\n<\/p>\n
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor (Nonesuch)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
This recording has so much to applaud: the achievement of Thomas Ad\u00e8s in writing such a clever, vivid, effective work; the ambition of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in performing its hour and a half of music in a single evening and taping it live; the wisdom of Nonesuch in releasing the audio. Essential listening. DAVID ALLEN<\/p>\n
Vikingur Olafsson, piano (Deutsche Grammophon)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The finest interpreters of the \u201cGoldberg\u201d Variations balance the individuality of each section with a sense of shape over the work\u2019s 75 minutes. Vikingur Olafsson does that \u2014 achieving unity while avoiding flatness \u2014 and more, from a beautifully simple Aria to a life-affirming Quodlibet and back, with nostalgic sweetness, to the Aria again. JOSHUA BARONE<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Karim Sulayman, tenor; Sean Shibe, guitar (Pentatone)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
This year, there wasn\u2019t anything in classical music quite like this thoughtful program of songs, arranged for Karim Sulayman\u2019s alluring voice and Sean Shibe\u2019s expressive guitar, that create dialogues across cultures and centuries \u2014 raising complicated questions about identity, exoticization and exchange along the way \u2014 while providing an absolutely beautiful listening experience. JOSHUA BARONE<\/p>\n
Stile Antico (Decca)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
William Byrd died 400 years ago this July, and the anniversary celebrations offered no finer tribute than this typically imaginative, immaculate record from Stile Antico. At its heart is the Mass for Four Voices; I could listen to the exquisitely tender \u201cAgnus Dei\u201d all day, and for a week or two last winter, I think I actually did. DAVID ALLEN<\/p>\n
Metropolis Ensemble; Andrew Cyr, conductor (In a Circle)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Christopher Cerrone and Stephanie Fleischmann\u2019s \u201cIn a Grove,\u201d an operatic retelling of the short story that also inspired the film \u201cRashomon,\u201d is a vividly immersive thriller about the nature of truth and memory. Not a word or note is without dramaturgical purpose, and both are captured, if not enhanced, in this richly produced recording. JOSHUA BARONE<\/p>\n
Michael Spyres, tenor; Il Pomo d\u2019Oro; Francesco Corti, conductor (Erato)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
With a juicy, chesnut-colored timbre, a stupefying three-octave range and a keen instinct for showmanship, Michael Spyres flies through virtuoso arias from the Baroque and early Classical eras. It\u2019s 70 minutes of gobsmacking singing. The effervescent playing of Il Pomo d\u2019Oro contributes to the album\u2019s heady effect. OUSSAMA ZAHR<\/p>\n
Wild Up; Devont\u00e9 Hynes and Adam Tendler, pianos (New Amsterdam)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
This latest in Wild Up\u2019s series of recordings of works by Julius Eastman takes on three stormy, swiftly shifting, open-ended scores, rendered in new arrangements for a large and varied ensemble with passion, richness and complexity \u2014 a forest of details \u2014 and a controlled chaos inspired by free jazz. ZACHARY WOOLFE<\/p>\n
Igor Levit, piano (Sony Classical<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Refulgent Bach, poetically precise Liszt, twilit Berg, artfully brooding Busoni \u2014 the pianist Igor Levit is aware of style but more beholden to affect. He works methodically, his mind on not just the next bar but the next page, as he proves the coherence and the imagination of this album\u2019s expansive, fantasy-like pieces. OUSSAMA ZAHR<\/p>\n Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin (Hyperion)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Faur\u00e9\u2019s 13 nocturnes and 13 barcarolles \u2014 two and a half hours in all \u2014 are not the kind of dizzyingly virtuosic works that are the fire-fingered Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin\u2019s stock in trade. But his clarity and sensitivity confirm that this is music of tender poignancy and subtle experimentation. ZACHARY WOOLFE<\/p>\n Jean Rondeau, harpsichord (Erato)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Taking on works for piano