There’s nothing like two tenors trying to figure out if they’re friends or rivals.

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Diana Damrau / Antonio Pappano / Santa Cecilia National Academy Orchestra
Tudor Queens

Some old and new favorites featuring British monarchs.

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Fatma Said
El Nour

This woman’s voice is AMAZING!!

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The Kanneh-Masons
Saint-Saens: Carnival Of The Animals

Is there nothing this talented family can’t do?

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Ilan Eshkeri
Ghost of Tsushima

Still need to play the game but the music gives me chills!

And everything Lara Downes has done this year to put Florence Price in the spotlight!

New in 2020 was a compilation album from the one-named cellist from Croatia, Hauser. Actually, he has a perfectly fine first name too (Stjepan) and has made some nice choices on this recording called Classic.

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Lara Downes
Some of These Days

Northern California-based pianist and activist Lara Downes has brought together spirituals and freedom songs from across the centuries as a reflection on social justice in her album, Some of These Days.

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Cappella Romana
Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia

You can travel to one the world’s most fascinating buildings without having to leave your house with the technical marvel that is this new collection of Byzantine chants. Read about how two Stanford engineers captured the unique acoustics of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia on our Play On, California blog.

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James Ehnes / Andrew Armstrong
Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos. 4, 5 “Spring” & 8

Gotta get one’s Beethoven on this year, his 250th birthday. Consider this recording of Violin Sonatas with Canadian violinist James Ehnes and American pianist Andrew Armstrong. Includes the well-loved “Spring” Sonata.

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Voces 8
After Silence

Any recording with this English a cappella group is a treat. This is their latest, a compilation of songs inspired by Aldous Huxley who once said, “The most profoundly significant constituents of our being include our responses to beauty, pleasure, pain, ecstasy and death. These can best be ‘experienced, not expressed’ through silence, and after silence, through music.”

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As a lover of Baroque music and Balsom’s peerless playing, I was delighted when she released this album devoted to what she calls “the golden age of the trumpet.”

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Lara Downes
Florence Price: Piano Discoveries

It was in 2009 that dozens of scores by Florence Price, including two violin concertos, came to light (after having been lost for half a century). With this recording, Lara Downes has made an important contribution to our rediscovery of this pioneering African-American composer.

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Freiburg Baroque Orchestra
Mozart: Youth Symphonies

We tend to hear Mozart’s later symphonies rather frequently, but what of the early ones? Mozart hit the ground running with his first symphony at the age of eight. Here’s a chance to hear the work of the young genius who would ultimately write the Great G minor and the Jupiter.

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Anne-Sophie Mutter
Across the Stars

This album shines a new light on the music of John Williams with beautiful arrangements he created especially for a great virtuoso violinist.

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Pascal and Ami Rogé
Les Six & Satie

The charm of Paris in the 1920s performed by the wonderful husband-and-wife duo of Pascal and Ami Rogé.

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10 days into 2020 (before we had broken our New Year’s resolutions to go to the gym more and perhaps travel abroad) the excellent British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason dropped his first concerto album. In addition to Elgar’s heart-wrenching post-war Cello Concerto, Kanneh-Mason also includes a number of miniatures on this album, including a stunning arrangement of the Nimrod Variation for cello ensemble.

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Mobili: Music for Viola and Piano from Chile
Georgina Isabel Rossi, Silvie Cheng

One of my favorite discoveries of the year was an album of music by Chilean composers released in October by the Chilean-American violist Georgina Isabel Rossi. “Al fondo de me lejanía se asoma tu casa” (“In the Depths of My Distance Your House Emerges”) is a moment of sheer beauty and calm in what has been a turbulent and uncertain year.

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Elena Urioste and Tom Poster
Grieg: The Violin Sonatas “To the Spring”

One way to keep the music playing during quarantine is to be married to your chamber music partner. Such is the case for violinist Elena Urioste and pianist Tom Poster. While their recording of the complete Violin Sonatas by Edvard Grieg was released before lockdown, they’ve been making lots of music (and taking audience requests) and posting it online throughout. Not sure where to start with the complete Grieg Violin Sonatas? Try the rambunctious folk-inspired final movement of No. 2 or the heart-melting warmth of the second movement of No. 3.

