John Adams: ‘Girls of the Golden West’
John Adams and Peter Sellars’s “Girls of the Golden West” has struggled to catch on since its premiere, but this recording makes the best case yet for its vitality. With nearly an hour of cuts and a treatment of Americana both vivid and terrifying, it’s essential listening for the opera’s doubters. JOSHUA BARONE
‘Aigul’
In a year that hasn’t offered up many opera-star recitals that are glossy and worthwhile, Aigul Akhmetshina’s self-titled debut is the exception. It shows off her luscious timbre, serpentine legato, and nuanced artistry in a wide range of repertoire that is both suitable and surprising. OUSSAMA ZAHR
‘American Counterpoints’
Julia Perry, who would have turned 100 this year, achieved recognition during her lifetime but fell into obscurity after her death, in 1979. Her brooding Violin Concerto, written in the 1960s, is a fine example of the sober yet seething angularity of its era, leavened with warm strings and hints of Coplandesque expansiveness. ZACHARY WOOLFE
Timo Andres: ‘The Blind Banister’
Timo Andres’s piano concerto “The Blind Banister,” a 2016 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, is structured in three movements but behaves like a single, grand gesture of descending scales and fascinating harmony. Threaded throughout is the solo part, played by the composer with wit and tender lyricism. JOSHUA BARONE
Brahms: Piano Concertos & Solo Piano
Sure, plenty of pianists can supply muscle and power in the Brahms concertos, which they surely need. But precious few can balance that side with the finesse and acuity that Igor Levit marshals here, paired with the Vienna Philharmonic in gloriously sensitive form. His playing in the solo works is commanding in its understatement. DAVID WEININGER
‘Brahms and Schubert’
On this galvanizing recording, Alexandre Kantorow, the winner of the 2019 International Tchaikovsky Competition, brings darkly toned intensity to two virtuosic cornerstones of Romantic piano music, Brahms’s Piano Sonata No. 1 and Schubert’s “Wanderer Fantasy,” complemented by exquisitely poetic readings of Schubert Lieder transcribed by Liszt. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7
Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra continue their remarkable run of recordings with this excellent tribute to Bruckner in the composer’s 200th anniversary year. Honeck’s reading is as creative as you might expect, but it is the astonishing quality of orchestral playing that makes this release downright extraordinary. DAVID ALLEN
Chopin: Études, Opp. 10 & 25
Since bursting onto the scene a mere two years ago, Yunchan Lim has established himself as a pianist of preternatural calm and eloquence. It’s no surprise to find him in total command on this recording, balancing note-by-note clarity with long-phrase lyricism amid Chopin’s staggering technical demands. ZACHARY WOOLFE
‘Continuum’
Shortly after concluding a world tour of the “Goldberg” Variations, Vikingur Olafsson released this gem, a set of six Bach arrangements — four of them his own — that is barely 20 minutes long. If some of the playing edges past meditative toward precious, Olafsson makes Harold Bauer’s version of “Komm, Süsser Tod” into a marvel, dignified and steadfast. DAVID ALLEN
‘Debussy, Attahir, Ravel’
In a sea of excellent string quartets, the young French ensemble Quatuor Arod makes a splash with gripping readings of the Debussy and Ravel quartets that find fluency in the finicky textures. Benjamin Attahir’s “Al’ Asr,” part of a cycle inspired by Muslim prayer, leaps off the page with breathy vigor and emotional cohesion. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
Duruflé: Requiem & Poulenc: Lenten Motets
Everything about this recording is intoxicating: the Choir of Trinity College’s dreamy sound; the setting’s enveloping church acoustic; the weightlessness of the organ-only version of Duruflé’s beloved Requiem. The conductor Stephen Layton achieves heavenly swells that push the choir’s plushness to ever greater volumes, and Harrison Cole’s organ playing floats by, untethered by earthly matters. OUSSAMA ZAHR
‘Julius Eastman, Vol. 4: The Holy Presence’
There may have been no harder hitting one-two punch in music this year than Julius Eastman’s “Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc,” a harrowing solo vocal work performed by Davóne Tines, followed by Eastman’s “The Holy Presence of Joan D’Arc” for 10 cellos, heroically multitracked by Seth Parker Woods. A high point in Wild Up’s essential Eastman series. DAVID WEININGER
Elgar: Violin Concerto
