Quarterly Critic’s Choice
The best and most interesting new releases of the previous three months are awarded a place on the Quarterly Critic’s Choice. Evaluation criteria are artistic quality, repertoire value, presentation, and sound quality. From 2014 onward, the Long Lists are stored directly with each Quarterly Critic’s Choice.
Orchestral Music & Concertos
Barraine: Symphonies
Elsa Barraine: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2, Song-Koï, Les Tziganes. Orchestre National de France, Cristian Măcelaru. PLG Classics 5021732555199 (Warner)
The Orchestre National de France and Cristian Măcelaru bring a buoyant, supple sound to Elsa Barraine’s symphonies. Her Second Symphony unfolds through densely worked motivic ideas whose logic remains constantly surprising yet always persuasive. The result is a finale of almost exuberant vitality. Barraine’s political commitment also emerges in the cycle »Song-Koï« (Red River), a tribute to Vietnamese independence. Barraine writes in a modern idiom while retaining roots in the symphonic tradition. Her music deserves a place in the concert hall, and this committed, beautifully-recorded release is an important step in that direction. For the jury: Benjamin Herzog
Orchestral Music & Concertos
Mozart: Violin Concertos
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Violin Concertos. Roberto González-Monjas, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. 2 CDs, Berlin Classics 0303023BC (Edel)
Recordings of Mozart’s violin concertos are plentiful, but this set stands out. Partly because of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, which plays with grace and elegance throughout; even more because of the young Spanish violinist and conductor Roberto González-Monjas, who has led the orchestra since September 2024. In an excellent booklet essay, he describes these works as a perfect balance – in sound as in gesture – between concerto writing and orchestral, even chamber-orchestral, style. Credit, too, to recording engineer Joël Cormier. For the jury: Michael Stegemann
Chamber Music
»Out of Vienna«
Alban Berg: Lyric Suite, Anton Webern: 5 Movements for String Quartet, Erwin Schulhoff: 5 Pieces for String Quartet. Leonkoro Quartet. Alpha Classics 1196 (Naxos)
Alban Berg’s »Lyric Suite« turns 100 this October. The Leonkoro Quartet presents it not as a forbidding modernist monument, but as living chamber music. What matters here is not compositional technique but sound. In the Leonkoros’ hands, that sound is free of affectation – classical in the best sense. Tempos are never pushed. Instead, the players follow Berg’s dramaturgy closely, from the »Presto delirando« to the concluding »Largo desolato«, allowing every emotional state its full force. Even the moments of anguish never come at the expense of tonal beauty. And Erwin Schulhoff emerges in a new light, as a companion to Béla Bartók – thrillingly so. For the jury: Lotte Thaler
Chamber Music
»Constellations«
Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin, Samuel Barber: Summer Music, Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8 (arr.). Ensemble Ouranos. Alpha Classics 1183 (Naxos)
When Ravel orchestrated »Le Tombeau de Couperin«, he gave its opening to the woodwinds, so a wind-quintet arrangement of four of the suite’s six movements feels entirely natural. Especially in the hands of the French ensemble Ouranos, whose flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon and horn merge into something like a single instrument – richly coloured and sensuous in sound. Nothing is overstated; everything is shaped with sensitivity. And in Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet, it is not only the klezmer echoes that suddenly come to the fore. In the hands of these five musicians, transcription becomes revelation. For the jury: Volker Hagedorn
Keyboard Music
»Piano Heroines«
Piano works by Fanny Hensel, Clara Wieck, Amy Beach, Florence Price. Claire Huangci. Alpha Classics 1231 (Naxos)
On this album, the American pianist Claire Huangci combines narrative depth, tonal beauty and breathtaking virtuosity with remarkable ease. She guides the listener through a varied programme of works by women composers, each with its own emotional world. At the same time, Huangci gives the programme a clear profile of its own through the imagination and wit of her playing. The result is an album of striking emotional range. For the jury: Stefan Pillhofer
