Station IV: Jesus begegnet seiner heiligen Mutter
6          Station V: Simon von Kyrene hilft Jesus das Kreuz tragen
7          Station VI: Sancta Veronica
8          Station VII: Jesus fällt zum zweiten Mal
9          Station VIII: Die Frauen von Jerusalem
10        Station IX: Jesus fällt zum dritten Mal
11        Station X: Jesus wird entkleidet
12        Station XI: Jesus wird ans Kreuz geschlagen
13        Station XII: Jesus stirbt am Kreuze
14        Station XIII: Jesus wird vom Kreuz genommen
15        Station XIV: Jesus wird ins Grab gelegt

Consolations, S. 172

16        No. 1 in E Major. Andante con moto
17        No. 2 in E Major. Un poco più mosso
18        No. 3 in D-Flat Major. Lento placido
19        No. 4 in D-Flat Major. Quasi adagio
20        No. 5 in E Major. Andantino
21        No. 6 in E Major. Allegretto sempre cantabile

Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S. 173

22 No. 9. Andante lagrimoso
23 No. 8. Miserere, d'après Palestrina. Largo

FOLLOW LEIF OVE ANDSNES

Website: http://www.andsnes.com/
Facebook: @LeifOveAndsnes
Instagram: @leifoveandsnes
YouTube: @LeifOveAndsnesTV

Christina Jensen 1/30/25 Christina Jensen 1/30/25

OUT NOW: Violinist Esther Abrami Presents Wiegala – First Single from New Album on Sony Classical to be Released April 25

Violinist Esther Abrami Presents Wiegala on Sony Classical

Dark night sky with blue and white stars concentrated in lower right hand corner. White text "Esther Abrami" at top and "Wiegala" at bottom of the album cover.

Violinist Esther Abrami Presents Wiegala

First Single from New Album on Sony Classical
Listen Here | Watch Music Video

Album Release Date: April 25, 2025

Esther Abrami presents moving lullaby by Jewish composer Ilse Weber in honour of International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Violinist Esther Abrami releases a poignant new interpretation of Wiegala a lullaby by Jewish poet and composer Ilse Weber. Arranged for violin and string quintet by Abrami herself, the song is available now, alongside a music video - watch here in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Ilse Weber (1903–1944) was a Czech-born Jewish poet, writer, and composer known for her children’s books and heartfelt songs, many of which she wrote during her imprisonment in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. “Wiegala, a lullaby which she composed during this time, stands as a testament to Weber’s courage and compassion. While working as a nurse for children in the camp, Weber offered music as a source of comfort and hope when medicine was unavailable. She composed songs, led performances, and even formed a choir, bringing light into one of history’s darkest chapters. When the children were deported to Auschwitz in 1944, she chose to accompany them, singing “Wiegala” with them for the last time before she was murdered, alongside the children she had cared for.

Esther Abrami’s delicate arrangement captures the profound emotional depth of the piece, honoring Weber’s legacy and highlighting the enduring power of music in the face of unimaginable adversity. Wiegala is the first single from Abrami’s forthcoming album, which will exclusively feature works by female composers. The Sony Classical album will be released on April 25, 2025. Wiegala is available in both Stereo and Dolby Atmos.

About Esther Abrami

Esther Abrami is much more than a musician: she's an inspiration to a new generation of music enthusiasts. Through her large social media platform, Esther shares her passion for music, performance, and practice sessions and shares behind-the-scenes glimpses into her life as a musician with an ever-growing community worldwide. With her dazzling talent, infectious personality, and boundless enthusiasm for music-making, Esther Abrami is a rising star.

Born in 1996 in Aix-en-Provence, the violinist studied at the Royal College of Music and completed her master's degree at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, for which she received a full scholarship. In 2019, she became the first classical musician ever to win the ‘Social Media Superstar’ category at the Global Awards and in 2021 she was featured in Classic FM's ‘30 under 30 Classical Artists to Watch’ series, curated by Julian Lloyd Webber and was listed as a ‘Rising Star’ by BBC Music Magazine. In the UK, Esther Abrami is considered one of the most promising young classical artists of her generation and has been appointed Creative Partner and Artist in Residence by the English Symphony Orchestra. With her debut album ‘Esther Abrami’ (2022), the follow up “Cinema” (2023) and an EP “Spotlight” dedicated to women composers recorded with ‘Her Ensemble’, a free-form group that seeks to address the gender gap and gender stereotypes in the music industry, Esther has become an artist who achieves wide attention outside the classical sphere and on social media. In her podcast ‘Woman in Classical’, Esther Abrami regularly interviews outstanding women musicians and composers from the world of classical music with the hope of inspiring young people to pursue a career in music. Esther Abrami plays a violin by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, kindly provided by Beare's International Violin Society.

Follow Esther Abrami

Website: https://www.estherabrami.com/
Instagram: @estherabrami
TikTok: @estherabrami
Facebook: @estherabramiviolin
X: @estherabrami
YouTube: @estherabrami

Christopher Jesina 1/17/25 Christopher Jesina 1/17/25

March 7: Pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason Releases Debut Solo Album Fantasie on Sony Classical

Jeneba Kanneh-Mason sits in front of a grand piano.

Pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason
Releases Debut Solo Album on Sony Classical
Fantasie

New Single: Summerland by William Grant Still
Listen Here | Watch the Music Video

Album Release Date: March 7, 2025
Pre-Order Available Now

Jeneba Kanneh-Mason has a passion for curating programmes that cross diverse musical landscapes, and on her debut solo album Fantasie, she takes listeners on a journey that explores connections across different composers’ sound worlds – whether they met, influenced each other, or simply existed in resonance.

From Claude Debussy, Frédéric Chopin and Alexander Scriabin to Florence Price, Margaret Bonds and William Grant Still, Jeneba presents a programme which is also very personal to her as an artist. “I’ve always loved coming up with quite complex programmes which flow really nicely from one piece to the other and all these works mean a lot to me” she says. “By gathering them here for my debut album, I am not only revealing more of myself as a musician, but also sharing the very different styles of music I grew up listening to.”

William Grant Still’s 1935 Summerland - released today alongside album launch, listen here and watch the music video - perfectly illustrates Jeneba’s sense of the composers and their inter-connecting soundworlds. “I hear a lot of similarity between Still & Debussy” she explains. “I think that they occupy a similar sound world. ‘Summerland’ is very beautiful and it’s about a soul reaching heaven, and you can definitely hear that in the music. Like the Debussy Preludes, it’s very tranquil, but also harmonically complex… when you listen to it, you’re transported.”

Frédéric Chopin is central to Jeneba’s repertoire, and she opens with his Second Piano Sonata in B flat minor, Op 35, one of his most powerful works, celebrated for its emotional depth and technical brilliance. This is followed by The Nocturnes, Op 27, two contrasting pieces that illustrate Chopin’s mastery in evoking complex emotions in music. “These pieces need to feel as if they’re being improvised” she reveals. “I’ve had to know the notes inside out, so that when I come to perform it, I can see what happens. With Chopin, I don’t feel like I do the same thing every time.”

From Chopin she takes us into the sound world of Claude Debussy and his Préludes - ‘La fille aux cheveux de lin’ (‘The girl with flaxen hair’ from Book 1) and ‘Bruyères’ (‘Mists’ from Book 2), both of which evoke delicate, atmospheric worlds, where simplicity belies harmonic depth.

Then in a nod to the Russian tradition, Jeneba plays three works by Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915), who, like Chopin, expanded the piano’s expressive capacity. Two of his Op 11 Preludes, youthful works, and his Sonata No 2 offer her a canvas of harmonic daring and rhythmic freedom. “They both have a beautiful way of making the piano sing” she comments on Chopin & Scriabin. “You can hear Chopin’s influence in Scriabin’s music as he sometimes has these Chopin-esque decorations over the melodies. What I also really love about Scriabin’s music is that it’s very colourful. When he goes to a specific key, it’s important for him that it’s that key, and not any other key.”

Anchoring her programme’s central section are three African-American composers dear to Jeneba’s heart – Florence Price (1887-1953), Margaret Bonds (1913-1972) and William Grant Still (1895-1978) – each in their way pioneering new modes of musical expression. Jeneba’s affinity for Florence Price is palpable, dating back to her 2021 BBC Proms debut with Price’s Piano Concerto. Jeneba notes “I was very grateful to be able to perform Florence Price’s music at the BBC Proms and I am delighted to have her on my album as well. In lots of concerts when I have played her Fantasie in E Minor, people have come to me after the performance and said: ‘that was my favourite piece; that’s what I really loved’. I think it’s because her music is very vulnerable and instantly speaks to the heart. She has such a distinct style to which a lot of people can relate. Maybe it’s the passion and her direct connection to the Spirituals that she uses that makes her music so emotional and easy to connect to.”

Troubled Water by Margaret Bonds – who was a pupil and friend of Florence Price and a champion of her music and who played Price’s Concerto at its premiere in 1934 – is based on the Spiritual ‘Wade in the Water’ and combines syncopations, jazz influences and virtuoso demands. “The Spiritual in ‘Troubled Water’ is ‘Wade in the Water’ and I grew up listening to that when I was very young, so it’s nice to have a piece where you can really hear the pianistic side of Margaret Bonds’ playing and how she’s managed to weave in the Spiritual. There’s this sense of rhythm which follows through the whole piece and it’s a constant pulse underneath the Spiritual. It was an easy choice for me to include Margaret Bonds’ ‘Troubled Water’ on my debut album” Jeneba remarks, emphasizing the rhythmic intensity Bonds brings to her work.

William Grant Still’s Summerland’is a vision of paradise, and it suggests to Jeneba a similar musical world to the Debussy Préludes. It offers a delicate, rising hymn to transcendence and is the central movement of his Three Visions. “It's so beautiful and visual, yet delicate and intimate as well. It starts very simply, and then even though it grows in the left hand and the accompaniment becomes more harmonically complex, it stays in this peaceful Paradise world. Then the pitch gets higher and higher, as if the soul is lifting to heaven”.

The third youngest of the prodigiously musical Kanneh-Mason family, 22-year-old Jeneba knows instinctively who she is as a musician. “We are a very close-knit family and yet we all have very individual personalities” she explains. “We constantly influence each other, and I have learned a lot from my siblings - and still do. We all have our own voices yet can always turn to each other for support. Isata is six years older than me and she gave me a lot of lessons when I was younger. She’s always been a massive inspiration for me, and she’s already released many albums, so I feel like I’m following in her footsteps.”

Jeneba Kanneh-Mason is a musician deeply committed to her craft, relishing the challenges of performance and recording and dedicated to her audience, whether in the concert hall or via her recordings and is a talented young artist for whom mastery isn’t just technical but emotional too.

Fantasie will be released internationally on March 7, 2025 on Sony Classical.

Tracklist

Chopin: Piano Sonata No.2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35
1. I. Grave - Doppio movimento
2. II. Scherzo
3. III. Marche funèbre (Lento)
4. IV. Finale (Presto)
5. Chopin: Nocturne No. 7 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 1
6. Chopin: Nocturne No. 8 in D-Flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2
7. Price: Fantasie Nègre No. 1 in E Minor
8. Bonds: Troubled Water
9. Still: Three Visions: II. Summerland
10. Debussy: La fille aux cheveux de lin
11. Debussy: Bruyères
12. Scriabin: 24 Preludes, Op. 11: No. 1 in C Major
13. Scriabin: 24 Preludes, Op. 11: No. 11 in B Major - Allegro assai
Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 2 in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 19 "Sonata Fantasy"
14. I. Andante
15. II. Presto

Christopher Jesina 1/13/25 Christopher Jesina 1/13/25

Jan. 31: Sony Classical Releases The World Of Hans Zimmer Part II: A New Dimension – New Single Dune II Suite Out Today

Sony Classical Releases
The World Of Hans Zimmer – Part II: A New Dimension

Out Today: Dune II Suite
Listen Here

Featuring Composer’s Acclaimed Film Music In Captivating Orchestral Suites Includes New Arrangements Of Iconic Themes From
Dune II, No Time To Die, The Rock, The Prince Of Egypt

New Album Release Date: January 31, 2025
Pre-Order Now

Sony Classical announces the release of Dune II Suite from the forthcoming double album, The World Of Hans Zimmer – Part II: A New Dimension available January 31, 2025 - pre-order here. The highly anticipated sequel to the acclaimed 2019 album The World of Hans Zimmer – A Symphonic Celebration features over 2 hours of music, reimagining 17 of the legendary composer’s most iconic film scores. Melding the grandeur of symphonic music with the dynamic power of Zimmer’s cinematic compositions, this album transforms more of his most successful soundtracks into epic new orchestral suites. Highlights include a short, captivating “cello-concerto-like” version of Final Ascent from No Time to Die, a tranquil rendition of A Time of Quiet Between the Storms from Dune II, and a new romantic suite from The Prince of Egypt. Additionally, Zimmer revisits one of his classic 90s soundtracks with a newly crafted suite of The Rock.

