Awards, Discs of the Year 2015 - our top 10

'Ibragimova’s playing, from the very first entry, is surprisingly sweet-toned; even in the relatively boisterous first movement the instrument constantly sings, and she’s not afraid to let the sustained notes ring out a little... her musical comfort zone seems to know no bounds.'

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'Levit's Diabelli Variations brim with exuberance, vitality and often humour, tumbling into one another with unstoppable energy but with such lightning-like shifts of character that the overall experience is exhilarating and exhausting.'

Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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'The rapport between clarinet and strings throughout [the Brahms] is supremely warm and natural...But the real fun comes with the half-dozen companion-pieces...The result is so breathtakingly virtuosic that I laughed out loud the first time I heard it.'

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'The sound he draws from his players is rich without being heavy... even when the music peters out into inaudibility at the end somehow that richness still seems to be there, which leaves an aftertaste of serenity rather than of exhausted collapse. If you like your Mahler histrionic and overwrought then this may not be the disc for you – but I found it a mature, sensitive performance throughout.'

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'I don't think I can recall another new release which has received quite so much air-time in the Presto office...Puccini's tenor writing is often associated with a rather more 'golden' sound than Kaufmann's essentially coppery one, but once you adjust to that everything's glorious.'

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'There's a freshness and vigour to it that kept me enthralled throughout...Listen to the way Abbado carefully crafts and shapes each bar, helped by some sensitive horn playing...The string sound is really quite beautiful...The oboe solo at the start of the second movement is full of poise and refinement...A delight of a recording'

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'Mark Padmore is in quite extraordinary voice: the hushed passage where he describes the Peri arriving in a plague-stricken land is nothing short of spine-tingling, with an amazingly mournful horn solo, so simple on the page and yet when brought to life by such expert players as the LSO it becomes an astonishingly poignant moment.'

Available Formats: 2 SACDs + Blu-ray Audio, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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'Nelsons’s masterful grasp of the architecture of the work (particularly the epic 20-minute first movement, which almost feels like a symphony in its own right here), the slow-burn climaxes and the searing brass-playing all make their mark, but there’s something quite special going on here which transcends the technical side of things.'

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'[This disc] maintains the astonishingly high standards that we have come to expect from them...Their tone, radiant one moment and poignantly hushed the next, is quite marvellous...With these highly expressive, virtuosic performances, the Pavel Haas Quartet have done it again!'

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San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas & John Adams

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Polyphony, Stephen Layton

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English Chamber Orchestra, Julian Lloyd Webber

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Vox Luminis, Scorpio Collectief, Lionel Meunier

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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Igor Levit

Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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Andreas Staier, Freiburger Barockorchester

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Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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David Watkin

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Academy of Ancient Music & Choir of the AAM, Richard Egarr

Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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Alina Ibragimova, Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen

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Renée Fleming, Emerson String Quartet

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James Ehnes, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis

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Rachel Podger

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Samuel West, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis

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Ian Bostridge, Graham Johnson

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Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Riccardo Chailly

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Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt

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Andreas Ottensamer

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Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov

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Ex Cathedra, Jeffrey Skidmore

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Tenebrae, Nigel Short

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Alisa Weilerstein, Inon Barnatan

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Seong-Jin Cho

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Emily Birsan, Barry Banks, Alan Opie; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis

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The Sixteen, Harry Christophers

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James Ehnes, Andrew Armstrong

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Piotr Beczala, Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon, Alain Altinoglu

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Erin Morley, Javier Camarena, Michèle Losier, Laurent Naouri; Hallé Orchestra, Sir Mark Elder

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Philippe Jaroussky, Jerome Ducros, Quatuor Ebène

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Philippe Jaroussky, Jerome Ducros, Quatuor Ebène

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Stephen Hough

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Julia Lezhneva, Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini

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Gabrieli Consort & Players, Paul McCreesh

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Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Robin Ticciati

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Bryan Hymel, Prague Philharmonia, Emmanuel Villaume

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Contrapunctus, Owen Rees

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Juan Diego Flórez, Filarmonica Gioachino Rossini, Carlo Tenan

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James Ehnes, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner

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Joyce DiDonato, Antonio Pappano

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Krystian Zimerman, Berliner Philharmoniker, Simon Rattle

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Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer

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London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Antonio Pappano

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Steven Isserlis, Stephen Hough

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Christian Gerhaher, Freiburger Barockorchester

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Robin Johannsen, Mari Eriksmoen, Maximilian Schmitt, Dimitry Ivashchenko; Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, René Jacobs

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Sabine Devieilhe, Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon

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Paul Lewis

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Greta Bradman, English Chamber Orchestra, Richard Bonynge

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Véronique Gens, Susan Manoff

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Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica

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New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert

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Sonya Yoncheva, Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, Frederic Chaslin

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The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

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Balthasar-Neumann-Chor-und-Ensemble, Pablo Heras-Casado

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Steven Isserlis, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Järvi

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Jonas Kaufmann, Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Antonio Pappano

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Emmanuel Pahud, Kammerorchester Basel, Giovanni Antonini

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Yuja Wang, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Lionel Bringuier

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Orchestre et Choeur de l'Opéra National de Paris, Philippe Jordan

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Aurora Orchestra, Nicholas Collon

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Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Vladimir Jurowski

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András Schiff

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Orchestra Mozart, Claudio Abbado

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Berliner Philharmoniker, Nikolaus Harnoncourt

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London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Sir Simon Rattle

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Isabelle Faust, Freiburger Barockorchester, Pablo Heras-Casado

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Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko

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Yevgeny Sudbin, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton

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Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons

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Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Narva Boys Choir & Estonian Concert Choir, Paavo Järvi

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Marc-André Hamelin, Takács Quartet

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Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons

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Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Okko Kamu

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Latvian Radio Choir, Sigvards Klava

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Pavel Haas Quartet

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Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin & Rundfunkchor Berlin, Marek Janowski

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Edward Watson, Sarah Lamb, Zenaida Yanowsky, Steven McRae; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, David Briskin

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Edward Watson, Sarah Lamb, Zenaida Yanowsky, Steven McRae; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, David Briskin

Available Format: Blu-ray

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The Cardinall's Musick, Andrew Carwood

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The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

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Kirill Gerstein, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, James Gaffigan

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Anna Netrebko, Sergey Skorokhodov, Alexey Markov, Vitalij Kowaljow; Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Emmanuel Villaume

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Natalia Osipova, Matthew Golding,Elizabeth McGorian; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House & The Royal Ballet, Boris Gruzin

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Natalia Osipova, Matthew Golding,Elizabeth McGorian; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House & The Royal Ballet, Boris Gruzin

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Grigory Sokolov

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Daniil Trifonov

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Mahan Esfahani

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Nicholas Daniel, Britten Sinfonia, James MacMillan

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Katherine Broderick, Roderick Williams, Hallé, Hallé Choir et al, Sir Mark Elder

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Max Emanuel Cencic, Franco Fagioli, Valer Sabadus, Juan Sancho; Il Pomo d'Oro, Riccardo Minasi

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Rachel Podger, Brecon Baroque

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Matthias Goerne, Kim Begley, Michelle DeYoung, Peter Sidhom; Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Jaap van Zweden

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Matthias Goerne, Kim Begley, Michelle DeYoung, Peter Sidhom; Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Jaap van Zweden

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Paul Watkins, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner

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Alina Ibragimova

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