Keyboard Music
JM Bach: »Ein Orgelbüchlein...«
Johann Michael Bach: »Ein Orgelbüchlein...« (Complete Organ Chorales). Cindy Castillo. Ricercar RIC 491 (Naxos)
The Bach family was devout – and extremely industrious. Johann Michael Bach, Johann Sebastian’s distant cousin and later also his father-in-law, was no exception, and his collection of organ chorale preludes has survived complete. The chorales cover the entire church year, and while they are more simply conceived than Johann Sebastian Bach’s own preludes, their influence can be heard clearly in his early works. Cindy Castillo, titular organist of the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Brussels and professor in Namur, approaches this music with remarkable interpretative imagination and great stylistic sensitivity. For the jury: Sabine Fallenstein
Opera
Handel: Sosarme
Georg Friedrich Handel: Sosarme. Rémy Brès-Feuillet, Sarah Charles, Éléonore Pancrazi, Nicolò Balducci, Logan Lopez Gonzalez, Giacomo Nanni, Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal, Marco Angioloni. 3 CDs, Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS160 (Naxos)
The Château label continues its admirable excavation of the Baroque opera repertoire, consistently fielding young and often spectacular casts. Premiered in 1732, »Sosarme« is a neglected foundling from Handel’s London operas: a political opera seria with a happy ending and a wealth of distinctive arias. Sarah Charles and the exquisitely refined countertenor Rémy Brès-Feuillet bring radiant clarity to two of the work’s three duets. The supple bass villain Giacomo Nanni is a genuine discovery. With his taut, fast-moving reading, Marco Angioloni will hopefully help this splendid work find its rightful place in the repertoire at last. For the jury: Eleonore Büning
Opera
Beer: Der Prinz von Schiras
Joseph Beer: Der Prinz von Schiras. Carlos Moreno Pelizari, Theodora Varga, Kirsten Labonte, Michael Haake, Scarlett Pulwey and others, Chorus of Theater Regensburg, Regensburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Stefan Veselka. 2 CDs, cpo 555 670-2 (JPC)
Cultural restitution and a triumph for Germany’s theatre scene: »Du warst der selige Traum« – encored four times at the premiere – can finally be heard again today. Joseph Beer, once seen as the heir to Lehár, Abraham and Kálmán, survived the Nazi era only by hiding in Nice. Long thought lost, »Der Prinz von Schiras« was rediscovered in circumstances worthy of a musical detective story. Theater Regensburg, already widely honoured, can proudly claim to have produced a highly successful first recording – one that should prompt operetta houses throughout the country to take notice. For the jury: Wolf-Dieter Peter
Choral Music
Stravinsky: Late Works
Igor Stravinsky: Late Works – Threni, Requiem Canticles, Anthem, Introitus and other works. Cappella Amsterdam, Noord Nederlands Orkest, Daniel Reuss. Pentatone PTC5187489 (Naxos)
Igor Stravinsky was a composer of constant reinvention. Between »The Firebird« and the serially inflected »Requiem Canticles«, his music underwent an extraordinary stylistic transformation. Yet he remained recognisably himself throughout: clear, precise and controlled. Unlike the celebrated ballets, the late works have remained comparatively neglected. Austere and objective, they stand above the emotions they sublimate. Daniel Reuss and his Amsterdam chamber choir capture their idiom perfectly: an archaic sound beyond time, breathtakingly beautiful only when sung breathtakingly well. For the jury: Peter Korfmacher
Lieder and Vocal Recital
»M’a dit Amour«
French songs by Charles Koechlin, Manuel Rosenthal, Isabelle Aboulker, Lili Boulanger, Claude Debussy and others. Julie Roset, Susan Manoff. Alpha Classics 1189 (Naxos)
A debut album built largely around unfamiliar miniatures from French musical modernism is an audacious idea. Julie Roset brings it off triumphantly. At just 29, the soprano displays an extraordinary palette of colour, interpretative imagination and technical assurance. Each of the twenty very different mélodies is sharply characterised, whether in the declamatory atmosphere of Charles Koechlin’s title song »M’a dit amour«, the coloratura writing of Isabelle Aboulker’s »Je t’aime«, or the understated wit of Louis Beydts’ »Chansons pour les oiseaux«. Susan Manoff is an ideal piano partner throughout. An impressive debut. For the jury: Albrecht Thiemann