The World Of Hans Zimmer – Part II: A New Dimension features Zimmer accompanied by a stellar ensemble of soloists and collaborators, including singers Lebo M, Lisa Gerrard, Gan-ya Ben-gur Akselrod, and Nokukhanya Dlamini; multi-woodwind wizard Pedro Eustache; bass player Juan García-Herreros; guitarist Alexios Anest; pianist Eliane Correa; cellist Mariko Muranaka; violinist Rusanda Panfili; and percussionists Aleksandra Šuklar, Luis Ribeiro, and Lucy Landymore. Together, they perform alongside the Odessa Orchestra & Friends and the Nairobi Chamber Choir, under the baton of conductor Gavin Greenaway.

Hans Zimmer says: “We’re taking music that fans know and love and presenting it with a renewed sense of energy, scale, and emotion. These new orchestral suites are a testament to the incredible musicians I’ve had the pleasure of working with, and the magic that happens when we come together with the orchestra and choir. It’s about capturing those transformative moments in performance.”

The World of Hans Zimmer – Part II: A New Dimension is available for streaming and digital download in stereo and the immersive format Dolby Atmos. The album will also be released as a 2-CD set and a limited-edition 3 x 180g audiophile vinyl box – preorder here.

US Version: Hans Zimmer fans can experience the magic of his music live in January 2025 in five additional concerts of the hugely successful HANS ZIMMER LIVE tour:

Friday, January 31 Austin, Texas - Moody Center
Sunday, February 2 Nashville, Tennessee - Bridgestone Arena
Tuesday, February 4 Columbus, Ohio - Nationwide Arena
Thursday, February 6 Brooklyn, New York - Barclays Arena
Friday, February 7 Baltimore, Maryland - CFG Arena

For tickets and more information, visit:
www.hanszimmerlive.com.

HANS ZIMMER – THE WORLD OF HANS ZIMMER – PART II: A NEW DIMENSION

SUITES ON THE ALBUM:

Part 1

Man of Steel Suite: Part 1 "What Are You Going to Do When You Are Not Saving The World?
Driving (Miss Daisy)
The Rock: Two Parts Suite
James Bond: Two Parts Suite
Interstellar: Two Parts Suite
Dune II - Part 1: Intro + Part 2: "A Time of Quiet…"
The Prince of Egypt: Three Parts Suite
Wonder Woman: Two Parts Suite
Sherlock Holmes: Three Parts Suite
Inception: Part 1: Dream Is Collapsing + Part 2: Time

Part 2

The Dark Knight
Gladiator: Four Parts Suite
Pearl Harbor: Two Parts Suite
Kung Fu Panda: Two Parts Suite
Power of One: Mother Africa
The Lion King: Four Parts Suite
Pirates of the Caribbean: Two Parts Suite

ABOUT HANS ZIMMER

Hans Zimmer has scored more than 500 projects across all mediums, which combined have grossed more than 28 billion dollars at the worldwide box office. Zimmer has been honored with two Academy Awards®, three Golden Globe® Awards, five Grammy® Awards, an American Music Award, and a Tony® Award, as well as six Emmy® nominations.

Upcoming, Zimmer scored Steve McQueen’s highly anticipated Blitz, set for release in November, and Joseph Kosinski’s F1, which will premiere in June 2025.

Most recently, Zimmer scored Denis Villeneuve’s critically acclaimed sequel, Dune: Part Two, which premiered in March 2024. The film is the follow-up to the 2021 Hollywood blockbuster Dune, which earned Zimmer his second Academy Award® in the category of Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures. He was recently nominated for his three Emmy® Awards on behalf of his work on Planet Earth III and The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

Zimmer’s additional work highlights include No Time to Die, Gladiator, The Thin Red Line, As Good as It Gets, Rain Man, The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Thelma and Louise, The Last Samurai, 12 Years A Slave, Blade Runner 2049 (co-scored w/ Benjamin Wallfisch) and Dunkirk, as well as recent film scores including Top Gun: Maverick, Wonder Woman 1984 and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run.

In 1994, Zimmer won his first Academy Award® for the Best Original Score of Disney animated film The Lion King. Additionally in 2019, he scored the live-action remake of the iconic film and received a Grammy® nomination for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.

Beyond his award-winning compositions and globally recognizable achievements, Zimmer has gone on to complete highly successful Hans Zimmer Live tours around the world. After sold-out European runs, he is gearing up to bring the tour to North America for his first performances in the region since his 2017 Coachella performance. Previously, he performed in the Middle East at Dubai’s renowned Coca-Cola Arena for two consecutive nights as well as Formula 1’s Singapore Grand Prix.

Hans Zimmer Approved Image (Credit Lee Kirby): Download

Connect With Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer Live | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Christopher Jesina 12/20/24 Christopher Jesina 12/20/24

Jan. 10: Sony Classical Releases 2025 New Year’s Concert with Vienna Philharmonic & Riccardo Muti

Sony Classical Releases The 2025 New Year’s Concert
with The Vienna Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti

The World’s Most Famous Classical Music Event Released on Audio and Video
Celebrating the 200th Birthday of Johann Strauss II

Album Release Dates:
Digital - January 10, 2025
CD - February 14, 2025
DVD and Blu-Ray - March 7, 2025
Pre-Order Available Now

The Vienna Philharmonic’s 2025 New Year’s Concert will be released by Sony Classical in both audio and video formats. On January 1, 2025, Maestro Riccardo Muti will take the stage to conduct the New Year’s Concert for the seventh time in the world-renowned Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein.

Available for preorder and pre-save now, the live recording of the 2025 New Year’s Concert is set for digital release on January 10, 2025, with the physical CD release on February 14, and both the DVD and Blu-ray arriving March 7.

There are few concerts in the world that are awaited with as much excitement as the New Year’s Concert from Vienna. This year, it will be broadcast to over 90 countries around the world, reaching an audience of millions of people. The program will feature a repertoire from the Strauss family and their
contemporaries, with a unique addition: for the first time, a work by a female composer, and a friend of Johann Strauss II, will be performed. The Ferdinandus-Walzer, composed by the twelve-year-old Constanze Geiger in 1848, will be part of this year’s program.

The artistic collaboration with Maestro Muti that began in 1971 has given rise to more than 500 mutual concerts, including six New Year’s Concerts, Philharmonic subscription concerts, memorial concerts, guest performances and tours, as well as numerous opera productions. A special highlight of the 2024 season will be the concert celebrating the 200th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under Muti’s baton.

Daniel Froschauer, Chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic, emphasizes the conductor’s special significance for the orchestra: “Riccardo Muti has held an exceptional position in the history of the Vienna Philharmonic for over fifty years. An honorary member of the orchestra since 2011, Muti has helped shape the repertoire and specific sound of the ensemble in a unique manner.”

Riccardo Muti first came to public attention in 1967, when he won the Guido Cantelli Conducting Competition in Milan. From 1968 to 1980, he served as Principal Conductor of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. In 1971, Herbert von Karajan invited him to conduct at the Salzburg Festival, which in 2020 marked fifty years of collaboration with the Austrian festival. During the 1970s, he was Chief Conductor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra (1972–1982), and later served as Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra (1980–1992). From 1986 to 2005, he was Music Director of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Muti also became Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2010, a position he held until 2023, whereupon he was named Music Director Emeritus for Life.

Throughout his career, Riccardo Muti has conducted the most important orchestras in the world, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, and Vienna Philharmonic – an orchestra to which he has particularly close ties.

When Muti was invited to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic’s 150th anniversary concert in 1992, he was presented by the orchestra with the Golden Ring, awarded only to a few chosen conductors. After presiding over New Year’s Concerts in 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2018, Riccardo Muti conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in this annual celebration for the sixth time in 2021.

The story of the Vienna Philharmonic can be traced back to 1842, when Otto Nicolai conducted a “grand concert” with “all the members of the Orchestra of the Imperial and Royal Court Opera Theatre”. This event is generally regarded as marking the birth of the orchestra. Ever since it was founded, the orchestra has been run by a democratically elected committee and is artistically, organisationally and financially independent. In the twentieth century its artistic profile has been shaped by such leading musicians as Richard Strauss, Arturo Toscanini, Wilhelm Furtwängler and, after 1945, by three emeritus conductors, Karl Böhm, Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein. Since it was formed, the orchestra has given around 9,000 concerts in every part of the world. Since 1989 it has presented a Vienna Philharmonic Week in New York. A similar series of concerts has been held in Tokyo since 1993.

The tradition of presenting New Year’s Concerts began in 1941. The first concert marking the New Year was given in 1939, albeit on 31 December. The first conductor was Clemens Krauss. Willi Boskovsky took over in 1955 and conducted no fewer than twenty-five New Year’s Concerts between then and 1979. The list of musicians who have conducted New Year’s Concerts reads like a who’s who of leading maestros. The New Year’s Concert was first broadcast live on television in 1959. The Vienna Philharmonic regards this now traditional event as a way of wishing the world a Happy New Year through the medium of music in a spirit of hope, friendship and peace.

2025 New Year’s Concert Program

Johann Strauss I Freiheits-Marsch op. 226
Josef Strauss Dorfschwalben aus Österreich Waltz op. 164
Johann Strauss II Demolirer-Polka Polka française op. 269
Johann Strauss II Lagunen-Walzer op. 411
Eduard Strauss Luftig und duftig Polka schnell op. 206
Johann Strauss II Overture to Der Zigeunerbaron
Johann Strauss II Accelerationen Waltz op. 234
Joseph Hellmesberger II Fidele Brüder* March from Das Veilchenmädel
Constanze Geiger Ferdinandus-Walzer* (arr. Wolfgang Dörner)
Johann Strauss II Entweder – oder! Polka schnell op. 403
Josef Strauss Transactionen Waltz op. 184
Johann Strauss II Annen-Polka op. 117
Johann Strauss II Tritsch-Tratsch Polka schnell op. 214
Johann Strauss II Wein, Weib und Gesang Waltz op. 333

Encores will be announced at a later date.
*First performance at a New Year’s Concert

Christopher Jesina 11/25/24 Christopher Jesina 11/25/24

GRAMMY® Nominated for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album: Opus - Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto's Final Concert

(left) *Opus* Cover Art | Download
(right) Credit: Neo Sora © 2022 Kab Inc. | Download

GRAMMY® Nominated for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album
A Final Concert From Legendary Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto
Opus

Available via Milan Records
Listen Here

Listen To “For Jóhann”
Watch Video

A New Work Composed and Performed by Sakamoto in Honor of his Friend, The Late Composer Jóhann Jóhannson

Press downloads available upon request

Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus - The Film Now Available on
The Criterion Channel

Ars longa, vita brevis.
Art is long, life is short.

“This testament to Sakamoto’s music underlines an artist's commitment to his work that was there, to the very end. ‘Opus’ is all about death, with segments, like the title piece that ends the album, resonating like a solemn prayer. Here is a man unafraid to face his catalog of works and give it his own personal interpretation, knowing it would be his last.”
– Associated Press

“Sakamoto plays like a dancer, or a conductor; his hands shape the sound on the keys, but also take flight at times, as if he’s coaxing a tone out of the instrument, or himself.”
– The New York Times

“Rather than mythologize his life in narrative songwriting or theatrical instrumental fireworks, he’s chosen a quiet grace, one more subtle and restrained than even his softest prior work.”
– Pitchfork

The late legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto’s highly anticipated posthumous album, Opus – a collection of works performed as a final concert in the fall of 2022 before Sakamoto’s death in early 2023 and which was just nominated for a GRAMMY® in the category of Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album – is available now via Milan Records - listen here.

Alongside the release of Opus is a video of Sakamoto performing “for Jóhann,” one of the newly composed pieces on the album. It is a tribute to Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannson, one of Sakamoto’s close friends and colleagues, who passed away in 2018. watch here.

In late 2022, the Japanese composer, producer, and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto sat down at the piano for a final performance. Too ill to complete an entire set at once, Opus is garnered from multiple sessions shot and recorded in Tokyo’s legendary NHK 509 Studio. The concert was filmed and recorded without an audience, directed by Sakamoto’s son Neo Sora and turned into a film Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, now available on The Criterion Channel.

Opus was carefully curated by Sakamoto, with selections including his iconic film scores, Yellow Magic Orchestra classics, alongside pieces reflective of his eclectic career. “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” perhaps one of his most famous melodies, and beloved works "Andata,” "Aqua" and "Trioon" are represented as well as entirely new or never-before-recorded compositions. “for Jóhann”, dedicated to the late composer and Sakamoto’s friend Jóhann Jóhannsson, “BB,” a tribute to filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, and “20180219 (w/prepared piano),” a previously unreleased solo prepared-piano track, are all new to Sakamoto’s vast repertoire.

Sakamoto provided a statement on the project after it was recorded, saying:

The project was conceived as a way to record my performances—while I was still able to perform—in a way that is worth preserving for the future. In some sense, while thinking of this as my last opportunity to perform, I also felt that I was able to break new ground. Simply playing a few songs a day with a lot of concentration was all I could muster at this point in my life. Perhaps due to the exertion, I felt utterly hollow afterwards, and my condition worsened for about a month. Even so, I feel relieved that I was able to record before my death—a performance that I was satisfied with.

Ryuichi Sakamoto was a musician of incredible breadth and ambition, whose work spanned genres, forms, and ideas. Much of his music followed a similar transformation—often, Sakamoto would take his works and morph them, from their original shape as pop songs or film scores, and translate them for orchestras or for solo piano or for large museum installations. He was like an alchemist altering the states of an element, granting each piece many lives. It is perhaps the best illustration of the strength of Sakamoto’s songwriting that a composition could change many times, sturdy yet mutable, that he could deconstruct and remake his own work over and over.