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Pacific Chorale and Salastina
Tarik O’Regan: All Things Common

The OC-based Pacific Chorale released a recording with LA-based chamber music collective, Salastina, of music by the Irish-Algerian composer Tarik O’Regan. A couple of little gems alongside the larger works on the album are a meditative setting of the “Beatitudes (Blessed Are They)” and “I Listen to the Stillness of You”, a setting of the words of D.H. Lawrence.

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Arthur Fagen / Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra
Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony – Kay: Fantasy Variations & Umbrian Scene

William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony was an instant hit, commanding a lengthy standing ovation after Leopold Stokowski conducted the premiere at Carnegie Hall in 1934. Since then, there have only been two recordings of the work—one made by Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1963 and a second made by the Detroit Symphony in 1992. Until now. As orchestras across the country this summer made commitments to stand for racial justice, one can hope they’ll consider programming this symphony in future seasons.

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The second recording by John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London only confirms what their debut recording of the Korngold Symphony suggested: that this is the most exciting new musical partnership in England (or anywhere else, for that matter).

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Nicola Benedetti / London Philharmonic / Vladimir Jurowski
Elgar: Violin Concerto

Several years ago when I asked Nicola Benedetti if she had any plans to play the Elgar Violin Concerto, she said she didn’t. A good thing she changed her mind, as her eloquent new recording reveals her as one of the work’s great modern interpreters.

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James Ehnes / Andrew Armstrong
Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1-3

One of the most consistently satisfying violinists on the circuit today, James Ehnes’ new cycle of the Beethoven Violin Sonatas is one of the musically rewarding currently available.

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London Symphony / Sir Simon Rattle
Janaček: Sinfonietta; The Cunning Little Vixen

From the time I saw him conduct the Sinfonietta with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, it was clear that Sir Simon Rattle had the potential to become the great non-Czech Janacek conductor since Sir Charles Mackerras. These stunning new recordings of the composer’s final orchestral work and his most enchanting opera confirm his status as the foremost Janacek conductor of our time (Czech or otherwise).

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Sir John Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli: The Complete Warner Recordings

Long overdue, the 109 CD celebration of work of Sir John Barbirolli is altogether worthy of one of the 20th century’s greatest conductors. All the CD transfers–especially of the recordings from the 78 era–are exceptionally fine.

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This is the third collaboration in Ennes and Armstrong’s cycle of Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas. As we head into winter it’s nice to have a reminder of the bud busting glory of Spring in Ehnes’ performance where you can almost hear the “glint of raindrops caught in sunlight”.

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Voces 8
After Silence

Aldous Huxley said, “after silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” Hearing the voices of Voces 8 makes life worth living. That is all.

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Neave Trio
Her Voice: Amy Beach, Louise Ferrenc, Rebecca Clark

Giving a microphone – or MEGAPHONE – to women who have flown under the radar for way too long.

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Eric Whitacre / LA Master Chorale
The Sacred Veil

A 12-movement meditation on “courtship, love, loss and the search for solace”. Eric Whitacre invites the whole world to sing with his virtual choirs. More than 17,000 singers joined him online for his latest global collaboration, “Sing Gently”. In this new album, Whitacre collaborated with Charles Anthony Silvestri, to tell Silvestri’s story of finding the strength to bear the death of his wife.

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Isabelle Faust
Mozart Sonatas for Violin and Fortepiano

I’ve been a fan of Faust’s since her recording of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata in 2007. She founded a chamber group at age 11 which showed her that performing is a process of give and take, and listening. This new album is her third this year bringing a lot of light to the world in a difficult time.

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Perfect music for the turmoil of 2020. An amazing achievement and soundscape featuring over 17,000 voices.

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Stewart Goodyear / BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Beethoven; The Complete Piano Concertos

There are few pianists who have the knowledge and empathy for Beethoven’s music. He’s recorded all of Beethoven’s keyboard music and performed them in concert countless times. This would be a welcome addition to anyone’s collection and a fitting tribute to Beethoven at 250.

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Anne Sophie Mutter / Vienna Philharmonic
John Williams in Vienna

John Williams is the most celebrated and recorded living composer. Anne Sophie Mutter and the Vienna Philharmonic are a winning combination bringing new life to Williams’s most iconic film scores.

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Lisa Batiashvili
City Lights

This is a wonderful celebration of Charlie Chaplin’s legacy and includes a variety of composers, from Chaplin to Bach and genres of music Classical, jazz, tango and film music.

