2018. Your top classical albums from this year.

[Pulcinella]

Not many of my purchases are new recordings, but one that would feature in my list is already in jlw's: the Zimerman/BPO/Rattle Bernstein Symphony 2 (Age of Anxiety).

[Richard Barrett]

Chiming in with my own 'really?': I have to say that Aimard's Catalogue was one of my disappointments of the year!

Hmmm. I'm going to have to return to it now, maybe I was letting my enthusiasm for the way everything is all so beautifully "coloured" distract me from the aspects you mention. It's the only recording I've heard that has the timbral variety and subtlety of Loriod's.

Jayne has reminded me of the completed Schubert B minor symphony. I shall have to add that, for sure. I'd also forgotten Daniele Pollini's Chopin/Scriabin/Stockhausen disc, volume 7 of the Michael Gielen Edition, the DG complete Debussy, and no doubt a few early/baroque discs as well. Back to the drawing board.

[pastoralguy]

Not many of my purchases are new recordings, but one that would feature in my list is already in jlw's: the Zimerman/BPO/Rattle Bernstein Symphony 2 (Age of Anxiety).

I heard Zimmerman and Sir Simon do this with the LSO at this years EIF and terrific it was too. However, I'd probably go for Beatrice Rana and Pappano since I absolutely love her playing.

[Pulcinella]

I heard Zimmerman and Sir Simon do this with the LSO at this years EIF and terrific it was too. However, I'd probably go for Beatrice Rana and Pappano since I absolutely love her playing.

You need both!

I'm not so keen on the rest of the Pappano set, though, especially the Jeremiah.

[Pianorak]

Tchaikovsky: The Seasons - Pavel Kolesnikov
Chopin: (24) Mazurkas - Pavel Kolesnikov
Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated - Igor Levit
Bach: Goldberg Variations - Beatrice Rana

[Richard Barrett]

OK, this is my list (I think):

Bartók - Violin Concertos (Tetzlaff & Lintu)
Debussy - Complete Works (DG)
Geminiani - Concerti grossi (Café Zimmermann)
Michael Gielen Edition vol.7
Graupner - Duo Cantatas (Capricornus Consort Basel)
Haydn Symphonies vol.6 (Antonini)
Messiaen - Catalogue d'oiseaux (Aimard)
Daniele Pollini plays Chopin, Scriabin, Stockhausen
Schubert - B minor symphony & orchestral songs (Concentus musicus Wien)
Zimmermann - Symphonies (L'arte del mondo)

There are a few others that might make it onto the list if I get around to hearing them before the end of the year: JS Bach solo violin music with Giuliano Carmignola, Junst der Fuge with Bob van Asperen, Il ritorno de Ulisse with JEG.

[pastoralguy]

Tchaikovsky: The Seasons - Pavel Kolesnikov
Chopin: (24) Mazurkas - Pavel Kolesnikov
Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated - Igor Levit
Bach: Goldberg Variations - Beatrice Rana

Was Beatrice's Goldberg cd this year? Whether it is or not, it's one of my 'Desert Island Discs'!

[Barbirollians]

Both Kolesnikov records are terrific but I do not think they were this year.

[Keraulophone]

Bach 333, of course.

Mine's just arrived, but at the moment it's just a huge lump beneath the piano as I've been told not to open it till the 25th.

Mrs K has invented a new form of torture.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What a surprising choice.

I'm looking forward to seeing the choices of Finzi4ever, Bax-of-Delights, and ... oh!



The Ferneyhough CD is a magnificent achievement - the Music itself is terrific (of course!) and the care and passion that the performers (particularly Brabbins & the BBCSO) and the recording crew give to it makes this very clear. It's been a long wait ... but totally worth it.

[Joseph K]

The Ferneyhough CD is a magnificent achievement - the Music itself is terrific (of course!) and the care and passion that the performers (particularly Brabbins & the BBCSO) and the recording crew give to it makes this very clear. It's been a long wait ... but totally worth it.

I second this!

I think it was the only new classical CD I've bought this year, therefore it wins by default. But yes, amazing.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Really? You sort of have to imagine that there are brass and percussion instruments playing somewhere in the distance though...

Well - I have a vivid imagination; but I don't think that I need to call upon it to any great degree here, Richard. I didn't particularly notice any such balance problems when I'd previously played it, and your comments sent me back with a copy of the score to hand. What Currentzis gives the listener is a meticulous rendition of the dynamic markings Mahler writes: the frequent simultaneous ffs in the Strings and Wwinds with p in the brass & percussion. Most recordings/performances understand this as the composer ensuring that the wwinds & strings aren't masked by the heavy brass, and bring the brass & percs out louder than a literal reproduction of the written dynamics. Fair enough - if the written dynamic differences remained constant throughout the score (one or two notches between them, say). But it doesn't - there are many times where the dynamics are the same, and frequent occasions where they are significantly contrasted (I noticed at least one fff in the Strings when the Brass had p).

What Currentzis does is reproduce these differences - not simply as a mark of awe for the Composer (this is Currentzis, after all), but to reveal what the Music is giving at these points - and the detail that is heard is compelling: I don't remember hearing the many semiquaver driving rhythms (usually drowned out by prominent brass playing) so clearly as in this recording. It's propulsive, and demonstrates Mahler's debt to Bach; one that had never struck me at all before (and the string players of MusicAeterna are phenomenal in these passages - there's none of that muddy approximation that many recordings and performances make do with; in fact, the orchestral playing throughout is staggeringly good).

It's not all perfect - I think the prominent Celesta has more to do, I think, with the mixing desk than with what was heard in the hall; and there's a Timp part in the finale that gets lost. But picky-picky! The sound is what Mahler has written, and with benefits that become clearer with every hearing. And, not least; as so very, very often, the total experience - the joy, longing, humour and despair - of the work becomes greater as a result of such trust and meticulous reading. A fantastic release.

[Stanfordian]

I'm looking forward to seeing the choices of Finzi4ever, Bax-of-Delights, and ... oh!



The Ferneyhough CD is a magnificent achievement - the Music itself is terrific (of course!) and the care and passion that the performers (particularly Brabbins & the BBCSO) and the recording crew give to it makes this very clear. It's been a long wait ... but totally worth it.

I actually have this album myself. Along with over a hundred others this year.

[Stanfordian]

I'm looking forward to seeing the choices of Finzi4ever, Bax-of-Delights, and ... oh!



The Ferneyhough CD is a magnificent achievement - the Music itself is terrific (of course!) and the care and passion that the performers (particularly Brabbins & the BBCSO) and the recording crew give to it makes this very clear. It's been a long wait ... but totally worth it.

I have this album myself too. Along with over a hundred others this year.

[Richard Barrett]

What Currentzis does is reproduce these differences

I would say that what the balance engineer does is exaggerate these differences, whether or not they were actually played as such. Yes I think it's a very fine and insightful performance, as I said when I first heard it, but the artificiality of the engineering makes it pretty much unlistenable for me. But we all have our preferences and priorities of course.

I thought about including the Ferneyhough on my list, but I can't say I've listened to it enough as yet to make my mind up, apart from Plötzlichkeit of which I've had a broadcast recording for some time, and with which I have a bit of a problem in terms of its overall form (ie. does it really have one, beyond its mosaic-like surface?), in comparison to pieces where this contributes decisively to the impact of the music, as in Time and Motion Study II or (especially) Transit. I'll need to be in the right state of mind to give this disc the right sort of attention and then maybe it will open itself up.