These chosen works tell the story of not only a prolific musician, but a tirelessly curious artist. It is a reflection of Sakamoto’s own life and work as he faces death, on his own terms. On this album, the performer is dying, but through the performance, he lives forever.

Opus – Tracklisting

1. Lack of Love*
2. BB*
3. Andata
4. Solitude
5. for Jóhann*
6. Aubade 2020
7. Ichimei - small happiness
8. Mizu no Naka no Bagatelle
9. Bibo no Aozora
10. Aqua
11. Tong Poo*
12. The Wuthering Heights
13. 20220302 - sarabande
14. The Sheltering Sky
15. 20180219 (w/prepared piano)*
16. The Last Emperor
17. Trioon*
18. Happy End
19. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
20. Opus - ending

*New arrangement or never-before-recorded

Credit: Neo Sora © 2022 Kab Inc. | Download

About Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto was a composer, producer, and artist born in Tokyo. His diverse résumé includes pioneering electronic works in the legendary techno group Yellow Magic Orchestra, producing pop albums and numerous classical compositions, two operas, and nearly 45 original film/TV scores for directors, including Bernardo Bertolucci, Pedro Almodóvar, Brian De Palma, and Alejandro González Iñárritu. His film soundtracks have won prestigious awards, including an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, and many more.

Sakamoto also made considerable contributions to the art world with both solo and collaborative installations and multi-piece exhibitions presented in galleries and museums worldwide.

On January 17th, 2023, his 71st birthday, Ryuichi released 12, his 15th solo album. The new album is a collection of 12 songs selected from musical sketches Sakamoto recorded like a sound diary during his two-and-a-half-year battle with cancer.

Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away in March 2023 at the age of 71.

In memory of Ryuichi, his family and friends launched TREES FOR SAKAMOTO, a tree planting initiative to enable fans to donate to planting trees in various regions simply and transparently.

Connect With Ryuichi Sakamoto:
Instagram | X | Facebook

Christopher Jesina 11/25/24 Christopher Jesina 11/25/24

Feb. 28 - Sony Classical Presents Eugene Ormandy: The Columbia Stereo Recordings 1964–1983

Sony Classical Presents Eugene Ormandy: The Columbia Stereo Recordings 1964–1983

Sony Classical Presents
Eugene Ormandy: The Columbia Stereo Recordings 1964–1983

Album Release Date: February 28, 2025
Reviewer Rate: $140.00 + shipping/handling fees
Pre-Order Available Now

This massive new reissue from Eugene Ormandy’s stereo discography collects all the Columbia Masterworks recordings he made in Philadelphia between the early 1960s and early 1980s. Sony Classical’s new 94-CD box set, which will be released on February 28, 2025 (pre-order available now) once again demonstrates what noted critic Jed Distler, reviewing the previous installment of this ambitious project “The Columbia Stereo Collection 1958–1963” in Gramophone’s December 2023 issue, characterized as “the Philadelphia Orchestra’s brilliance and versatility as well as Ormandy’s unflappable consistency and habitually underestimated interpretative gifts”. Some of these performances – including the complete recording of Bach’s St. John Passion, Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis, Schubert’s Sixth Symphony and a disc of opera choruses with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, as well as Ginastera’s Concerto for Strings and the ballet music from Massenet’s opera Le Cid – have never appeared before in the digital medium, and they shine a light into new corners of Ormandy’s astonishingly large repertoire.

Also new to CD are two late symphonies by Haydn – No. 96 “The Miracle” and No. 101 “The Clock” – a prime example of Ormandy excelling in repertoire not normally associated with him. Gramophone’s reviewer wrote that he “apparently uses a quite large body of strings, which makes the perfection of their playing the more praiseworthy. The nimble unanimity of the violins in the finale of No. 96 really is something to be heard. It is, indeed, all very stylish and excellently done.” High Fidelity concurred: “Ormandy favors tradition in texts, tempos, and timbre, but there is genuine pleasure to be found in his handling of the slow movements and the crisp rhythms of the finales. In the first movement of No. 96 his eminently zestful reading evokes the brilliance of a London premiere, and the cohesion of the orchestra is especially commendable.”

Another composer for whom Ormandy showed a perhaps unexpected affinity was Bruckner, as can be heard in his recording of the Fifth Symphony (1965) and Te Deum (1966). “Ormandy is not a meditative conductor, but a sculptor in sound, a man who has an uncanny ear for balance and texture … The bare contrasts of string against woodwind, and brass against them both, are given an electrifying freshness … As for the Philadelphia strings they give a resonance and warmth which is ravishing on the ear, not just in the obvious passages of the slow movement, where bows always tend to dig deep, but in such passages as the pianissimo tremolo at the end of the first movement exposition, as it dies down to nothing” (Gramophone).

The new set contains many more of Ormandy’s acclaimed interpretations of the symphonic repertoire, including his pioneering recording of Mahler’s Tenth, in the performing version by Deryck Cooke – “They bring a sense of wonder and discovery and I think you really can sense their missionary zeal in this recording. It must also be said that the playing of the Philadelphia Orchestra is superb in every department … Ormandy was a great conductor and this version of the Tenth is a fine example of his art” (MusicWeb International). The new set also contains Ormandy’s complete traversal of the symphonies by Beethoven and Brahms, as well as Nielsen’s First and Sixth, in which “Ormandy disentangles the strands and presents the spare work with the clarity called for in a symphony that rejoices in chamber textures” (MusicWeb International).

Ormandy’s full-bodied approach to Russian repertoire can be heard here in symphonies by Tchaikovsky, No. 4, Prokofiev’s “Classical” and Fifth, the Shostakovich Fifth and Tenth and two symphonies by the conductor’s friend Rachmaninoff, the First (“...gorgeous in its tonal beauty and irresistible in its kinetic impact. The recorded sound does the musicians superb justice.” – HiFi Stereo Review) and Third, of which “he gives a mature, most satisfying performance – and the famous Philadelphia string tone is, of course, made for Rachmaninov” (Gramophone).

Ormandy’s iconic 1966 recording of the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition was recently acclaimed by ClassicsToday as the finest version of the work ever committed to disc: “Great playing and a big, gutsy interpretation that not only characterizes each section beautifully but also welds the suite together into an extremely satisfying whole. The panoramic final pages, from the start of the tolling bell section, have no peer in terms of detail and sheer sonic splendor, and this is one of the best-sounding recordings that Ormandy and Philly ever got from Sony.”

American music is represented by Ives and Gershwin, of course, but also by Paul Creston and Ferde Grofé; British music by Elgar’s Enigma and Cockaigne and Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. In French repertoire such as Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole and Debussy’s Nocturnes, wrote Gramophone, Ormandy’s early-60s recordings are “really first-rate in every way. In the Ravel the Philadelphia Orchestra’s virtuosity seems to have no bounds, while elsewhere there is much beautiful and sensitive playing.” And naturally there are important works here by Ormandy’s Hungarian compatriots Bartók and Kodály, including their Concertos for Orchestra, the suite from The Miraculous Mandarin and Háry János and the Bartók Divertimento from 1968, new to CD.

Ormandy was regarded by many as one of the finest accompanists in the business, and the new set features many classic concerto recordings – of works by composers including Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns, Gershwin, Prokofiev, Bruch, Ravel, Lalo and Rodrigo, played by such regular partners of the conductor as Isaac Stern, Rudolf Serkin, Eugene Istomin, Philippe Entremont and Leonard Rose. Reviewing Stern and Ormandy’s Prokofiev Concertos from 1963, Gramophone wrote that “their First in particular has rarely been matched and perhaps never quite surpassed. Stern’s stunning virtuosity is entirely apt in the most entertaining scherzo ever recorded … Ormandy matches him with characterful orchestral playing.” And of the Brahms Double Concerto with Stern and Rose from 1964, the same publication said that “each soloist plays not only with the utmost skill and sensitivity, which really goes without saying, but also with the utmost sympathy for the other … The orchestra respond in an exemplary way, and the whole is handled by Ormandy most effectively.”

There are other large-scale works here, including Beethoven’s Christ on the Mount of Olives (Gramophone: “Ormandy directs the oratorio with a passionate belief in its worth … and transmits that to his singers and orchestra. The result is a remarkably fine performance, very well recorded”) and the Requiem settings by Berlioz and Verdi, as well as numerous smaller, often lesser-known works for which Ormandy had a special flair. But it would be a fitting close to point out the only recording in this massive collection that wasn’t made in the “New World”. In 1967, the conductor was in London to record Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony with the LSO, yet as Gramophone wrote, “to a remarkable degree Ormandy secures an Ormandy sound of the kind one recognizes in Philadelphia performances. The concern for texture and inner balancing is astonishingly acute … If CBS wanted to experiment in having Ormandy record in Europe for a change, the result is an outstanding success … At any price this is one of the very best ‘New World’ performances available.”

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:
Bach, J.S.: Oster-Oratorium, BWV 249

DISC 2:
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25 "Classical"
Prokofiev: Lieutenant Kijé Suite, Op. 60
Prokofiev: The Love for Three Oranges (suite), Op. 33bis

DISC 3:
Strauss, R.: Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30

DISC 4:
Offenbach: Gaîté Parisienne
Bizet: L'Arlésienne Suite No. 1
Bizet: L'Arlésienne Suite No. 2

DISC 5:
Hindemith: Mathis der Maler Symphony
Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber

DISC 6:
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, Op. 71, TH 14 (Extracts)
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, TH 42 (1880 Version)

DISC 7:
Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116

DISC 8:
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90 "Italian"
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream, incidental music, Op. 61

DISC 9:
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major, M. 83
Falla: Noches en los Jardines de España, IMF 8

DISC 10:
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63

DISC 11:
Traditional: Oh Tannenbaum
Traditional: It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
Simeone: Little Drummer Boy
Niles: I Wonder as I Wander
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56: For unto us a Child is bor
Traditional: Here We Go A-Caroling
Traditional: Good King Wenceslas
Traditional: Away in a Manger
Traditional: Jingle Bells
Traditional: We Three Kings of Orient Are
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56: Hallelujah Chorus
Traditional: We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Pergolesi: Glory to God in the Highest
Franck: Psalm 150 in D Major, FWV 69
Robertson: How Beautiful Upon the Mountain
Schubert: Psalm 23, D. 706
Beethoven: Christus am Ölberge, Op. 85: Hallelujah

DISC 12/13:
Verdi: Messa da Requiem

DISC 14:
Strauss, R.: Der Rosenkavalier Suite, TrV 227d
Strauss, R.: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Op. 28
Strauss, R.: Salome, Op. 54, TrV 215: Dance of the Seven Veils

DISC 15:
Mendelssohn: Concerto for 2 Pianos in E Major, MWV O 5
Mendelssohn: Concerto for 2 Pianos in A-Flat Major, MWV O 6

DISC 16:
Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
Copland: Lincoln Portrait
Ives: 3 Places in New England (Orchestral Set No. 1)
Ives: Symphony No. 1 in D Minor

DISC 17:
Schumann: Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Schumann: Introduction & Allegro appassionato, Op. 92 "Konzertstück"

DISC 18:
Ravel: Rapsodie espagnole, M. 54
Debussy (orch. Ravel): Danse, L. 69 "Tarantelle styrienne"
Debussy: Nocturnes, L. 91
Debussy (arr. William Smith): Rêverie, L. 68
Debussy (orch. Smith): 2 Arabesques, L. 66: 1. Andantino con moto
Debussy (orch. Smith): Préludes, Livre 1, L. 117: 8. La fille aux cheveux de lin
Debussy (orch. Büsser): Petite Suite, L. 65: 1. En bateau

DISC 19:
Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV 70, Act II: Festmarsch
Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75: Prelude to Act III
Wagner: Die Walküre, WWV 86b, Act III: Magic Fire Music
Wagner: Die Walküre, WWV 86b Act III: The Ride of the Valkyries
Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV 70: Overture
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90: Prelude & Liebestod
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96, Act I: Prelude

DISC 20:
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11

DISC 21:
Dvorák: Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104, B. 191
Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33

DISC 22:
Brahms: Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra in B-Flat Major, Op. 83

DISC 23:
Brahms: Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, Op. 102
Beethoven: Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello & Piano in C Major, Op. 56

DISC 24:
Mozart: Symphony No. 30 in D Major, K. 202
Mozart: Symphony No. 31 in D Major, K. 297 "Paris"
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15

DISC 25:
Stravinsky: Petroushka Ballet Suite

DISC 26:
Kodály: Háry János Suite
Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite (1919 Version)

DISC 27:
Foster (arr. Harris): Camptown Races
Traditional (arr. Harris): When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Traditional (arr. Harris): Sailor's Hornpipe
Paderewski (arr. Harris): Minuet in G Major Op. 14, No. 1
Rameau (arr. Harris): The Hen
Benjamin (arr. Harris): Jamaican Rumba
Debussy: General Lavine
Harris: March of the Mandarins
Traditional (arr. Harris): Londonderry Air
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Flight of the Bumblebee
Grieg (arr. Harris): March of the Dwarfs (Arranged by Arthur Harris)
Rimsky-Korsakov: Procession of the Nobles from "Mlada" Suite
Halvorsen: March of the Boyars
Chabrier: Joyeuse Marche for Orchestra
Saint-Saëns: Suite algérienne, Op. 60: IV. Marche militaire française
Mendelssohn: War March of the Priests from "Athalie, Op. 74"
Rimsky-Korsakov: Farewell of the Tsar from "Tsar Saltan Suite, Op. 57"
Ippolitov-Ivanov: Caucasian Sketches Suite, Op. 10: Procession of the Sardar