by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Debussy on this quietly audacious album \u2014 a reflection on influence, transcription and re-creation \u2014 the harpsichordist Jean Rondeau also shows his gift for in-the-moment artfulness in pieces originally for his instrument by Palestrina, Clementi and Johann Joseph Fux. ZACHARY WOOLFE<\/p>\n University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra; Kenneth Kiesler, conductor (Naxos)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Here, James P. Johnson, the composer of \u201cThe Charleston,\u201d sets texts by Langston Hughes and Eugene O\u2019Neill in two short stage works. Aside from scholars, who knew? Well, now everyone can experience<\/a> this Harlem Stride pianist\u2019s talent for orchestration, shaping narrative \u2014 and, on occasion, weaving the feel of spirituals into the fabric of American opera. SETH COLTER WALLS<\/p>\n Yunchan Lim, piano (Steinway & Sons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Yunchan Lim was just 18 when he played this formidable Liszt collection during the semifinals of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition last year. He is already so mind-bogglingly accomplished technically, and so refined musically, that these formidable works sound easy. \u201cI\u2019d like to be a musician with infinite possibilities,\u201d he has said<\/a>. And so he would appear to be. DAVID ALLEN<\/p>\n Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Nicholas Buc, conductor (Blue Engine Records)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Wynton Marsalis\u2019s best symphony<\/a> draws from his familiar lodestars. Duke Ellington looms large, as ever and as he ought. But other affinities also bloom: post-Minimalist orchestral riffing, pastoral melody and noir ambience all have their say. Plus, Marsalis\u2019s climactic trumpet exclamations summon Cootie Williams from the grave. SETH COLTER WALLS<\/p>\n Peter Herresthal, violin; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra; Arctic Philharmonic; Tim Weiss, James Gaffigan, conductors (Bis)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Missy Mazzoli is a master of chiaroscuro. Her first full-length album of orchestral music opens with a bold statement of blinding light and warmly inviting darkness. Her compositions have a signature sound and a sense of movement, as in the enlarging circles of \u201cSinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)\u201d and the plunging explorations of \u201cThese Worlds in Us.\u201d OUSSAMA ZAHR<\/p>\n Quatuor Van Kuijk (Alpha)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It can be difficult, throughout this survey of Mendelssohn\u2019s string quartets, to tell whether one or four instruments are being played, so unified are the Quatuor Van Kuijk players in their interpretation and delivery. At their most impressive, as in their excellent Schubert album, they are capable of shattering expressivity without a hint of sentimentality. JOSHUA BARONE<\/p>\n Pygmalion; Rapha\u00ebl Pichon, conductor (Harmonia Mundi)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There was good reason to think a little more deeply<\/a> about the future of the period-instrument movement this year, but in Rapha\u00ebl Pichon and his Pygmalion ensemble, the future may already be here<\/a>. They already have a strong list of recordings to their name, but this is one of their most daring, fervent and joyous and free. DAVID ALLEN<\/p>\n Philippe Bianconi, piano (La Dolce Volta)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The French pianist Philippe Bianconi traces his pedagogical lineage back to Ravel\u2019s circle, and the result is an album that is magical and transporting, lean and precise. There is no wallowing, no schmaltz. The melancholy he finds in \u201cSonatine\u201d is as sharply observed as the jerky flight of moths in \u201cNoctuelles.