Early Music
JL Bach: Leipzig Cantatas
Johann Ludwig Bach: The Leipzig Cantatas. Capella Sollertia, Johanna Soller. 4 CDs, Ricercar RIC 482 (Naxos)
Between February and September 1726, Johann Sebastian Bach performed eighteen cantatas by his distant cousin Johann Ludwig Bach in Leipzig. Their characteristic blend of Italian cantabile writing, French elegance and central German Protestant declamation emerges vividly in Capella Sollertia’s complete recording. Soloists, choir and orchestra perform with remarkable cohesion, shaping the musical spans with great care and fully conveying the many emotional shades of this deeply affecting music. For the jury: Matthias Hengelbrock
Contemporary Classical Music
»Next to Your Fire«
Works by Oxana Omelchuk, Steffen Krebber, Hannes Seidl. Ensemble Proton. Digital, Fake Marble Classical FMC005 (direct distribution)
With infectious energy, commitment and humour – qualities reflected in Friedemann Dupelius’s excellent booklet essay – Ensemble Proton Bern celebrates a musical lineage that many in contemporary music barely recognise as such: that stubbornly individual blend of ensemble and band, intricate beats, rock, blazing harmonies and extended techniques, grounded in the spirit of fusion. The three strikingly individual works by Oxana Omelchuk, Steffen Krebber and Hannes Seidl do not amount to a stylistic patchwork, but point instead towards an emerging new sonic language. For the jury: Bastian Zimmermann
Historical Recordings
Berliner Philharmoniker and Herbert von Karajan
Live in Berlin 1970-1979. 20 SACDs with book, Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings BPHR 250571 (direct distribution)
Following its releases of radio recordings from the 1950s and 1960s, this edition turns to live performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker under Herbert von Karajan from 1970 to 1979. Drawn from the archives of the former RIAS and SFB broadcasters, these recordings reflect Karajan’s distinctive sense of concert dramaturgy. Even in live performance, Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker come remarkably close to the perfection they sought. The restoration of the original tapes is exemplary, and the edition itself is superbly presented, both in its documentation and its design. For the jury: Norbert Hornig
Crossover Productions
Björn Meyer: Convergence
ECM 2844 (Universal)
Björn Meyer has a rare ability to fill space with sound while retaining an intimate sense of warmth. He succeeds in »humanising« the electric bass guitar, shaping vivid musical narratives in the very moment of performance. Technically dazzling and constantly extending the expressive possibilities of his six-string instrument, Meyer draws the listener in through the sheer force of his musical imagination. »Convergence« belongs unmistakably to the ECM lineage of great solo bass albums, while speaking in a voice entirely its own. For the jury: Bert Noglik
Film Music
Hildur Guðnadóttir: 28 Years Later
The Bone Temple. Digital, Milan Records G010005712984R (Sony Music)
In her third collaboration with director Nia DaCosta, the Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir springs a surprise. Amid a brutal sonic world sustained by relentlessly driving rhythms, the slow, starkly simple »The Bone Temple« reveals unexpected depths of grief. From the outset, Guðnadóttir suffuses the score with melancholy through the bare repetition of a theme before finally allowing everything to collapse into chaos: sounds of humanity’s darkest depths and deepest pain. For the jury: Stephan Ahrens
Jazz
Thelonious Monk: Bremen 1965
2 CDs/2 LPs, Sunnyside SSC1634 (Galileo)
Thelonious Monk’s piano playing was jagged and angular, his compositions harmonically elusive. For years he was regarded as box-office poison and a threat to bourgeois respectability, but by the 1960s he was finally touring the world – admired, even loved, not least for his eccentricity, and acknowledged as one of the great figures of modern jazz. When he appeared at Radio Bremen in 1965, wearing a fur hat and yellow shoes, his quartet – with tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist Larry Gales and drummer Ben Riley – reached a moment of extraordinary intensity. Each musician played with the trance-like assurance of a yogi walking through fire. For the jury: Marcus A. Woelfle
Jazz
Craig Taborn, Tomeka Reid, Ches Smith: Dream Archives.