DISC 28:
Guthrie (arr. Cormier): This Land is Your Land
arr. Hunter: Down in the Valley
arr. De Cormier: She'll be coming round the mountain
Foster (arr. Robertson): Beautiful Dreamer
arr. De Cormier: Sweet Betsy from Pike
Gould: Spirituals for Orchestra: Gospel Train - Old Time Religion
arr. De Cormier: When I First Came to This Land
arr. De Cormier: Shenandoah (or, Across the Wide Missouri)
arr. De Cormier: Home on The Range
arr. De Cormier: He's Got the Whole World in His Hands
arr. Harris: I Wonder as I Wander
Foster (arr. Shaw): Oh, Susanna
Traditional: Deep River

DISC 29:
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major, Op. 44
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 75

DISC 30:
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 4 in F Minor, Op. 36
Tchaikovsky (arr. Harris): None but the Lonely Heart, Op. 6, No. 6
Tchaikovsky (arr. Gould): The Seasons, Op. 37a: No. 6, June. Barcarolle

DISC 31:
Saint-Saens: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 22
Saint-Saens: Piano Concerto No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 44

DISC 32:
Berlioz: Grande messe des morts, H 75

DISC 33:
Mozart: Concerto No. 1 in D Major for Horn and Orchestra, K. 412
Mozart: Concerto No. 2 in E-Flat Major for Horn and Orchestra, K. 417
Mozart: Concerto No. 3 in E-Flat Major for Horn and Orchestra, K. 447
Mozart: Concerto No. 4 in E-Flat Major for Horn and Orchestra, K. 495

DISC 34:
Bartók: A csodálatos mandarin, Op. 19 "The Miraculous Mandarin"
Bartók: 2 Pictures, Op. 10
Bartók: 2 Portraits, Op. 5

DISC 35:
Sarasate: Introduction and Tarantelle for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 43
Cooley: Aria and Dance for Viola and Orchestra
Fauré: Élégie for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 24
Vanhal: Concerto in E Major for Bass and Orchestra
Riisager: Concertino for Trumpet and Orchestra, Op. 29
Saint-Saëns: Morceau de concert, Op. 94
Guilmant: Morceau Symphonique for Trombone and Orchestra, Op. 88

DISC 36:
Mahler: Symphony No. 10 in F-Sharp Minor (1976 Version)

DISC 37:
Haydn: Symphony No. 96 in D Major, Hob. I:96, "Miracle"
Haydn: Symphony No. 101 in D Major, Hob. I:101 "Clock"

DISC 38:
Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez
Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Concerto in D Major for Guitar and Orchestra, Op. 99

DISC 39:
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 19
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-Flat Major, K. 595

DISC 40:
Beethoven: Christus am Ölberge, Op. 85 (Christ on the Mount of Olives)
Bruckner: Te Deum

DISC 41:
Rossini (arr. Respighi): La boutique fantasque: 2. Tarentella "La Danza"
Rossini (arr. Respighi): La boutique fantasque: 4. Danse Cosaque. Allegretto marcato
Rossini (arr. Respighi): La boutique fantasque: 5. Can-Can. Allegretto grottesco "Petite Caprice Style Offenbach"
Ponchielli: La gioconda, Op. 9, Act III: Dance of the Hours
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 5 in F-Sharp Minor
Falla: El amor brujo: 8. Ritual Fire Dance
Smetana: The Bartered Bride: Dance of the Comedians
Rossini: Dance for Six from William Tell
Weinberger: Polka from "Schwanda"
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, TH 5: Polonaise
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 6 in D Flat Major3:22

DISC 42:
Dvorák: Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53
Dvorák: Romance in F Minor, Op. 11, B. 39
Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47

DISC 43:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36

DISC 44:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55, "Eroica"

DISC 45:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B-Flat Major, Op. 60
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67

DISC 46:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 "Pastoral"

DISC 47:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93

DISC 48:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 "Choral"

DISC 49:
Nielsen: Symphony No. 6, Op. 116 "Sinfonia Semplice"
Nielsen: Maskarade Overture
Nielsen: Maskerade: Prelude to Act II

DISC 50:
Tchaikovsky: Italian Capriccio, Op. 45, TH 47
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, TH 5: Waltz
Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34
Rimsky-Korsakov: Le Coq d'or - IV. Bridal Procession and Lamentable Death of Tsar Dodon

DISC 51:
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

DISC 52:
Nielsen: Symphony No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 7
Nielsen: Helios Overture, Op. 17
Nielsen: Pan and Syrinx, Op. 49
Nielsen: Rhapsodisk ouverture, CNW 39 "An Imaginary Journey to the Faroe Islands"

DISC 53:
Marcello: Concerto in C Minor for Oboe and Orchestra
Weber: Hungarian Fantasy for Bassoon and Orchestra
Debussy: Danse sacrée et danse profane, L. 103
Creston: Concertino for Marimba and Orchestra, Op. 21
Bloch: Suite Modale for Flute and Orchestra
Debussy: Rhapsody No. 1 for Clarinet and Orchestra, L.116
Liszt: Fantasie über ungarische Volksmelodien, S. 123

DISC 54:
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 13

DISC 55:
Lalo: Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21
Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26

DISC 56:
Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F Major
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

DISC 57:
Orff: Catulli Carmina
Mussorgsky (orch. Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition, IMM 50

DISC 58:
Kodály: Concerto for Orchestra
Kodály: Dances of Galanta
Kodály: Dances of Marosszék

DISC 59:
Berg: Lulu Suite
Schoenberg: Theme and Variations, Op. 43B
Webern: Im Sommerwind
Webern: Three Pieces for Orchestra, Posth.

DISC 60:
Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major, WAB 105

DISC 61:
Bizet: Les Voici from "Carmen"
Mascagni: The Lord Now Victorious from "Cavalleria Rusticana"
Gounod: Soldiers' Chorus from "Faust"
Wagner: Hail, Bright Abode from "Tannhäuser"
Puccini: Humming Chorus from "Madama Butterfly"
Verdi: Il Trovatore, Act II: Anvil Chorus
Wagner: Pilgrims' Chorus from "Tannhäuser"
Leoncavallo: Bell Chorus from "I Pagliacci"
Wagner: Bridal Chorus from "Lohengrin"
Weber: Huntsmen's Chorus from "Der Freischütz"
Verdi: Grand March from "Aida"

DISC 62:
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 44
Rachmaninoff: Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14

DISC 63:
Dinicu (arr. Heifetz): Hora Staccato
Dvorák: Humoresque
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Flight of the Bumblebee
Tchaikovsky (arr. Frost): String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11: II. Andante cantabile
Strauss, Johann II and Josef: Pizzicato-Polka
Bach, J.S. (arr. Kresiler/Smith): Preludium in E Major
Paganini (orch. Ormandy): Moto Perpetuo
Granados (arr. Harris): Andaluza, Op. 37, No. 5
Schubert, François (arr. Harris): The Bee
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 5
Novacek: Perpetual Motion
Kreisler (arr. Leidzen): Liebesfreud (Love's Joy)

DISC 64:
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58

DISC 65:
Respighi: Vetrate di chiesa
Respighi: Gli uccelli

DISC 66:
Gershwin: An American in Paris
Gershwin: Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture (Arr. for Orchestra by Robert Russel Bennett)
Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite

DISC 67:
Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C Major, D. 944 "The Great"

DISC 68:
Handel: Awake the Trumpet's Lofty Sound from Samson
Handel: Judas Maccabaeus, HWV 63: See, the Conqu'ring Hero Comes!
Handel: Sing Unto God from Judas Maccabaeus
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56
Handel: Let Their Celestial Concerts All Unite from Samson
Handel: Welcome, Welcome Mighty King from Saul
Handel: David, His Ten Thousands Slew from Saul
Handel: Zadok the Priest - Coronation Anthem
Handel: Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah, HWV 56
Handel: Holy Art Thou (Largo from "Xerxes")
Handel: How Excellent Thy Name from "Saul"
Handel: Hallelujah, Amen from Judas Maccabaeus
Handel: But as for his people from Israel in Egypt
Handel: Sing Ye to the Lord from Isreal in Egypt

DISC 69:
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47

DISC 70:
Bach, J.S.: Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring (From "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147"
Bach, J.S.: "What Tho' the World Be Full of Sin" from Cantata No. 80
Bach, J.S.: A Mighty Fortress is Our God from Cantata No. 80, BWV 80
Bach, J.S.: "Ah, Dearest Jesus" from "The Christmas Oratorio", BWV 245
Bach, J.S.: "Sleepers Awake" from Cantata No. 140
Bach, J.S.: "Zion Hears the Watchmen's Voices" from Cantata No. 140
Bach, J.S.: "My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord" from Magnificat, BWV 243
Bach, J.S. (arr. Walton/Katherine Davis): Sheep May Safely Graze (From "The Birthday Cantata, BWV 208)
Bach, J.S. (arr. Gounod): Father in Heaven (Ave Maria)
Bach, J.S.: "Now Keep We All This Holy Feast" from Cantata No. 4
Bach, J.S.: "Come, Sweet Death", BWV 478
Bach, J.S.: "Now Thank We All Our God" from Cantata No. 79
Bach, J.S.: In Deepest Grief - From the "St. Matthew Passion"

DISC 71:
Mendelssohn: Capriccio brillant, Op. 2
Schumann: Introduction & Allegro, Op. 134
Strauss, R.: Burleske, TrV 145: Allegro vivace

DISC 72:
Alfén: Midsommarvaka, Op. 19 "Swedish Rhapsody No. 1"
Sibelius: Karelia Suite, Op. 11
Grieg: Norwegian Dance, Op. 35, No. 2: Allegretto tranquillo e grazioso
Grieg: Sigurd Jorsalfar (suite), Op. 56, No. 3: Huldigungsmarsch. Allegro molto
Grieg: Lyric Pieces, Op. 54, No. 2: Gangar. Allegretto marcato "Norwegian March"
Sibelius: Finlandia, Op. 26
Grieg: Lyric Suite, Op. 54, Nr. 4: Notturno. Andante

DISC 73:

Ravel: Boléro, M. 81
Massenet: Le Cid (Ballet Suite)
Falla: El Sombrero de Tres Picos, Parte II

DISC 74:
Bach, J.S. (arr. Ormandy): Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
Bach, J.S. (arr. Smith): Cantata No. 156, BWV 156 - Sinfonia "Arioso"
Bach, J.S. (arr. Frost): Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach: Little Suite
Bach, J.S. (arr. Harris): A Mighty Fortress is Our God
Bach, J.S. (arr. Cailliet): Cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147: Jesu, Joy of Man's
Desiring
Bach, J.S. (arr. Smith): Fugue in G Minor "The Little"
Bach, J.S. (arr. Busoni): Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542 "Great"
Bach, J.S. (arr. Walton): Sheep May Safely Graze (from Cantata No. 208)
Bach, J.S. (arr. Taynton): Come, Sweet Death
Bach, J.S. (arr. Bantok): Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140 "Sleepers Awake": I. Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme

DISC 75:
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis in D Major, Op. 123

DISC 76:
Lalo: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in D Minor
Saint-Saens: Cello Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 33
Fauré: Élégie for Cello and Orchestra in C Minor, Op. 24

DISC 77:
Berlioz: Harold in Italy, H. 68

DISC 78:
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E Minor, Op. 93

DISC 79:
Rossini (arr. Respighi): The Magic Toy Shop
Adam: Giselle Ballet Suite (Excerpts)
Meyerbeer: Les patineurs Ballet Suite
Waldteufel: Estudiantina Waltz, Op. 191
Waldteufel: Les patineurs, Op.183
Goundod: Faust: Waltz
Ivanovici: Danube Waves

DISC 80:
Boccherini: String Quintet in E Major, Op. 13, No. 5. Minuet
Beethoven (arr. Smith): Bagatelle in A Minor, WoO 59 "Für Elise"
Handel: Largo from Xerxes
Mozart: Don Giovanni, KV527 - Minuet
Handel (arr. Harty): Water Music Suite
Clarke: Trumpet Voluntary
Beethoven (arr. Burmester): 6 Minuets, WoO 10: No. 2 in G Major
Hofstetter (attr. Haydn): String Quartet no. 5 in F Major, Op. 3 "Serenade"
Gluck (arr. Frost): Iphigénie en Aulide, Wq. 40: Gavotte
Gluck: Armide, Wq. 45: Musette
Gluck: Orpheo ed Euridice, Wq. 30, Act II: Dance of the Blessed Spirits
Fauré: Pavane in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 50
Menotti: Sebastian Suite: II Barcarolle
Brahms (arr. Jacques): 11 Chorale Preludes, Op. 122, No. 8: Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen
Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel: Abends, will ich schlafen gehn
Schumann (arr. T. Frost): Kinderszenen, Op. 15: No. 7, Träumerei
Saint-Saens: Carnival of Animals: The Swan
Massenet (arr. Frost): Élégie