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Musicaeterna / Teodor Currentzis
Beethoven Symphony No. 5

Alright, so who needs another recording of the Beethoven symphonies? Well, the Siberian based Musicaeterna under the leadership of Teodor Currentzis give a very fresh and vibrant performance to these Beethoven classics….well worth checking out.

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This was the Metropolitan Opera production that caused a sensation last year. The Met’s Live in HD broadcast was the most-watched in the Met’s series. With Eric Owens and (especially) Angel Blue in the title roles, this production is a revelation. The great American opera in the best recording of it ever made. An easy choice.

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Camerata du Leman
Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence – Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition

If you’ve ever wondered what would Ravel have done with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition if he’d been told he could only use strings in the orchestration (and who among us hasn’t?) here’s the answer. This may well be the hundredth arrangement of Mussorgsky’s piano suite, but the imaginative use of the string section makes this adaptation by this Swiss group’s concertmaster Simon Bouveret a fascinating reimagining of this popular music. The Tchaikovsky is simply sublime. Period.

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Pietari Inkinen / Deutsche Radio Philharmonic
Dvorak: Complete Symphonies, Vol. 5

The 6th is the Rodney Dangerfield of Dvorak symphonies. No respect. Hearing this seldom played early masterpiece (it was the first one published – it’s all very complicated) in the company of other of the composer’s off the beaten path gems like the Vanda and Hussite overtures is a great way to deepen one’s appreciation of this Czech composer. This is part of Inkinen’s well-regarded cycle of the Dvorak symphonies.

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John Wilson / Sinfonia of London
Respighi: Roman Trilogy

If the final section of the Pines of Rome doesn’t get your heartbeat up, see your doctor. The Roman Trilogy is not subtle music, but it also reminds us that Respighi studied orchestration with Rimsky-Korsakov. John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London keep this music visceral, which is the most important mission of anyone playing this music. Break out the popcorn and crank up the volume.

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Parker Ramsey
Bach: Goldberg Variations (Arranged for Harp)

Having married a harpist, I admit to a certain lack of objectivity when it comes to harp adaptations. Happily, King’s college alum Parker Ramsey’s performances of Bach will please anyone – even those not married to harpists. Plus, since the rap about the Goldberg Variations is that they are the musical equivalent of Ambien, what better instrument to seal the soothing deal than a harp? Sweet musical dreams.

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Sublimely voiced and lovingly recorded meditation in our time of need. Music through the ages from Palestrina to Eric Whitacre.

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Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Andrew Manze
Vaughan Williams Orchestral Works

This is a wonderfully realized collection of Vaughan Williams’s “hits”. A must-have for fans of the composer.

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Stewart Goodyear / BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Beethoven; The Complete Piano Concertos

A terrific musical celebration for Beethoven’s 250 birthday. The five concertos are challenging to play and different in character. Goodyear and friends handle all with grace and fire.

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Avi Avital
The Art of the Mandolin

Avital’s first recording consisting exclusively of pieces originally written for the mandolin. His personal take on the best existing repertoire for the instrument. A bit of sunshine for a gray Winter day.

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Heike Matthiesen
Guitar Ladies

A special collection from this charismatic German guitarist. The focus is on works by female composers. Full of beautiful lyrical music. Musical discoveries abound.

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Bach’s Cello Suites have been arranged for almost every instrument imaginable, but this is the first time I know of that they have been performed by a cellist with a choir. Sophie Webber’s own very tasteful choral arrangements give Bach’s suites an added dimension.

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Sarah Willis / Havana Lyceum Orchestra
Mozart y Mambo

Well-played and light-hearted Mozart paired with joyous improvisations on Cuban dances. Great fun!

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Vikingur Olafsson
Debussy-Rameau

Olafsson makes a compelling case that there are more connections between the Baroque and Impressionist eras in French music than we might think. Beautifully played, and an easy album to lose yourself in.

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Virgil Boutellis-Taft / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Jac van Steen
Incantation

Moody, intense and mesmerizing violin playing from this young Frenchman.

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Camille Thomas / Brussels Philharmonic / Stephane Deneve
Voice of Hope

A collection of melancholy, but ultimately uplifting miniatures, beautifully played – plus a fascinating new concerto by the Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say.

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