ECM 2833 (Universal)
Nothing in this music is unambiguous, yet everything feels strangely clear. Craig Taborn’s trio moves along deliberately circuitous paths through richly layered musical worlds without ever lapsing into arbitrary eclecticism. The result is a sustained polystylistic state of suspension, held together by intense concentration, in which even the most unexpected turns seem oddly inevitable – as though heard within an archive of dreams, where not only the stories themselves but also the influences behind them have been preserved. For the jury: Hans-Jürgen Linke
World Music
Imarhan: Essam
CD/LP, City Slang SLANG50606 (Integral)
The five musicians of Imarhan, from the southern Algerian oasis city of Tamanrasset, are among the leading exponents of desert blues, which they themselves call »Assouf« – a kind of Tuareg saudade. Their music carries these traditions into the present day, enriched by elements of rock, pop and funk, and now, on their fourth album »Essam« (Lightning), by electronics as well. Yet Sahara folk remains at its core: hypnotic guitars, instruments such as the calabash, and repetitive male chants in the Tuareg language Tamasheq. Electronically coloured, the music has become more intense still. For the jury: Anna-Bianca Krause
Traditional Ethnic Music
Stelios Petrakis: Lyric
Buda Musique BU860413 (Direktvertrieb)
Stelios Petrakis, from Crete, is renowned for his mastery of the bowed lyra, played upright on the knee. Across nine mostly instrumental tracks, Petrakis explores the lyra’s overtone-rich sound with quiet assurance. Accompanying musicians contribute drums, accordion, flutes, harp, guitars and vocals, while Petrakis himself plays the local laouto. Themes of community, peace and nature run through these recent works. One song addresses Gaza, another Greek wine, another love in springtime on Crete. Unexpectedly, there is also a cover of Metallica’s »Nothing Else Matters«. For the jury: Johannes Theurer
German language Singer/Songwriters
Sven van Thom: Ins Gras
CD/2 LPs, Loob Musik 15025 02 (Alive)
Sven van Thom – born Sven Rathke – has been anything but invisible: since 2008 he has written children’s songs and musicals, published radio columns, and now releases »Ins Gras« (»Into the Grass«), his fifth solo album »for adults«. A musical jack-of-all-trades, he plays every instrument himself as the songs move between chanson and pop. With black humour and playful wit, he approaches serious subjects – as in »Hoch die Tassen, Prost« – fully aware that he, like everyone else, will one day have to »bite the dust«. Preferably with a smile and van Thom’s characteristic irony. For the jury: Hans Reul
Folk and Singer/Songwriters
WÖR x Kongero: Songbooks Live
Nordic Notes NN195 (Broken Silence)
With »Songbooks Live«, WÖR – whose name combines »were« and »we are« – and the Swedish ensemble Kongero create a striking encounter between folk traditions. Rhythmic drive and powerful female voices build a bridge between Flemish instrumental music and Scandinavian vocal polyphony. WÖR brings the instrumental force and rhythmic inventiveness needed to make 18th-century Flemish manuscripts feel vividly alive in the present. Kongero responds with a »folk’appella« precision at once pure and powerful, evoking the sharp clarity of Nordic air. For the jury: Jo Meyer
Pop
Mitski: Nothing’s About to Happen to Me
CD/LP, Dead Oceans DOC450 (Cargo)
Mitski has mastered the art of controlled unease. In her new album, the family home becomes a psychic landscape: creaking, neglected, haunted by undead echoes. Explosive moments are repeatedly pulled back into suggestion, emotions reduced to flickering traces. Only occasionally do the guitars erupt. Love songs become open-ended acts of self-interrogation. »Nothing’s About to Happen to Me«, Mitski’s eighth studio album, inhabits a strange space between finely crafted Americana and psychological chamber drama: cool on the surface, feverish at its core. For the jury: Stefan Hochgesand
Rock
Tyler Ballgame: For The First Time, Again
LP/CD, Rough Trade RTLP 569 (Indigo)
Tyler Ballgame pulls off the difficult trick of turning artistic idealism into compelling pop music. Following his influences without compromise, he resisted the pressures of social-media superficiality in pursuit of genuine musical craft and songwriting ambition. Rough Trade Records quickly recognised his talent, and »For The First Time, Again« has the feel of one of those rare debut albums that arrives with complete assurance. Stylishly played and emotionally direct, it is an impressively coherent statement. For the jury: Christine Heise