DISC 81/82:
Bach, J.S.: Johannespassion, BWV 245

DISC 83:
Respighi: Fountains of Rome
Respighi: The Pines of Rome

DISC 84:
Elgar: Enigma Variations (Variations on an Original Theme), Op. 36
Vaughan-Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis - Largo sostenuto
Elgar: Cockaigne Overture (In London Town), Op. 40

DISC 85:
Gounod: Faust, Act V, Ballet Music
Thomas: Mignon: Gavotte
Offenbach: Les contes d'Hoffmann. Prelude to Act II: Minuet
Wolf-Ferrari: I gioielli della Madonna: Intermezzo from Act III
Verdi: Aïda, Act II, Gran marcia trionfale
Verdi: La Traviata: Overture
Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana: Intermezzo
Berlioz: Les troyens, H. 133: Marche troyenne
Rossini: Guillaume Tell: Overture
Jaernfelt: Praeludium für kleines Orchester
Liszt: Grand galop chromatique
Pierné: Cydalise et le chèvre-pied. Act I, Marche des petits faunes
Mendelssohn: Midsummer Night's Dream, op. 61 - Intermezzo

DISC 86:
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68

DISC 87:
Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73
Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90

DISC 88:
Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98
Brahms: Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80

DISC 89:
Schubert: Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, D. 417 "Tragic"
Schubert: Symphony No. 6 in C Major, D. 589 "Little"
Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56a

DISC 90:
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-Flat Major, WAB 104 "Romantic" (1886 Version, ed. L. Nowak)

DISC 91:
Bartók: Divertimento for String Orchestra
Ginastera: Concerto per Corde

DISC 92:
Strauss, R.: Der Bürger als Edelmann Suite, Op. 60
Strauss, R.: Horn Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 11

DISC 93:
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 107
Kabalevsky: Cello Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 49

DISC 94:
Dvorák: Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 "From the New World" (London Symphony Orchestra)

Christopher Jesina 11/25/24 Christopher Jesina 11/25/24

GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Historical Album: Paul Robeson Voice of Freedom – The Complete Columbia, RCA, HMV, and Victor Recordings

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Paul Robeson—African-American bass-baritone, stage and film actor, All-American football player, lawyer, and advocate for civil rights—was outspoken against racism, colonialism, and social injustice. Rutgers graduate, scholar of world cultures, and speaker of more than 20 languages, he worked tirelessly to break down political and racial barriers, and to build bridges between the peoples of this world. However, with the advent of the Cold War and the Red Scare following World War II, the political climate changed. Doors began to close for Robeson as concert halls and radio stations shut him out. In July 1950, the US State Department revoked the blacklisted artist’s passport thus preventing him from pursuing his successful international career as a singer and actor. But international audiences continued to honor and call out for him, and he found technologically advanced and effective ways to reach his communities all over the world.

Today, his remarkable voice and unrivaled stage presence live on in sound recordings and films. This 14-CD edition on Sony Classical, is the first ever release of his complete Columbia, HMV and Victor recordings from 1925 to 1947. All of his American recordings have been meticulously restored from the original master discs and tapes, and 25 studio recordings—as well as his complete historic New York and London recitals from 1958—are presented here for the first time on CD. The richly illustrated 160-page book, with essays by Shana L. Redmond and Susan Robeson, pays tribute to a cultural icon of the 20th century.

Blacklisted and erased from American history, many of Robeson’s recordings in the U.S. remained unreleased – until now
Special 14-CD edition, documenting his complete major-label discography, recorded 1925–1947
First release of Robeson’s groundbreaking Victor recordings on CD, 16 recordings reissued for the first time, 5 previously unreleased
First restoration of Robeson’s famous 1944 Othello stage production with Uta Hagen and José Ferrer from the original 33 master disc sides
His complete remastered Columbia albums (Songs of Free Men, Popular Favorites, Spirituals)
First release of his historic 1958 recitals at Mother A.M.E. Zion Church, New York, and Royal Albert Hall, with 30 previously unissued recordings
Richly illustrated 160-page book with essays by Shana L. Redmond and Susan Robeson, a wealth of photos and facsimiles from the archives of The Paul Robeson Trust, the Academy of the Arts, Berlin, and Columbia Records, plus complete discographical notes

Paul Leroy Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass baritone concert artist and stage and film actor who became famous both for his work as singer and actor and for his political activism.

Robeson attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., where he was an All-American football player. Upon graduating from Rutgers at the head of his class, he rejected a career as a professional athlete and instead entered Columbia University. He obtained a law degree in 1923, but, because of the lack of opportunity for blacks in the legal profession, he drifted to the stage, making a London debut in 1922. He joined the Provincetown Players, a New York theatre group that included playwright Eugene O’Neill, and appeared in O’Neill’s play All God’s Chillun Got Wings in 1924. His subsequent appearance in the title role of O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones caused a sensation in New York City (1924) and London (1925). He also starred in the film version of the play (1933).

In addition to his other talents, Robeson had a superb bass-baritone singing voice and studied more than 20 languages. In 1925 he gave his first vocal recital of African American spirituals in Greenwich Village, New York City, and he became world famous as Joe in the musical play Show Boat with his version of “Ol’ Man River.” His characterization of the title role in Othello in London (1930) won high praise, as did the Broadway production (1943), which set an all-time record run for a Shakespearean play on Broadway.

Robeson’s recorded repertoire spanned many styles, including Americana, popular standards, classical music, European folk songs, political songs, poetry and spoken excerpts from plays.

Returning to the United States in 1939, during World War II Robeson supported the American and Allied war efforts. However, his history of supporting civil rights causes and pro-Soviet policies brought scrutiny from the FBI.

In 1949, a concert, organized as a benefit for the Civil Rights Congress, was scheduled to take place on August 27 in Lakeland Acres, just north of Peekskill, New York. Before Robeson arrived, a mob of locals attacked concertgoers with baseball bats and rocks. The local police arrived hours later and did little to intervene. Thirteen people were seriously injured, Robeson was lynched in effigy and a cross seen burning on an adjacent hillside. The concert was then postponed until September 4. Following the concert, request for Klan memberships from the Peekskill area numbered 748 persons.

Paul Robeson moved to Harlem and from 1950 to 1955 published a periodical called Freedom which was critical of United States policies.

In the McCarthy era, Robeson's passport was revoked, his records disappeared from stores, his name was blacklisted, which equated to a ban on performing in the United States. International committees were formed demanding freedom for Robeson to travel, particularly in Britain. In May 1957, members of the British House of Commons organized a "transnational" concert by telephone in London's St. Pancras Town Hall. He was only allowed to leave the U.S.A. again in 1958 as a result of a 1958 United States Supreme Court decision.

In the early 1960s he retired and lived the remaining years of his life privately in Philadelphia.

Robeson became the main mentor to the young Harry Belafonte, who became one of the most popular black entertainment stars of the early 1950s, but also a protagonist of the African American civil rights movement. Belafonte referred to Robeson both artistically and politically.

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1: THE EARLY VICTOR AND RCA RECORDINGS 1925–1940

Spirituals · Ol’ Man River · Ballad for Americans
16 recordings restored for the first time from the original masters, 5 recordings previously unreleased, all others newly remastered

DISCs 2–8: THE HMV RECORDINGS 1928–1939

DISC 9: THE COLUMBIA MASTERWORKS RECORDINGS 1942/1947

Songs of Free Men · Popular · Favorites · Joe Louis Blues
All recordings newly remastered · 1 recording previously unreleased

DISC 10: THE COLUMBIA MASTERWORKS RECORDINGS 1945/1947

Go Down, Moses · Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and 22 more spirituals
All recordings newly remastered

DISC 11: LIVE IN NEW YORK, JUNE 1, 1958

Spirituals · Arias · Folk Songs · Ode to Joy

First restoration of the historic recital at Mother A.M.E. Zion Church
14 recordings previously unreleased

DISC 12: LIVE IN LONDON, AUGUST 10, 1958

First restoration of Robeson’s return to Royal Albert Hall
16 recordings previously unreleased

DISCs 13/14: SHAKESPEARE: OTHELLO (1944)

Columbia Masterworks’ first album of an entire stage production, restored from the original 33 disc sides

Christopher Jesina 11/15/24 Christopher Jesina 11/15/24

Jensen Artists: Selected 2024 Albums for Year-End Roundup Consideration

Selected 2024 Albums for Year-End Roundup Consideration

Neave Trio: A Room of Her Own (Chandos)
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James Blachly, Experiential Orchestra, Curtis Stewart:
American Counterpoints (Bright Shiny Things)
GRAMMY Nominated for Best Classical Compendium
GRAMMY Nominated for Best Classical Instrumental Solo
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Maya Beiser x Terry Riley: In C (Islandia Music Records)
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David Crowell: Point / Cloud (Better Company Records)
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Sophia Jani: Six Pieces for Solo Violin (Squama Recordings)
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Elizabeth Chang: Sonatas & Myths (Bridge Records)
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Neave Trio: Rooted (Chandos)
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David Kaplan: New Dances of the League of David (New Focus Recordings)
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Charlotte Hu: Liszt: Metamorphosis (Pentatone)
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Tina Davidson: Barefoot (New Focus Recordings)
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Alex Sopp: The Hem & The Haw (Sono Luminus, CD)
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Simone Dinnerstein: The Eye is the First Circle (Supertrain Records)
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Kristin Lee: American Sketches (First Hand Records)
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Ethan Iverson: Playfair Sonatas (Urlicht AudioVisual)
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Neave Trio – A Room of Her Own | February 2, 2024 (Chandos Records)
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“[T]he four works by Chaminade, Tailleferre, Smyth, and Lili Boulanger, are well chosen, both for themselves and for the way they work with and against each other.” “Throughout, the string tone is the most beautiful I’ve heard in a long time.” – Roger Nichols, BBC Music Magazine

“Naturally the case for all four composers is strengthened by these illustrious performances: the Neave Trio delivers perceptively characterised interpretations that are by turns individual and blended, supported by a pleasingly warm recording.” – Joanne Talbot, The Strad

“The Neave Trio has obviously invested time and emotional commitment into these pieces, and the album was splendidly recorded at Potton Hall in Suffolk. A superior chamber music release.” – James Manheim, AllMusic

On the Neave Trio’s fifth from Chandos Records, A Room of Her Own, two generations of composers are represented: Cécile Chaminade and Ethel Smyth were born in 1857 and 1858 respectively, while Germaine Tailleferre and Lili Boulanger were born in 1892 and 1893. All four were in their early twenties when they composed the works on this album. Smyth had just begun composing in her late teens, and the Piano Trio is one of her earliest known works, while Chaminade and Boulanger had been writing prolifically from an early age; Boulanger died prematurely, at the age of twenty-four, and her piano trios were among her final compositions, while the longest-lived of these composers, Tailleferre, returned to revise her forgotten early trio in her mid-eighties. The early lives of these composers were shaped by varying levels of familial support and educational opportunity, and each had to contend – in different ways – with the gendered barriers that faced women in music throughout their lifetimes.

The Neave Trio says of the album, “By recording and performing these trios, we aim to celebrate the richness of their musical contributions and emphasize the importance of recognizing and promoting the works of wonderful composers who happened to be women.”

James Blachly, Experiential Orchestra, Curtis Stewart – American Counterpoints | March 1, 2024 (Bright Shiny Things)
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GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Classical Compendium
GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Classical Instrumental Solo

“American Counterpoints shines a much-deserved light on [Julia Perry and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor,] two important, and thankfully rediscovered, figures in American classical music.” – Thomas Huizenga, NPR Music

“[Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto] is a fine example of the sober yet seething angularity of its era, leavened with warm strings and hints of Coplandesque expansiveness.” – Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times

“It’s not often you can claim a CD offers true revelations, but that’s the case with this fascinating release featuring US violinist and composer Curtis Stewart.” “a disc of musical discoveries, conveyed in compelling performances and warm, close sound.” – David Kettle, The Strad

American Counterpoints is the first album released by Experiential Orchestra since their Grammy® Award in 2021, and is the co-creation of GRAMMY®-winning conductor James Blachly, and 4-time GRAMMY® nominated violinist and composer, Curtis Stewart. Featuring the first commercial recording of Julia Perry's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, the album asserts the central importance of composers Julia Perry and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson in American classical music, juxtaposing early and late works of both composers and interweaving their compositions with original music by Curtis Stewart.

Maya Beiser x Terry Riley – In C | April 5, 2024 (Islandia Records)
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“This album is a musical journey for mind and body — both a stimulant and a sedative. It offers many engaging stopovers, from an oasis of calm where the pulse evaporates, to Led Zeppelin-like headbanging reminiscent of ‘Kashmir,’" to moments where the cello loops interleave with the sweet delicacy of Vivaldi. If you have a spare hour to let this singular, hypnotic music wash over you, the world might just seem a little brighter.” – Tom Huizenga, NPR’s All Things Considered

“Listen as cellist, producer, and adventurous artist Maya Beiser, turns Terry Riley’s minimalist classic, “In C”, into a captivating soundscape with her cello. In her version, the open-scored page is transformed into a series of drones and live cello loops, along with contributions from two of her long-time collaborators, the drummers Shane Shanahan and Matt Kilmer.” – John Schaefer, New Sounds

“an ecstatic, hypnotic piece of minimalism with sacred overtones” – John Lewis, The Guardian

Maya Bieser recreates Terry Riley’s In C as a series of ever-evolving cello loops. Enveloped by live drumming by Shane Shanahan and Matt Kilmer, Maya constructs a hypnotic, rapturous soundscape that re-envisions this classic 1964 Minimalist masterpiece, marking its 60th anniversary. “To me,” Maya says, “Terry Riley’s In C is an amalgamation of an ‘open source’ and ‘sacred text.’ In creating this album I was interested in finding the serendipitous rhythmic and melodic connections that emerge when reconstructing In C’s 53 melodic cells as a series of cello loops, floating above continuous C string cello drones. The cello’s lowest, most lush string, with its overtones and harmonics, forms the depth and resonance of the album.”

