Bbc Music 2025

The third instalment in their award-winning series, the Calidore Quartet return with a three-disc album of the Early Quartets. Their Beethoven performances have been described as ‘shockingly deep’ by LA Times. The first album of Late Quartets won the Chamber Music Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2024, and their second album of Middle Quartets will be awarded Chamber Recording of the Month in the October issue of Gramophone Magazine. Their interpretation is informed by their diverse set of mentors which include Alban Berg, Emerson, Guarneri and yet still uniquely representing the sentiments, aesthetics and research of their generation. Their interpretations of Beethoven are already critically acclaimed with performances at the Lincoln Centre planned as part of their residency.

Nicola Benedetti presents a major work of the violin repertoire, Beethoven's 'Violin Concerto'. Recorded with Nicholas Collon and the award-winning Aurora Orchestra. The entire concerto was filmed to create a dynamic, full-length video. As well as a GRAMMY winner, 2 x Classical BRIT Award winner, BBC Music Magazine's 2021 personality of the year and a CBE, Nicky runs the incredible Benedetti Foundation for young musicians, and in 2022 became the first ever female director of the world-famous Edinburgh International Festival.

Nicola Benedetti presents a major work of the violin repertoire, Beethoven's 'Violin Concerto'. Recorded with Nicholas Collon and the award-winning Aurora Orchestra. The entire concerto was filmed to create a dynamic, full-length video. As well as a GRAMMY winner, 2 x Classical BRIT Award winner, BBC Music Magazine's 2021 personality of the year and a CBE, Nicky runs the incredible Benedetti Foundation for young musicians, and in 2022 became the first ever female director of the world-famous Edinburgh International Festival.

Vox Luminis looks to the past and the future with this special digital reissue of its Kantaten recording comprising spiritual concerts and sacred cantatas by the ancestors of Johann Sebastian Bach. Named a Choice recording by both BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone upon its release in 2019, this new edition is enriched by three additional compositions which have just been recorded for Ricercar’s forthcoming release of the complete edition of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach’s ancestors: Kyrie a 6 by Heinrich Bach, Liebster Jesu, hör mein Flehen by Johann Michael Bach and Siehe wie fein und lieblich ist by Georg Christoph Bach. The Kantaten programme also includes the cantata for the Feast of St Michael the Archangel by Johann Christoph Bach and the cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden by Johann Sebastian Bach, in its original version dating from his Arnstadt period, containing copious elements linking it to the music of his forebears.

"While avoiding the more gimmicky extremes [in The Four Seasons], there is no lack of character as soloist or conductor from Renaud Capuçon…These galant style pieces [by Chevalier de Saint-Georges] are just as virtuosic as the Italian’s, but emphasising elegant joie-de-vivre more than drama.

Peter Donohoe's first album devoted to Busoni was enthusiastically received by the critics, and nominated for a BBC Music Magazine award. This second volume offers playing and musicality of the same high standards. His programme opens with two of Busoni's finest Bach transcriptions, widely seen as a pinnacle of the repertoire for pianistic virtuosity, and much more widely played than Busoni's own compositions. This is followed by the Variations on Chopin's Prelude in C minor - a work in which Busoni demonstrates his innate skill of re-interpretation, and his mastery of counterpoint, and a piece he reworked several times. The following works are 'all Busoni' - the first and second sonatinas, and the Fantasia contrappuntistica, in the composer's later adaptation for two pianos. The first Steinway Artist of Indian origin, Karl Lutchmayer is equally renowned as a concert pianist, a lecturer, and a broadcaster. He joins Peter Donohoe in the Fantasia, and also performs the Second Sonatina.

Symphonic in scale and with great dramatic power, Rachmaninov’s Piano Sonata No. 1 in D minor is an underappreciated masterpiece, depicting a tremendous range of human emotions. The turbulent and brilliant Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor is heard in the 1931 revised version which clarifies textures and streamlines the work, heightening its emotional impact. The Isle of the Dead employs Georgy Kirkor’s 1957 transcription which Boris Giltburg has revised significantly.
Giltburg’s authority in Rachmaninov has been universally acknowledged, with his performances termed ‘characterful, sensitive and technically dazzling’ by BBC Music Magazine (Naxos 8.574528).

Christian Li signed to Decca when he was just 12 years old. Now 17, this album represents a ‘coming of age’ moment for the young violinist as he records Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. With the winning combination of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and their Conductor Laureate, Vasily Petrenko, the album includes several transcriptions of popular Tchaikovsky works, arranged for violin and piano or string ensemble. “Whatever he touches, this young violinist emerges as an extraordinary wunderkind.” BBC Music Magazine.

This new album by the award-winning Latvian Radio Choir conducted by Sigvards Kļava – recently hailed by the New York Times as ‘astonishing’, ‘superlative’ by the BBC Music Magazine, and ‘perhaps the finest chorus singing today’ by NPR – is focused on the sacred choral works by one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era, Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847).