Eric Schubert

Late works played by a young achiever: The up-and-coming American pianist Eric Lu plays major works of piano music on his first Genuin Classics CD. With this, he casts a spell on us from the distant opening bars of Mozart's A minor Rondo! Schubert's Impromptus also come from a different world and with Brahms' Piano Pieces, Op. 118 he lets the autumn of Romanticism blow over to us. Listening to these recordings, one can understand why he not only won the International German Piano Award 2017, but also the Chopin Competition and, and, and, and … Transcendent!

In a scene where the recordings of young sopranos tend toward an extreme sameness, Austria's Anna Prohaska would deserve kudos simply for the ambition of this release of soldiers' songs. The idea, especially for a female singer, is original, and the music draws on a great variety of sources, from Scottish song to Wolfgang Rihm. Better still is the execution, which shows Prohaska's extreme versatility.

‘Goerne’s way with phrasing is quite admirable. He does not carve, he sculpts. One listens to Schubert’s phrases as one would stroke polished marble. Never an intonation for the sake of effect, never a superfluous accent’ (Sylvain Fort, Diapason). After the first volume of the Matthias Goerne Schubert Edition, this double album speaks of death, of the ‘Wanderer’, and of the relationship between Schubert and his poets . . . For this occasion the singer has called on two travelling companions who have left a lasting artistic impression on the world of the lied.

‘Goerne’s way with phrasing is quite admirable. He does not carve, he sculpts. One listens to Schubert’s phrases as one would stroke polished marble. Never an intonation for the sake of effect, never a superfluous accent’ (Sylvain Fort, Diapason). After the first volume of the Matthias Goerne Schubert Edition, this double album speaks of death, of the ‘Wanderer’, and of the relationship between Schubert and his poets . . . For this occasion the singer has called on two travelling companions who have left a lasting artistic impression on the world of the lied.

"As an improviser, you often find that it‘s not the compositions themselves you‘re playing, but your own memories of them. And as these memories come back to you in the moment, they assert their continuing existence in the here and now," says Michael Wollny. In other words, songs are like ghosts. Wollny‘s new album "Ghosts" is a gathering of some of the ghosts that regularly haunt him. Typically for Wollny, they range from classics like Franz Schubert's "Erlkönig" to jazz standards, film music, songs with a certain fragility by Nick Cave, say, or the band Timber Timbre, and also include his own darkly evocative original compositions.

Amarcord is a popular male vocal ensemble devoted largely to Medieval- and Renaissance-era music. The group also sings works by contemporary composers and performs arrangements of songs from various periods. Amarcord is an unusual ensemble in that it consists of just five singers who sing a cappella. There are two tenors, one baritone, and two basses. The sound is quite individual, imparting a mellow, somewhat Romantic approach to the vocal style, with the two tenor voices often singing the lead parts.

This is a beautiful anthology of sacred liturgical music. Chung coordinates his forces in larger choral pieces with power and vertical balance. Contributions by Cecilia Bartoli find the mezzo in top form, and Bryn Terfel brings charismatic presence to “Pie Jesu” from the Fauré Requiem. Also included are the interminable "Song for Athene" by John Taverner and a great performance by Andrea Bocelli in Eric Levi's hymn for the world, "I Believe".