Terry Riley describes Maya's performance on the recording as, “stunningly beautiful.” He says, “The overall shape flows so naturally and her cello sound is so warm and powerful.”

David Crowell – Point / Cloud | May 3, 2024 (Better Company Records)
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”The New York multi-instrumentalist, who has played with Philip Glass and Steve Reich, shows great flair for making minimalism rich and harmonically complex.” – John Lewis, The Guardian – Contemporary Album of the Month

Featured on New Releases, April 2024 – John Schaefer, WNYC’s New Sounds

“[O]n Point / Cloud, composer, saxophonist, guitarist, and producer David Crowell proves his expertise at creating nuanced landscapes of feeling,” – Jeremy Shatan, anEarful

Point / Cloud is The Guardian’s Contemporary Album of the Month, described as “music that glistens, sparkles and dances with joy.” The album features David Crowell’s music performed by the GRAMMY®-nominated Sandbox Percussion, the versatile and gifted guitarists Dan Lippel and GRAMMY®-nominated Mak Grgić, and the musically meditative duo eco|tonal – David Crowell and cellist/singer/improviser Iva Casián-Lakoš. The album’s four sonically intricate and imagery-laden works prompt the idea of embracing respite while on journeys of travel and change – from the familiarity of highway drives, to enigmatic excursions, to pipe organs played by the ocean’s tides, to reprieve from musical progressions.

Sophia Jani – Six Pieces for Solo Violin | May 17, 2024 (Squama Recordings)
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“[Y]ou’ll want to explore more of [Sophia Jani’s] compositions just as much as I do once you listen to [Teresa] Allgaier’s performance of these seemingly simple, but deceptively complicated, works.” – Craig Byrd, Cultural Attaché

“The music here draws on the entire history of solo violin music to create something out-of-time yet contemporary…it’s rare to encounter a new piece that feels timeless from the outset.” – Peter Magarsak, Bandcamp

Six Pieces for Solo Violin was composed by Sophia Jani and recorded by violinist Teresa Allgaier Jani composed Six Pieces for Solo Violin between 2020 and 2023, and with it challenges the notion of simplicity as a parameter, weaving a tapestry of gentle consonance that invites contemplation and honors the violin as an instrument.

Of Six Pieces, Jani says, “What I find interesting about the violin is that it has remained the same for a few hundred years and has not really evolved. The great important violin cycles (Bieber, Bach, Paganini, Isaye, Lang) were not so much a reaction to the development of the instrument itself – unlike the piano for example – but about what kind of music could be written on it and what the players should be able to do. So the repertoire developed more based on the tastes of a certain period and who wrote for whom than motivated by technical advancement. Teresa and I asked ourselves what our contribution as two women of the 21st century could be in this context.”

Elizabeth Chang – Sonatas & Myths | May 17, 2024 (Bridge Records)
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“[Elizabeth] Chang is fiercely invested in this recording and her playing reflects a true understanding of these works. For 66 minutes, she and [Stephen] Beck give you music that obviously inspired countless composers who followed these three gentlemen.” – Craig Byrd, Cultural Attaché

“[Elizabeth Chang] is blessed with a beautiful tone, has fascinating musical ideas and a technique to burn.” “[Y]ou’ll be inspired and thrilled by great musicians performing wonderful repertoire at the highest level. Very highly recommended. – Anthony Kershaw, Audiophilia

Recorded with Elizabeth Chang’s longtime collaborator pianist Steven Beck, Sonatas and Myths features a collection of three seminal works from the early 20th century – Karol Szymanowski’s Mythes: Trois Poèmes, Op. 30 from 1915; Ernst von Dohnányi’s Violin Sonata in C# Minor, Op. 21 from 1912; and Béla Bartók’s Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano from 1921.

Sonatas and Myths portrays the profound teacher/student relationships from Chang’s artistic heritage, reflecting the influences and deep cross-generational connections between these composers. She explains, “I trace my connection to these composers through Carl Flesch, the great violin pedagogue who taught two of my teachers (Max Rostal and Roman Totenberg) and who was saved from deportation to a concentration camp by Dohnányi.”

Neave Trio – Rooted | July 5, 2024 (Chandos Records)
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“The Neave Trio have a way of making me fall in love with every oft-overlooked chamber work they record. Their latest release is chock full of Czech romanticism with trios by Smetana and Suk, as well as lovely folk-inspired works from Coleridge-Taylor and Martin.” – Emma Bauchner, Have You Heard - August 2024, WQXR

“[T]he virtues predominate, and the album's high points remain longest in your heart.” “A collection well worth experiencing.” – Peter J. Rabinowitz, Gramophone

“Such an inspired programme not only has immense musical appeal but also works superbly to the trio's advantage in enabling the group to demonstrate its versatility.” – Ron Schepper, Textura

Rooted features a range of works centered around folk music Piano Trio, Op. 15 in G minor by Bedřich Smetana; Five Negro Melodies from Twenty-four Negro Melodies, Op. 59 No. 1, for Solo Piano by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor; Petit Trio, Op. 2 in C minor by Josef Suk; and Trio sur des mélodies populaires irlandaises (on Popular Irish Melodies) by Frank Martin.

Smetana’s distinctive nationalistic style was largely based on the inclusion of bohemian rhythmic and melodic elements, and he was acclaimed in his native Bohemia as the father of Czech music. His Trio in G minor was composed in 1855 as a response to the death of his four-year-old daughter and shows the influence of Liszt. Josef Suk was a favorite pupil of Antonin Dvořák’s, and his early Piano Trio, while shorter in length and less intense than Smetana’s, is embedded in that Czech tradition. Also deeply influenced by Dvořák, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was inspired by his African heritage, and his Twenty-Four Negro Melodies for Piano was a prime example of his research. He subsequently arranged five of these pieces into the suite for piano trio that we hear on this album. The album concludes with Frank Martin’s Trio from 1925, which is based on several well-known traditional Irish melodies.

Of the new album, the Neave Trio writes, “ Each composer drew deeply from their personal lives and cultural roots, creating musical stories that are both universal and intimate. Working on these pieces has inspired us to reflect on our own stories and how our roots shape us artistically and beyond.”

David Kaplan – New Dances of the League of David | July, 12, 2024 (New Focus Recordings)
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“It’s obvious that Kaplan has devoted much time, care and consideration to honoring each composer’s wishes, including Schumann himself.” – Jed Distler, Gramophone

“the whole point is [the commissions’] diversity; Kaplan champions them all with spirit.” – Richard Fairman, Financial Times

“On this splendid release, the LA-based [David Kaplan] presents the composer's Davidsbündlertänze but with a twist . .the result is a riveting portrait in twenty-eight parts, thirteen short pieces from the original alongside fifteen reimaginings.” – Ron Schepper, Textura

New Dances of the League of David features 15 new piano miniatures commissioned by David Kaplan between 2013 and 2015 from some of today’s leading American composers, interwoven with Robert Schumann’s Davidsbündlertanze, Op. 6. The commissioned composers are Augusta Read Thomas, Martin Bresnick, Michael Stephen Brown, Marcos Balter, Gabriel Kahane, Timo Andres, Andrew Norman, Han Lash, Michael Gandolfi, Ted Hearne, Samuel Carl Adams, Mark Carlson, Ryan Francis, Caroline Shaw, and Caleb Burhans. Schumann’s Davidsbündlertanze is a collection of 18 short works from the 1830s, which the composer described as dances of the “League of David,” a musical society he created consisting of both real and imagined members – including the fictional characters Florestan and Eusebius, representing the two extremes of his own personality. The collection was dedicated to Robert Schumann’s wife, the composer and pianist Clara Wieck Schumann, and a mazurka she composed serves as its point of departure.

Kaplan writes, “Literary meanings, multiple personalities, and the border between reality and imagination aside, the Davidsbündlertänze is in purely musical terms a masterwork of startling originality; its genre simply has no precedent. . . The Davidsbündlertänze innovate in the contradiction between their apparent disjointedness and their stealthy, mysterious unity: pieces in different keys, with different affects, characters, tempi, lengths, and forms play on the same essential motives, and coexist with unlikely apposition. In a way, the young Schumann had invented the mixtape.”

Charlotte Hu – Liszt: Metamorphosis | July 19, 2024 (Pentatone)
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“A splendid introduction to a talented pianist” – Peter J. Rabinowitz, Gramophone

“[The programme] showcases some truly beautiful piano playing.” – Patrick Rucker, International Piano

“The album is a real gem.” – Giorgio Koukl, EarRelevant

Charlotte Hu explores Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt’s chameleonic and evolving approach to composing – the metamorphosis of his music spanning from his early works inspired by Beethoven to the abstract tonality of his later works, as well as his incredible ability to transcribe and transform the music of other composers he admired.

Liszt: Metamorphosis includes Liszt’s Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este (The Fountains of the Villa d’Este) from 1877; his Lieder Transcriptions of art songs by Schumann and Schubert from 1838 and 1848; Three Concert Études from 1845-49; and Rhapsodie espagnole (Spanish Rhapsody) from 1858.

With this album’s release, Charlotte Hu announces a metamorphosis of her own – a new name. She says, “When I came to America from Taiwan at the age of 14, my Chinese name was translated to Ching-Yun. Though musical sounding, the translation from Chinese did not reflect its origin. I've long felt the need to embrace my evolving identity. To better reflect this new direction, I have chosen Charlotte Hu as my new stage name. Having lived as Ching-Yun in the media for decades and through so many important life milestones, it was not an easy decision. However, with time, experience, and self-realization comes strength to embrace change. Charlotte, with French origins, means freedom. As a Taiwanese-American, Charlotte embodies the core of my personality and lifelong aspiration to have the courage to act, think, and speak without hindrance or restraint.”

Tina Davidson – Barefoot | July 26, 2024 (New Focus Recordings)
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“Each of the five works inhabits a single, intense emotion, which Davidson pursues with her own energy, like a life force, barely concealed beneath the surface.” – Laurence Vittes, Gramophon

“the depth of representation and feeling [on Barefoot] is remarkable – James Manheim, All Music

“[Tina Davidson’s] use of lyrical lines gives her compositions a singing quality.” – Giorgio Koukl, EarRelevant

The new album highlights five of Davidson’s chamber music pieces for varying combinations of strings and piano, composed over the past decade, including Tremble (2013) for violin, cello and piano; the title track Barefoot (2011) for violin, cello, viola, and piano; Wēpan (2014) for string quartet and piano; Hush (2017) for violin and piano; and Leap (2021) for violin, cello, viola, and piano. Barefoot features performances by the Jasper String Quartet (violinists J Freivogel and Karen Kim, violist Andrew Gonzalez, and cellist Rachel Henderson Freivogel) and pianist Natalie Zhu.

All of the works are deeply personal for Davidson. She explains in her note for the album: “I am a composer who writes about where I am at that moment. For years I composed about a sense of connectedness to something larger than myself. But in this decade of life, I find myself returning to quieter issues. I have softened and come home to myself.”

Alex Sopp – The Hem & The Haw | September 27, 2024 (New Amsterdam Records [Digital], Sono Luminus [CD])
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“a colorful and vibrant blend of 80’s electronic pop with a dreamy and ethereal presence. There’s a bit of a Kate Bush element to [title track, “The Hem & The Haw”], with a very colorful and cinematic soundscape that Sopp perfectly combines with her seductive vocals. – Will Oliver, We All Want Someone To Shout For

"[an] utterly seductive album of ten smart and sophisticated pop songs." – The Wire

Flutist, composer, vocalist, and visual artist Alex Sopp’s new album The Hem & The Haw is a collection of 10 songs written by Sopp in 2020 during the pandemic. She explains, “This album came to me in a fit of stillness. I had been moving so much and for so long that I forgot that my favorite thing to do is to just sit. Sitting in stillness involves watching, waiting, listening, and observing. . . I have been writing many secret songs for a long time now, always teasing at my inner world without fully letting it see the light of day. Over the years the desire to make my own music has grown alongside the desire to make my own artwork. Like most of the world, the events of 2020 left me with a fresh batch of time and that is when I wrote this particular group of songs.”

Sopp’s songs on The Hem & The Haw find depth in their playfulness. The vocal work and lyrical expression are beautifully decorated by a wide palette of acoustic and electronic timbres. Ah Said Rosita greets the listener with an evolving vocal wall of sound that grows in intensity with each repetition. The strong sense of grounding in North Pole in Summer melts into an open sonic landscape, where instruments bloom from the central chord progression like a Glassian labyrinth playing out in double time. Like a Vine grows out of a central pulse while myriad synthesizers follow the lyrics down winding and unpredictable paths.

