CLASSICAL FAVORITES

Neeme Järvi in Concert – Mozart, Wagner, Brahms, Reger

The legendary conductor Neeme Järvi celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday in the summer of 2022, in Tallinn, giving a series of concerts with his beloved Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. This album serves not just as a commemoration of those wonderful concerts, but also as a personal calling card for this remarkable musician. (Chandos)

1CD# CHAN 20262 $20.99

Martinu: Complete Cello Sonatas

Cellist Johannes Moser and pianist Andrei Korobeinikov present Bohuslav Martinu’s complete cello sonatas. These works belong to the most significant twentiethcentury repertoire for cello and piano. Reflecting Martinu’s troubled existence, defined by wartime, emigration, longing for the homeland, yet also full of hope and life-affirming energy, the music seems entirely topical in our own troubled times. (Pentatone)

1CD# PTC5187007 $15.99

Beethoven: Symph. No. 6 & Op. 1, No. 3 / Ax, Kavakos, Ma

Like their first ‘Beethoven for Three’ release — Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5 — this recording challenges the traditional boundary between chamber and orchestral repertoire to offer the listener two very different sides of the composer using the same three voices. In the C Minor piano trio, we hear Beethoven’s brilliant exploration of three instruments’ essential expressive capabilities. (Sony)

1CD# 19658739372 $13.99

Price: Symphony No. 3 – The Mississippi River

Florence Price was one of the most versatile and accomplished American musicians of her generation whose unstoppable creativity and earliest successes were set against the backdrop of 1930s economic depression. This world premiere recording of Ethiopia’s Shadow in America traces the American experience of enslaved Africans, while The Mississippi River suite quotes several famous spirituals. (Naxos)

1CD# 8559897 $13.99

Korngold: Symphony in F Sharp, O. 40 / Marc Albrecht

“Once, driving in the rain, I had to pull over to the side of the road because I was so incredibly moved by the sublime music on the radio. The last movement of the mystery work turned out to be Korngold’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ Suite — was so joyful and witty, featuring the horns prominently, that I was transported to a different world. This rarely performed work should be better known.” — Mei-Ann Chen, Chicago Sinfonietta conductor (Pentatone)

1SACD# PTC5186373

$19.99

Fauré: Requiem & Other Choral Works / Rutter, Cambridge Singers

“Rutter distills even more drama from dynamic contrasts than Dutoit, the balance between voices and instruments in his performance sounds natural, not carefully achieved, his boyish-sounding sopranos seem as incontrovertibly right for the colour of this work as the solitary, silvery violin that the Rutter edition employs in the Sanctus. For truth to Fauré’s luminous conception Rutter’s version is still unapproached, and it still heads my list.” – Gramophone (Collegium)

1CD# CSCD520

Finlandia – Sibelius, Grieg

$11.99

Finlandia proves an ideal showcase for Ormandy and his Philadelphians, who provide plenty of excitement and drama amid the luster of those famous strings. Drawn from the worldwide catalog holdings of Sony Classical, the Sony Classical Masters series offers an extensive selection of highly desirable and collectible EU pressed import editions, smartly designed and graphically pleasing. (Sony)

1CD# 88697689752 $11.99

Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 / Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic

Sony presents the next installment of Christian Thielemann’s complete cycle of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic – the orchestra’s first Bruckner cycle under a single conductor. The Vienna Philharmonic premiered four of Anton Bruckner’s nine symphonies, including No. 4 in 1881 and has enjoyed a unique relationship with the Austrian composer’s music since 1873. (Sony)

1CD# 19658706142 $11.99

Vaughan Williams: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

SOMM Recordings celebrates the 150th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s birth with insightful, deeply felt accounts of his String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2, coupled with Gustav Holst’s Phantasy Quartet, by the Tippett Quartet. This major release sheds new light on one of the enduring friendships of 20th-century British music, Vaughan Williams and Holst having first met at the Royal College of Music in 1895. (SOMM)

1CD# SOMMCD 0656 $18.99

Violin Concertos from Black Composers –25th Anniversary

American violinist Rachel Barton Pine marks the 25th anniversary of her 1997 recording of violin concertos by Black composers of the 18th and 19th centuries with Violin Concertos by Black Composers Through the Centuries. This special-edition reissue updates and expands the original program into the 20th century with Pine’s recent recording of Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2, composed in 1952. (Cedille)

$16.99