\u201d OUSSAMA ZAHR<\/p>\n Helsinki Chamber Choir; Nils Schweckendiek, conductor (Bis)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The painful loss of Kaija Saariaho this year makes this album particularly precious. Saariaho\u2019s choral music \u2014 including the title work, from 2020, to a text about encounters with Mars \u2014 looks back to medieval chant and Renaissance madrigals, and forward to a future of eerie cyborg combinations of the acoustic and electronic. ZACHARY WOOLFE<\/p>\n Lawrence Brownlee, tenor; Kevin J. Miller, piano (Warner Classics)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This beautifully curated album has the sound of an artist who went into the recording studio with something urgent and personal to say. Lawrence Brownlee, Rossini tenor extraordinaire, stretches his vibrato-dense instrument to register subtle feelings aroused in him by songs of the African American experience. Captivating in his commitment, he doesn\u2019t waste a note. OUSSAMA ZAHR<\/p>\n Henry Threadgill Ensemble (Pi Recordings)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This is where the Second Viennese School meets American second line parade music. Recorded live at Roulette in Brooklyn<\/a>, and conducted by Henry Threadgill, the blend of strings, woodwinds, tuba, piano and percussion on this recording of \u201cOf Valence\u201d conjures jazz combo and chamber music ecstasies alike. SETH COLTER WALLS<\/p>\n Steven Schick, percussion (Islandia Music Records)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ever ambitious, the percussionist Steven Schick fills this set with three hours of self-challenges, including Xenakis\u2019s benchmark \u201cPsappha\u201d; Vivian Fung\u2019s \u201cThe Ice Is Talking,\u201d played on a block of the frozen stuff; Roger Reynolds\u2019s \u201cHere and There,\u201d incorporating a Beckett text; and the hourlong sparseness of Sarah Hennies\u2019s \u201cThought Sectors.\u201d ZACHARY WOOLFE<\/p>\n Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; Manfred Honeck, conductor (Reference Recordings)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have a habit of recording benchmark accounts of classic works, and this Tchaikovsky is no exception. It\u2019s not just their ability to make the most of even the tiniest details that makes this account special, but also how each of those details speaks in service of Honeck\u2019s hair-raising conception of the work. DAVID ALLEN<\/p>\n Iceland Symphony Orchestra; Eva Ollikainen, conductor (Sono Luminus<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir has long been associated with evocations of the earth and tectonic forces. Here, especially in the symphony-length \u201cAion,\u201d her preoccupation is still ecological, but in an abstract, grander sense that surveys immense textures and forms from ever-shifting scales of time and space. Feel small yet? JOSHUA BARONE<\/p>\n Aaron Diehl Trio and the Knights; Eric Jacobsen, conductor (Mack Avenue Records)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The chamber orchestra edition<\/a> of Mary Lou Williams\u2019s \u201cZodiac Suite\u201d receives marvelous new life here. The Knights revel in textures flowing from her appreciation of Hindemith; a rhythm section locks into swing grooves. The pianist Aaron Diehl moves deftly between those worlds, and supports an art-song finale that features the soprano Mikaela Bennett. SETH COLTER WALLS<\/p>\n Josh Modney, violin; Mariel Roberts, cello; Eric Wubbels, piano (Carrier Records)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The composer-performer Eric Wubbels brings meticulous poise to his experimentalism<\/a>. Each new movement of this hourlong piano trio may sound alarming at first. But it\u2019s not shock for shock\u2019s sake: Wubbels maintains immersion in alternate tunings and microtonality in order to set up gradual, ravishing changes. You just might bliss out. SETH COLTER WALLS<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nFaur\u00e9: \u2018Nocturnes & Barcarolles\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Gradus ad Parnassum\u2019<\/h2>\n
Johnson: \u2018De Organizer\u2019 and \u2018The Dreamy Kid\u2019<\/h2>\n
Liszt: \u2018Transcendental \u00c9tudes\u2019<\/h2>\n
Wynton Marsalis: Symphony No. 4, \u2018The Jungle\u2019<\/h2>\n
Missy Mazzoli: \u2018Dark With Excessive Bright\u2019<\/h2>\n
Mendelssohn: \u2018Quartets Vol. 2\u2019<\/h2>\n
Monteverdi: \u2018Vespro della Beata Vergine\u2019<\/h2>\n
Ravel: \u2018L\u2019Oeuvre Pour Piano\u2019<\/h2>\n
Saariaho: \u2018Reconnaissance\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Rising\u2019<\/h2>\n
Henry Threadgill: \u2018The Other One\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Weather Systems II: Soundlines\u2019<\/h2>\n
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5<\/h2>\n
Anna Thorvaldsdottir: \u2018Archora\/Aion\u2019<\/h2>\n
Mary Lou Williams: \u2018Zodiac Suite\u2019<\/h2>\n
Eric Wubbels: \u201cIf and Only If\u201d<\/h2>\n