Today's new releases include a complete Mahler cycle from the Wiener Philharmoniker and Andris Nelsons on Deutsche Grammophon, Chopin Nocturnes from Pavel Kolesnikov on Harmonia Mundi, William Grant Still's Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4 from Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony on the orchestra's own label, and a resistance-themed recital of Beethoven/Liszt and Schoenberg from Igor Levit on his new label No Silence.
Mahler: The Symphonies
Wiener Philharmoniker, Andris Nelsons
Six months on from the individual release of Symphony No. 5 ('impressive...one to hear as an alternative to the classic Bernstein' - Gramophone), Deutsche Grammophon presents Nelsons's complete live recordings of the nine finished symphonies, captured between 2018 and 2026. Soloists include Lucy Crowe, Christiane Karg, Ekaterina Gubanova, Wiebke Lehmkuhl and Michael Nagy.
Available format: 12 CDs
Chopin: Nocturnes
Pavel Kolesnikov (piano)
Kolesnikov makes his solo debut on Harmonia Mundi with a set of works which he likens to 'a memory, a dream, or a vision'; reviewing his performance of the Nocturne in E flat Op 55 No 2 at Wigmore Hall last December, The Guardian declared that 'in Kolesnikov’s hands, Chopin’s tempi were ever-flexible, phrases woven into a constantly shifting musical fabric', describing the Siberian-born pianist as 'a virtuosic sculptor in sound'. Kolesnikov's album of the composer's mazurkas on Hyperion was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2017, after reviewer Patrick Rucker hailed his interpretations as 'the most beautiful and strikingly original I’ve heard'.
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
William Grant Still: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4
National Symphony Orchestra, Gianandrea Noseda
Noseda and the National Symphony mark the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence with two works by the trailblazing Black American composer William Grant Still (1895-1978). Still described his Symphony No. 2 'Song of a New Race' (premiered by Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1937) as a representation of 'the American colored man of today', whilst No. 4 'Autochthonous' celebrates the 'optimism and energy...the warmth and the spiritual side of the American people'.
Available formats: SACD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Resistance
Igor Levit (piano)
Levit launches his new label No Silence Records with two releases today, including this programme exploring the ideas of freedom, power, and political resistance: Liszt's solo piano transcription of Beethoven's 'Eroica' Symphony (originally dedicated to Napoleon before Beethoven erased the inscription in response to his self-proclamation as Emperor) is followed by Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon, written as a protest against tyranny in 1942.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Satie: Vexations (30 Selected Repetitions)
Igor Levit (piano)
The second No Silence release centres on a mammoth work which Levit first performed in its sixteen-hour entirety during the early days of the 2020 lockdown, in a livestream from his Berlin apartment. This release comprises thirty of the total 840 repetitions of the short theme; for truly hardcore Satie fans, the complete recording is available directly through No Silence as an NFC chip embedded in a stainless steel bracelet!
Available format: Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin Suite and The Wooden Prince
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner
These recordings of two fantastical Bartók suites were captured live at the Royal Festival Hall in November 2024 (The Miraculous Mandarin) and February 2026 (The Wooden Prince). Reviewing the latter concert, The Times enthused that 'Gardner, alert to every mercurial twist and turn, made it sound the very opposite of wooden', and The Miraculous Mandarin was equally well-received: The Guardian noted that the piece 'was driven to a suitably supercharged climax by Gardner', whilst BachTrack opined that 'sensational moments from the brass, with some particularly virtuosic displays of trombone bravura, jolted and rapped the ears'.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin & Concerto For Orchestra
WDR Sinfonieorchester, Cristian Măcelaru
With the centenary of The Miraculous Mandarin's premiere coming up next month, Măcelaru and his Cologne orchestra have also marked the occasion with a recording of the complete ballet which features as the Orchestral Choice in the November issue of BBC Music Magazine: reviewer Misha Donat enthused that 'the WDR players rise to the occasion quite brilliantly' and praised the Romanian conductor's 'complete authority' in both the ballet and the Concerto for Orchestra.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Haydn 2032, Vol. 20: For English Gentlemen
Kammerorchester Basel, Giovanni Antonini
This twentieth volume of Antonini's Haydn2032 project brings together three symphonies which the composer wrote for a planned trip to London in 1782; although he didn't make it to the city for almost a decade, Symphonies Nos. 76-78 were programmed there by Johann Christian Bach as part of the public concert series which he had established with his friend Carl Friedrich Abel in 1765. Bach's own Symphony in G minor from 1769 completes the programme.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Hildur Guðnadóttir: This Will Be Us
Hildur Guðnadóttir (cello), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Robert Ames
Twenty years since the release of her debut recording Mount A, award-winning Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (Chernobyl, Joker, Tár) joins forces with Ames and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin for orchestral versions of several pieces which she originally recorded whilst 'trying to be a one-person string orchestra' as a young composer. The album also includes two entirely new works: The Song That Never Was and Blind Sarabande.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Boris Lyatoshynsky: Chamber Works, Vol. 1
Notabene Chamber Group
Founded in Kyiv in 2015, the Notabene is a collective of Ukrainian musicians who devote much of their energies to championing their compatriots. This first instalment of a projected series exploring the music of one of the foremost Ukrainian composers of the twentieth century presents Lyatoshynsky's first two string quartets: No. 1 is a student work written under the guidance of Reinhold Glière in 1915, whilst No. 2 dates from seven years later and speaks of a composer already well on the way to developing his own unique voice.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Danish Resonances
José Valente (accordion)
This programme of Danish music for classical accordion features works by Hans Abrahamsen, Niels Rosing-Schow and Per Nørgård alongside world premiere recordings of four new commissions: Anders Skibsted's Graf Plot, Loïc Destremau's According to the Bellows; Cycles of Discording Echoes (ABCDE), Matias Vestergård's Drowning Preludes, and Gustav Bjerre's Helligånd, vor sorg du slukke ('Holy Spirit, quench our sorrow').