This is Sopp’s first non-classical album featuring her own songs. Of the musical path that led her to this point, she says: “I’ve been so fortunate to have such a rich musical life. I started singing as a child in the Virgin Islands, and then for a while I transferred my singing voice solely to the flute – the kind of fierce focus one has to have while studying in a conservatory environment at Juilliard. My flute playing took me to play for several years as a guest with the New York Philharmonic, and much to my great luck I grew into my beautiful chamber music family The Knights. Living in New York in the mid-2000s, the music scene was full of curiosity and dialogue between classical musicians and rock bands and singer songwriters. It was during this time that yMusic formed. I started using my voice again with yMusic, when I found myself collaborating with artists such as Sufjan Stevens, Ben Folds, and Paul Simon. I provided backup vocals on several albums and found myself singing more and more in live contexts, performing major roles in theatrical productions requiring musical chameleonhood by composers like Gabriel Kahane and Chris Thile. My confidence grew!”

Simone Dinnerstein – The Eye is the First Circle | October 18, 2024 (Supertrain Records)
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GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein released her new album, The Eye is the First Circle featuring iconic American composer Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata, on October 18, 2024 via Supertrain Records – timed to coincide with Ives’ 150th birthday on October 20. The new album is a live recording of the premiere of Dinnerstein’s multimedia production of the same title, at the Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University, New Jersey on October 17, 2021. This recording is Dinnerstein's last to be released with her longtime recording partner, the late GRAMMY-winning producer Adam Abeshouse, who also produced her previous thirteen albums.

With her production The Eye is the First Circle, Simone Dinnerstein ventured into bold interdisciplinary artistic territory in collaboration with projection designer Laurie Olinder and lighting designer Davison Scandrett. Conceived and directed by Dinnerstein, the dynamic production deconstructs and collages elements from two iconic works of art – Simone’s father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata – and also incorporates ambient sounds of children playing, night sounds from the pond, and birdsong.

Dinnerstein explains the work further. She writes in the liner notes: “We tend to think of identity as taking us back to our roots, the part of us which remains essentially the same across time. In fact, identity is always a never-completed process of becoming – a process of shifting identifications, rather than a singular, complete, finished state of being. Ives’ music teems with invention, with the music that was all around him – art music and popular music – from which he, in turn, created his own distinctive and changing voice. . . This artistic project was a way in which I could ponder the process we’ve all been through – the accretion of experiences and influences that brought me to the place I was. It was an attempt to do what Emerson argued that we all want to do: to draw a new circle.”

Kristin Lee – American Sketches | November 15, 2024 (First Hand Records)
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“With a relaxed, in the groove, almost laissez-faire approach, violinist Kristin Lee and pianist Jeremy Ajani Jordan deliver renditions of these pieces that feel so natural and off-the-cuff as to almost sound improvised, which suits this type of music extremely well.” – Jean-Yves Duperron, Classical Music Sentinel

American Sketches is Kristin Lee’s debut full-length recording, due for release on November 15, 2024 via First Hand Records. A milestone for the internationally acclaimed soloist, educator, chamber musician, and artistic director, Lee is joined by pianists Jeremy Ajani Jordan and Jun Cho on the album, with Jordan also contributing arrangements of selected works. American Sketches reflects the distinct and recognizable sound of American music and its rich history, encompassing both Lee’s journey as an American, as well as the journeys of the composers she has selected.

A native of Seoul, Korea, she emigrated to the U.S. at the age of seven. During her childhood, playing the violin was a refuge from bullying and racism for Kristin – she moved to the U.S. not speaking any English, and felt the violin became her voice. As a foreign-born citizen of the U.S., Lee was compelled to select this repertoire to express her pride in the country she now calls her own, and has recorded works by American composers that have a distinct and recognizable sound of American music and its rich history.

American Sketches includes: Four Rags by John Novacek, Girl Crazy: But Not For Me (Arr. Jeremy Ajani Jordan, B. 1989) by George Gershwin, Lament (Arr. J.A. Jordan) by James Louis ‘J.J.’ Johnson, The Entertainer (Arr. J.A. Jordan) by Scott Joplin; Romance, Op. 23 by Amy Beach; Southland Sketches by Henry 'Harry' Thacker Burleigh non-poem 4 (Arr. for Violin and Piano, 2018) by Jonathan Ragonese Four Airs: IV. Air (Previously Called Aria) by Kevin Puts; Monk's Mood by Thelonious Monk.

Of what American Sketches means to her, Kristin Lee says:

“My inspiration for American Sketches lies in the celebration of differences. It is the differences of people, environment, and encounters that ignite our curiosity, fuel our motivation, and inspire our creativity. By accepting and appreciating these differences, we pave the way for changes to our society. Whilst adopting change is difficult for many people, it is a critical component in our ever-evolving world, particularly within the musical communities. The history of American music is a great example of this notion. From the Indigenous sounds of the Native Americans to the influences of Western Europe and Africa, the American sound merged and evolved into what we know as Ragtime, Appalachian Folk, Jazz, and so much more. The variety of musical styles represents the diverse culture of America, showcasing the beauty of individual expression and the celebration of American history.”

Ethan Iverson – Playfair Sonatas | November 15, 2024 (Urlicht AudioVisual)
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“[Playfair Sonatas] is a wonderful CD”; “an imaginative recording.” – Ken Talbot, Musicweb International

Playfair Sonatas, the new album from pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson, features six sonatas composed by Iverson for six different instruments and piano, and recorded by Iverson with some of today’s most vibrant classical performers – violinist Miranda Cuckson; marimba player Makoto Nakura; clarinetist Carol McGonnell; trombonist Mike Lormand; saxophonist Taimur Sullivan; and trumpeter Tim Leopold.

Playfair Sonatas was born in 2020 during the pandemic, when Iverson met curator, producer, and frequent commissioner of new work Piers Playfair for a summertime outdoor dinner. Like most musicians that year, Iverson had downsized and was concerned about making a baseline income. He had recently moved and rented a smaller, cheaper studio, and when Playfair asked if there was anything he could help with, Iverson replied, “Yeah, I’d love to cover the studio rent for a few months.” The two agreed that in exchange for six months of rent, Iverson would write six sonatas, and that Playfair would be allowed to choose the instrumentation.

Iverson’s Playfair Sonatas showcases a signature approach: The sonatas intertwine 21st-century jazz gestures with the formal structures of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn. While the outer movements are titled with traditional tempo indications (Allegro, Rondo, Scherzo, and similar), the middle movements of each work are dedicated to an artist whose work blended jazz and classical.

Christopher Jesina 11/15/24 Christopher Jesina 11/15/24

Sony Classical in 2024: Albums for Year-End Roundup Consideration

Sony Classical 2024 Albums for Year-End Roundup Consideration

Anastasia Kobekina: Venice
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Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma:
Beethoven for Three – Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97
GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance
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Luka Faulisi: Vivaldi
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Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus
GRAMMY® Nominated for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album
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Bryce Dessner: Solos
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Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, Jeremy Denk: Mendelssohn Piano Trios
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Paul Robeson: Voice of Freedom
- The Complete Columbia, RCA, HMV, and Victor Recordings
GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Historical Album

Igor Levit: Brahms Piano Concertos & Solo Piano Opp. 116-119
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Khatia Buniatishvilli: Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 23
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Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott: Merci
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Hayato Sumino: Human Universe
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Michael Tilson Thomas: The Complete CBS, RCA, and Sony Classical Recordings

Anastasia Kobekina – Venice | February 24, 2024
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“[Anastasia Kobekina’s] playing can be feverishly swift but also lithe.” “[I]t comes across as supple and sensitive on the recording.” – Olivia Hampton, NPR Morning Edition

“Interesting textures abound” “This is altogether a striking disc.” – Janet Banks, The Strad

“The programme is singular and intimate, less about virtuosic solo cello than ensemble musicianship, and all the better for it.” – Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian

Venice, which showcases many sides of Anastasia Kobekina’s artistry, draws listeners away from the lugubrious gondoliers and carnival masks that have provided our standard musical image of Venice. Instead, the album asks how much of what we’ve internalized about the iconic city is actually real. “Venice feels not just a city but an idea, a character in itself,” says the cellist; “or maybe it presents a different character to each of us. It asks questions of you, fires your imagination.” Her album, on which Kobekina is joined by a team of handpicked soloists and the Basel Chamber Orchestra, presents an embracing, personal conversation between past and present, including music from the Renaissance of Claudio Monteverdi and John Dowland to the twenty-first-century of Brian Eno and Caroline Shaw.

In reflecting on a city that exists both physically and in the imagination, Venice creates and links musical worlds. Some of the most familiar music on the album is invigorated for being both taken out of one context and placed in another. More unfamiliar music sounds strangely close-to-home. The effect is dream-like, enchanting and thought provoking – as mysterious, timeless and surprising as Venice itself.

Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma – Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97 "Archduke" | March 15, 2024
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GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

“This album breathes new life into the all-star format, and it made classical best-seller lists in the spring of 2024.” – James Manheim, AllMusic

“[T]his reading transmits in spades the sheer pleasure of three virtuosos with nothing left to prove simply playing together: surely the holy grail of chamber music making.”– David Threasher, The Strad

Like the artists' two previous Beethoven for Three releases, this new recording featuring Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma challenges the traditional distinction between chamber and orchestral repertoire, pairing the unforgettable "Archduke" trio with one of the composer's most internally varied symphonies, thoughtfully re-arranged for piano, violin, and cello by Shai Wosner. Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97, “Archduke" is the latest chapter in three friends’ ongoing exploration of what Beethoven’s invention means for musicians and audiences today.

The Beethoven for Three series features three artists in pursuit of the essential elements of Beethoven's musical language, presenting Beethoven's most iconic symphonies in intimate arrangements that maintain the power and immediacy of his orchestral works. By performing the symphonies on three instruments alongside the composer’s canonical piano trios, the artists present a wealth of insight into both Beethoven and his earliest audiences.

“We all feel that being able to participate in a symphony is such a wonderful thing to do,” says Ma. “One of the things that has separated people since recording began is the categories that we put people in, in which chamber musicians, orchestra players, people who play concertos, people who do transcriptions, people who compose, people who conduct, are all viewed as separate categories with no overlap. That siloed thinking discourages actual creativity and collaboration between people. And so we feel that one of the things that is really important to do today is to actually go back to the first principles of music, the simple interaction between friends who want to do something together."

Luka Faulisi – Vivaldi | April 26, 2024
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“[Luka Faulisi’s] gift for bringing a lyrical quality to these oft-recorded works is evident throughout.” – Greg Cahill, Strings

“[Luka] Faulisi is a player of great control and attention to detail.” – Samuel Wigutow, Concerto.net

Vivaldi is the exceptional new recording of the much loved Vivaldi “Four Seasons” by rising Italian-Serbian-French violinist Luka Faulisi, taking on the piece with his bright, youthful energy. For this album, Faulisi collaborated with the excellent Polish baroque ensemble (oh!) Orkiestra Historyczna, directed by concertmaster and ensemble leader Martyna Pastuzka. The combination of Luka’s romantic sound, formed in French impressionistic repertoire, and the ensemble’s energetic and forceful take let the well-known masterpiece shine in a new light.

With “a million-dollar sound” (Pinchas Zukerman), twenty-one-year-old Luka Faulisi is one of the most promising violinists of his generation. Having started to play the violin at the age of three, Luka was a student of Boris Belkin at the Conservatorium Maastricht in the Netherlands. Over the years, through personal mentoring, several distinguished artists have influenced Luka’s musical formation. Pavel Berman describes him as an ‘an incredibly gifted virtuoso violinist’. Flautist Emmanuel Pahud praises Luka as ‘an extremely talented young man with great instrumental abilities and a strong musical expression’ and according to Jean-Jacques Kantorow Luka possesses “incredible facilities.”

Ryuichi Sakamoto – Opus | August 9, 2024 (Sony Music Masterworks)
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GRAMMY® Nominated for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album

“One might say it was a performance for nobody — Sakamoto filmed alone in a studio, with only the crew there as audience. But it’s more correct to say it’s for us, a gift from a master.” – Alissa Wilkinson, The New York Times

“[Ryuichi Sakamoto’s] playing throughout is emotionally resonant and carefully considered, but he eschews showy displays of technical prowess in favor of an intimate depiction of the man behind the piano.” – Colin Joyce, Pitchfork

“The stillness and poise, a sonic slow-motion playing out on some subtle fractal sonic wave that never breaks makes this set startling and arresting, as quiet as it is. Meditative, too. Good for the early hours.” – Tim Cumming, The Arts Desk

In late 2022, the Japanese composer, producer, and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto sat down at the piano for a final performance. Too ill to complete an entire set at once, Opus is garnered from multiple sessions shot and recorded in Tokyo’s legendary NHK 509 Studio. The concert was filmed and recorded without an audience, directed by Sakamoto’s son Neo Sora and turned into a film Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, now available on The Criterion Channel. Opus was carefully curated by Sakamoto, with selections including his iconic film scores, Yellow Magic Orchestra classics, alongside pieces reflective of his eclectic career. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, perhaps one of his most famous melodies, and beloved works Andata, Aqua, and Trioon are represented as well as entirely new or never-before-recorded compositions. There is for Jóhann, dedicated to the late composer and Sakamoto’s friend Jóhann Jóhannsson, BB, a tribute to filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, and 2010219 (w/prepared piano), a previously unreleased solo prepared-piano track, are all new to Sakamoto’s vast repertoire.