Hard and Heavy
Kreator: Krushers Of The World
CD/LP, Nuclear Blast NBR 74531 (Warner)
Kreator’s sixteenth album shows a band still operating at full force. On »Krushers Of The World«, the quartet led by singer and guitarist Mille Petrozza strips things back to a rawer, more direct thrash-metal sound: fewer experiments, more attack. Yet the album’s ten varied and intricately constructed songs remain masterfully composed and arranged. In tracks such as »Seven Serpents«, »Tränenpalast« and the merciless »Deathscream«, the Essen band sounds lean, destructive and relentlessly driven. For the jury: Sebastian Kessler
Electronic and Experimental
Craven Faults: Sidings
CD/2 LPs, The Leaf Label 0843190014323 (direct distribution)
On this phantasmagorical album of apparent contradictions, Craven Faults imagines sidings not as places of stillness, but of continuous movement. Beneath its deceptively static surface runs a constant, almost imperceptible process of change. Throughout the immersive synthesizer journey, landscapes drift past the mind’s eye while tiny shifts in detail gradually distort one’s sense of time. The result is a thoroughly cinematic work of remarkable immersive power. For the jury: Dominik Kautz
Blues and Blues-related
Joe Bonamassa: B.B. King’s Blues Summit 100
2 CDs/3 LPs, Keeping The Blues Alive KTBA10125 (Integral)
This album pays tribute to one of the defining figures in the history of the blues: B.B. King. To honour both the man and his music, Joe Bonamassa has assembled an impressive roster of fellow musicians, many of them leading figures in today’s blues scene, to record new versions of King’s classic songs. Each artist brings a distinct musical voice, yet King’s presence remains unmistakable throughout, like that of a guiding mentor. The result is rewarding not only for fans of King or Bonamassa, but for anyone with a serious interest in music. For the jury: Karl Leitner
R&B, Soul and Hip-Hop
Jill Scott: To Whom This May Concern
CD/LP, Blues Babe Records/Human Re Sources 199806608678 (The Orchard/SPV)
After a decade of silence, the three-time Grammy winner returns with a lavish soul album. Released on her own label, Blues Babe, it moves effortlessly through blues, rhythm & blues, jazz, rap and, naturally, soul. Intimate yet expansive, this sixth studio album spans nearly twenty tracks and quietly resists the TikTok-era fashion for disposable two-minute songs. Jill Scott remains fully grounded in her own artistic voice, yet still open to moments of striking emotional candour. For the jury: Torsten Fuchs
Spoken Word
Kai Grehn: Imiona Nurtu
Die Namen der Strömung. Radio-play oratorio using the death registers of Auschwitz and poems by Tadeusz Borowski. Alexander Fehling, Rafael Stachowiak, visitors to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and people from across Europe. Book with CD, Zweitausendeins ISBN: 978-3-96318-181-8
For the radio-play oratorio »Imiona nurtu. Die Namen der Strömung« (»The Names of the Current«), author Kai Grehn invited people from across Europe to read aloud the names of those murdered, taken from the Auschwitz death registers. These personal acts of remembrance are interwoven with poems by the Holocaust survivor Tadeusz Borowski and recordings made in the former barracks of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The result is an intimate acoustic space of memory in which the past becomes disturbingly present. For the jury: Michael Grote
Recordings for Children and Youth
Annika & Martin Bosch: Nepomuk und der Rabel
Annika & Martin Bosch: Nepomuk und der Rabel Teil III – Die Pinguininsel [Nepomuk and the Rabel Part III – The Penguin Island]. Staatskapelle of the German National Theatre Weimar, William Shaw. CD/Digital, Hey!blau Records 4251959817737 (direct distribution)
With orchestral music and sea-lion rap, this is penguin entertainment at its most exuberant. After a turbulent opening, the migratory bird Rabel, Annika Bosch and their small but dedicated team draw listeners into an imaginative sound world populated by mischievous penguins, grumpy sea lions and glittering eyes in a »cave of horrors«. Framed by the rich, atmospheric sound of the Staatskapelle Weimar and charming contributions from children, the result is a lovingly crafted listening experience that truly succeeds in »making everything dark turn colourful«. For the jury: Yvonne Höft