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
The Tallis Scholars - Live in Venice
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
Recorded at the Basilica di San Marco in 2017 to mark the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi's birth, this programme centres on his Mass for Four Voices (posth. 1651) and also features music by Palestrina, Allegri, Lotti and Arvo Pärt; Phillips also included two pieces by the Armenian priest, composer and ethnomusicologist Komitas (1869-1935) 'to pay tribute to the centuries-old heritage of the Armenian community in Venice'.
Available formats: CD + Blu-ray, Download & Streaming (up to 48 kHz, 24 bit)
Eric Whitacre: Eternity in an Hour
Eric Whitacre Singers, Eric Whitacre
Inspired by a phrase in William Blake’s poem 'Auguries of Innocence', Eternity in an Hour was commissioned to mark the centenary of the BBC Singers and received its world premiere at the Proms in September 2024, when Classical Source described it as 'contemplative, mystical and soaring by turns'; it is the first of Whitacre's compositions to employ live electronics.
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Countertenor
Anthony Roth Costanzo (countertenor)
In anticipation of the publication of his book of the same name, the American countertenor's debut album on Nonesuch includes the world premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's 'Laika', 'Bed' from Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach, the traditional Hawaiian song 'E Mama E', Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna, lute songs by Morley and Dowland, and 'Crudel! Perché finora' from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (with Roth Costanzo singing the parts of both Susanna and the Count!).
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 48 kHz, 24 bit)
Léo Delibes: Jean de Nivelle
Cyrille Dubois (Jean de Nivelle), Mélissa Petit (Arlette), Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur (Simone), Tassis Christoyannis (Le Comte de Charolais), Juliette Mey (Diane / Le Page Isolin), François Rougier (Malicorne), Jean-Philippe Mc Clish (Beautreillis); Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, György Vashegyi
Premiered at the Opéra-Comique in March 1880, Jean de Nivelle was very popular during the composer's lifetime, racking up over a hundred performances within the space of a year; Liszt also began work on a fantasia based on the opening passage soon after the premiere, but never completed it. The plot centres on a real fifteenth-century nobleman whose name became synonymous with treachery after he sided with Charles the Bold rather than Louis XI.
Available formats: 3 CDs + Book, Download & Streaming (up to 48 kHz, 24 bit)
Bizet: Carmen
Aigul Akhmetshina (Carmen), Piotr Beczała (Don José), Olga Kulchynska (Micaëla), Kostas Smoriginas (Escamillo), Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Antonello Manacorda, Damiano Michieletto
Filmed at Covent Garden in 2024, Damiano Michieletto's new staging of Carmen sets the action in the 1970s and was hailed by BachTrack for 'providing plenty of hard-hitting drama and showing the characters in a new light, all the while giving the glittery set pieces all the space they need'. Already a veteran of seven different productions of Carmen, the young Bashkir mezzo Aigul Akhmetshina was universally acclaimed in the title-role, with The Guardian describing her as 'electrifying' and Opera Now deeming her as 'certainly key to this production's success'.
Read our 2024 interview with Aigul in which she unpacks what made Michieletto's vision of Carmen so special for her.
Available format: Blu-ray
This collection spans thirty-five years of the Italian conductor's recording career (from 1983–2019), including complete recordings of Tosca, Manon Lescaut, Pagliacci, Guglielmo Tell and La donna del lago, a Mozart symphony cycle with the Wiener Philharmoniker, and sets of the Brahms and Schumann symphonies. Four bonus DVDs include the first video-release of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with Claudio Arrau and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Available format: 37 CDs