Sakamoto provided a statement on the project after it was recorded, saying:

“The project was conceived as a way to record my performances – while I was still able to perform – in a way that is worth preserving for the future. In some sense, while thinking of this as my last opportunity to perform, I also felt that I was able to break new ground. Simply playing a few songs a day with a lot of concentration was all I could muster at this point in my life. Perhaps due to the exertion, I felt utterly hollow afterwards, and my condition worsened for about a month. Even so, I feel relieved that I was able to record before my death – a performance that I was satisfied with.”

Bryce Dessner – Solos | August 23, 2024
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“All the musicians on this record are exceptional soloists who have spent their lives perfecting their instrument." – Bryce Desser on NPR Morning Edition

“[On Solos, Bryce Dessner is] giving these musicians the most exposed and personal form of music” – Martin Cullingford, Gramophone

“Dessner writes idiomatically for all the instruments [on Solos]. . . and that is quite an accomplishment.” “Bryce Dessner, founder and guitarist of the indie rock band The National, has arguably had the greatest success of any of the figures who have attempted the jump from rock to classical concert music, reaching greater heights with each new release.” – James Manheim, AllMusic

Bryce Dessner’s new album Solos is a collection of unaccompanied instrumental works written by Dessner over the past few years from both his classical and scoring catalog. Solos showcases not only Dessner’s compositional flair but also the immense talent of his frequent collaborators and friends. Featured soloists include cellist Anastasia Kobekina; violinist Pekka Kuusisto; pianist Katia Labèque; harpist Lavinia Meijer; violist Nadia Sirota; percussionist Colin Currie and Dessner himself on acoustic guitar. Today’s album release also signifies the launch of an extensive partnership that will see Dessner’s classical compositions released on Sony Classical while sister label Milan Records will continue to be a home for some of his celebrated soundtracks.

Of his Sony Classical debut, Bryce Dessner says, “Writing a solo piece for me is always a great challenge and joy, as you have all the personality and talent of the player plus the physicality and resonance of the solo instrument. These pieces of mine are often written like poems, where the musical language itself dictates the form and evolution of the piece and were often opportunities for me to explore more deeply my relationship to the instruments they were composed for. They also represent in each case close collaborative relationships and friendships I have been very lucky to develop with the incredible musicians who play them. Katia, Pekka, Anastasia, Nadia, Lavinia and Colin are all exceptional artists who brought so much of their amazing talent to these recordings.”

Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, Jeremy Denk – Mendelssohn Piano Trios | August 30, 2024
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“[A]s a whirling blend of lyricism and drive, conversation and argument, polish and spontaneity, the performances are genuinely exciting, with such ‘oomph’ that it’s hard to tear oneself away.” – Jessica Duchen, BBC Music Magazine

Violinist Joshua Bell reunites with two of his favorite collaborating artists and friends – cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Jeremy Denk – for Sony Classical’s new recording of the piano trios of Felix Mendelssohn. The new recording follows a unique all-Brahms collection For the Love of Brahms – released by Sony Classical in 2018 – that was also a collaboration of Bell, Isserlis and Denk. The two Mendelssohn trios – No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49 (1839) and No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 66 (1845) – are regarded as being among the composer’s masterpieces.

Of the new Mendelssohn Piano Trio recording, Joshua Bell notes:

“Steven Isserlis and Jeremy Denk have been my most cherished chamber music partners for decades. They bring seemingly limitless imaginations and uncanny musical intelligence to every work I have had the privilege of exploring with them. It is my hope that our mutual joy for playing chamber music and, in particular, our shared deep love for the genius of Felix Mendelssohn comes through in this recording of these Piano Trios. I am forever grateful for having the opportunity to make this album.”

Paul Robeson – Voice of Freedom: The Complete Columbia, RCA, HMV, and Victor Recordings | August 30, 2024
Order on Amazon

GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Historical Album

“[T]his comprehensive survey of his recording career stands as a testament not just to Robeson’s incomparable talents and achievements, but also to the substantial hurdles faced by black Americans generally during his lifetime.” – David Mermelstein, Wall Street Journal

“[Voice of Freedom] aims to reinstate [Paul Robeson,] this one-time cultural icon, to his rightful place.” – Michel Martin, Olivia Hampton, NPR Morning Edition

“How do you pay tribute to the towering figure of Paul Robeson, the bass-baritone who also had a major stage and film career and was a prominent labor and civil rights activist? Sony Classical’s answer is Paul Robeson: Voice of Freedom.” – Jennifer Melick, Classical Voice North America

Today, his remarkable voice and unrivaled stage presence live on in sound recordings and films. This 14-CD edition, released on Sony Classical, is the first ever release of his complete Columbia, HMV and Victor recordings from 1925 to 1947. All of Robeson’s American recordings have been meticulously restored from the original master discs and tapes, and 25 studio recordings—as well as his complete historic New York and London recitals from 1958—are presented here for the first time on CD. The richly illustrated 160-page book, with essays by Shana L. Redmond and Susan Robeson, pays tribute to a cultural icon of the 20th century.

Igor Levit – Brahms: Piano Concertos & Solo Piano Opp. 116 - 119 | October 4, 2024
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“It’s all excellent. [Igor] Levit can be ruminative and poetic, then calmly commanding and even stormy without ever sounding harsh. As always, his most remarkable quality is avoiding seeming indulgent as he conveys personality and spontaneity. Under Christian Thielemann, the Vienna Philharmonic makes wonderful sounds,” Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times

“I stand in abject admiration of [Igor] Levit’s interpretative imagination as well as (almost needless to say) his fine technique. And the orchestral performances here, from a storied venue, bring the listener back in time to the creation of timeless music that feels as vital and emotionally stirring today in our anxious digital world as it did in the 19th century.” – Jon Sobel, Blogcritics

Johannes Brahms’ two piano concertos and Levit’s recording of Brahms’s well-known solo works opp. 116–119 make up the first joint recording by Igor Levit and Christian Thielemann – a triple album – released on Sony Classical. Levit’s and Thielemann’s first meeting was quite unplanned, although both had been curious about each other for a long time. In 2015, Levit spontaneously stepped in for a colleague who had fallen ill and performed Mozart’s C major Concerto K 467 with Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden in Munich. Despite an extremely short rehearsal period, the two hit it off straight away: “We have such a similar way of thinking that it is not necessary to discuss many things,” says Thielemann. And Levit adds: “When the piece begins, I simply have complete confidence in you. I know I can’t take a wrong turn. Having such unconditional trust is extraordinary.”

The two do not have to discuss individual passages – a common understanding is attained without the need for words, simply through listening and responding. Instead, they prefer to talk about performers and composers. And they are always amazed to discover how similarly they perceive so many things. Sometime after their initial meeting, it was during a walk together near Berlin that the conversation turned to Brahms – and thus they conceived the plan to record the two piano concertos as part of an upcoming Brahms cycle with Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic. For Levit the addition of Brahms’ beloved solo works opp. 116–119 on the album just felt right. Levit says: “Brahms’ music cannot leave you untouched. It’s just physically and emotionally not possible. Take op. 118 no. 2, for example, it’s like an arrow shot straight into your heart. It’s simply the most beautiful, touching, and tender music imaginable.”

Khatia Buniatishvilli – Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 23 | October 25, 2024
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“[I]t’s [Khatia Buniatishvilli’s] command of the stage, combined with her expressive performance energy and glamourous exterior that has made her a household name in classical music.” – Gary Gerard Hamilton, Associated Press

“Buniatishvili’s ability to infuse color into the sound is fully evident.” – Tal Agam, The Classic Review

For her tenth album on Sony Classical, pianist Khatia Buniatishvili joins an iconic orchestra in performances of two cherished piano concertos by Mozart, her first ever album dedicated to the composer. After a string of releases on Sony Classical that have redefined the parameters of the classical recital album, Khatia Buniatishvili is returning to tradition with a recording of two of Mozart’s most sublime late piano concertos.

In his Piano Concertos Nos 20 and 23, Mozart takes the genre of the concerto to new heights of sophistication and communicative power. The works come from the cherished crop of late piano concertos that are among the jewels of Mozart’s output and have long formed touchstone works for great pianists and recording artists. Mozart’s music, says Buniatishvili, carries “a simplicity that makes you lost before finding yourself.” She is joined on her recording by an orchestra with a near-unrivaled pedigree in Mozart recording, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott – Merci | October 25, 2024
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“A splendid introduction to a talented pianist” – Peter J. Rabinowitz, Gramophone

“[The programme] showcases some truly beautiful piano playing.” – Patrick Rucker, International Piano

“The album is a real gem.” – Giorgio Koukl, EarRelevant

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and longtime collaborator and pianist Kathryn Stott collaborate on new album Merci, released on Sony Classical. Merci is a deeply personal expression of gratitude, a celebration of the powerful relationships that keep music alive. This effervescent recording is rooted in the compositions of Gabriel Fauré, whom Stott calls her “musical soulmate,” and follows the arcs of his inspiration and influence, from the creations of his teacher Camille Saint-Saëns and his friend and supporter Pauline Viardot to works by his student Nadia Boulanger and her sister, Lili. Merci is testament to the gift of friendship, to the connections among performers, between students and teachers, and across generations that make music magic.

Ma and Stott—both of whom have connections to Fauré through their respective teachers Luise Vosgerchian and Nadia Boulanger—reveal the extent of Fauré’s influence and inspiration through a recording that juxtaposes Fauré’s works for strings and piano with compositions by members of his musical family. Yo-Yo Ma says, “we musicians stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and that we can only hope that ours will sustain those who come after.”

“The inspiration for this project stretches back to my very early years as a child at the Menuhin School, where teachers often visited from Paris,” Stott writes in the recording’s liner notes. “One of those was Nadia Boulanger. Nadia had been a student of Gabriel Fauré, and when I was 10, I had the great privilege to play Fauré’s fourth Barcarolle for her; from that moment, Fauré’s music never left my side. At the age of 10, I had found my musical soulmate.”

Hayato Sumino – Human Universe | November 1, 2024
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Human Universe is the title of the new Sony Classical recording by the Japanese musical sensation Hayato Sumino – known to his million-plus YouTube followers simply as “Cateen.” The title also describes the environment where Sumino works, where he learns, where he creates, and where he dreams. For Human Universe, Hayato Sumino mixes classical pieces with his own compositions, which draw freely on improvisation and the music he came to love while growing up – jazz, rock, electronic, the music of anime – as well as the classical canon. Separately, and as a whole, they build the atmosphere he describes.

The familiar classical pieces by Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Fauré and Ravel – and even the late Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Solari and the track Day One from Hans Zimmer’s score for the film Interstellar – offer a grounding, both in what the listener expects and what drives Sumino’s imagination as a pianist and composer. Sumino’s recording of “Twinkle Twinkle” is a witty homage – in Sumino’s own terms – to Mozart’s famous set of variations on the nursery song Ah vous dirae-je, Maman (Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star). In his original pieces, Sumino gives voice to his sophisticated keyboard technique, in creating a rich sound-world that draws on the musical experiences that influence him and his expressive imagination. His three Nocturnes – I. Pre-Rain, II. After Dawn and III. Once in a Blue Moon – form a short cycle of daily human experience in sensual, almost tactile terms.

“As a musician, as a human, I listen to all kinds of music, as one small person in this entire universe,” Sumino says. “So, I hope the audience for Human Universe will feel the same way. As if they are sitting alone in the vast space of the universe, just talking with themselves in an introspective, intimate atmosphere… I hope it will bring them something they never experienced before.”

Michael Tilson Thomas – The Complete CBS, RCA, and Sony Classical Recordings | December 6, 2024
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Michael Tilson Thomas – or MTT as he is affectionately known almost everywhere by now – has become one of the world’s best-loved musical figures and most successful recording artists, with a dozen GRAMMYs to his credit. In celebration of his 80th birthday, Sony Classical will release, for the first time, an 80-CD box set, which collects the entire discography MTT amassed for RCA, CBS and Sony Classical between 1973 and 2005.

Michael Tilson Thomas was born into an artistic family in Los Angeles in 1944. His paternal grandparents Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky were founding members of the Yiddish Theatre in America. By the age of 19, he was already conducting premières of works by Boulez, Copland, Stockhausen and Stravinsky. He assisted Boulez at the Ojai Festival in California, and in 1969 was appointed assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony under William Steinberg. He was music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1971 to 1979, and principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1981 to 1985. He co-founded and directed the Miami-based New World Symphony, giving its first concert in 1988. That year, he became principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. In 1995, he assumed the career-defining post of music director of the San Francisco Symphony, turning an already top-class ensemble into America’s most boldly adventurous orchestra. Michael Tilson Thomas has been an eloquent champion of Mahler, Gershwin, Ives and Copland. He is also equally at home in the standard European repertoire, Broadway musicals and jazz; and he is a passionate, eloquent teacher.

Of what the collection means to him, Michael Tilson Thomas says, “Before and after this collection I made other recordings, but this edition represents a special period where the daring and exuberance of the musicians, the expertise of the technical team, and the support of recording companies enabled me to present a wide range of repertoire.”