There are already many fine recordings of Elgar’s Violin Concerto, but the work contains such depths that there is always room for one more. This is a good one, too: Backed by a sympathetic orchestra, the violinist Vilde Frang’s technical security and emotional sensitivity generate unusual intensity. DAVID ALLEN
‘Forgotten Sounds’
Sometimes the search for new music leads into the past, as in this premiere recording of Charles Martin Loeffler’s recently rediscovered Octet for two clarinets, harp, string quartet and bass. Loeffler, the German-born assistant concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, wrote the work in 1897. It’s a heady blend of Impressionist color, Brahmsian lyricism and foamy, shifting textures. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
Handel: ‘Alcina’
The four female leads are elegant and articulate in this recording of Handel’s masterpiece of love and illusion. But this “Alcina” is defined by Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre, their playing hearty, even rambunctious. While there are more refined versions, this one has an infectious vitality. ZACHARY WOOLFE
‘Keel Road’
The Danish String Quartet continues to do no wrong in this, its third recording of folk music. The pain and the promise of the concluding song, “Nar Mitt Oye, Trett Av Moye” (“When My Eyes, Sore With Weeping”), are sometimes enough to reduce me to a blubbering wreck. I played nothing else so often all year. DAVID ALLEN
Antonin Kraft & Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Cello Concertos
Antonin Kraft (1749-1820) was a notable cellist of his time, and an occasional composer. His Concerto in C for his instrument was written around the turn of the 19th century, but harks back to the style of a few decades earlier without any staleness, its dashing good cheer captured on this irresistible recording. ZACHARY WOOLFE
Mozart: Requiem
Mozart famously left his Requiem unfinished, and the conductor Raphaël Pichon has reimagined what it means to complete it. With a canny ear for color and key relationships, Pichon uses other Mozart pieces to enlarge the Requiem’s touchingly dark world without distorting it. A vein of gentleness runs through this version, and the soprano Ying Fang is particularly ravishing. OUSSAMA ZAHR
‘Music in Time of War’
This year, no album was as ambitious and intelligent as “Music in Time of War,” a imagined conversation between Claude Debussy and Komitas Vardapet, witnesses to 20th-century horrors. The recording’s physical edition includes a book of essays and photography, but the highlight is the often revelatory music, not least Komitas’s achingly beautiful folk songs. JOSHUA BARONE
Gabriela Ortiz: ‘Revolución Diamantina’
This Gabriela Ortiz triptych is irresistible from the start: the jaggedly fiery violin solo that opens “Altar de Cuerda,” one of the finest and most exhilarating violin concertos of the past decade. The young violinist María Dueñas, having stunned in the classic repertoire, is here planting her flag in the music of today. JOSHUA BARONE
Rameau: Pièces de Clavecin
The accordion was more than a half-century from invention when Rameau died, but with this album, the accordionist Janne Valkeajoki has made a persuasive case for how naturally, and how beautifully, Rameau’s keyboard works can translate to the alternatively intimate and symphonic character of his instrument. JOSHUA BARONE
Terry Riley: ‘In C’
Performances of Terry Riley’s crusading minimalist work “In C” can feel like barely regulated chaos. The adventurous cellist Maya Beiser reimagines the piece as a careful assemblage of multitracked loops weaving in and out of proximity with one another. A fresh and revelatory take on a six-decade-old magnum opus. DAVID WEININGER
‘Rose in Bloom’
For coloratura sopranos, pristine singing, with its connotations of perfection and sterility, is an entry-level requirement, but Erin Morley suffuses her shimmery tone with heart and a real point of view. With spinning high notes and exquisite filigree, her singing is emotionally insightful without sacrificing its luminous finish. OUSSAMA ZAHR
Saariaho: ‘Adriana Mater’
Set against a backdrop of war, Kaija Saariaho’s second opera revolves around themes of violence and compassion. Its redemptive ending might seem odd were it not for her exquisite and elusive score. Taped just days after her death last year, this recording serves as a fitting memorial to a composer of singular vision. DAVID WEININGER
‘Wonder Women’
Witches, nuns and grieving mothers people this delightfully gender-porous album that places works by Baroque women composers alongside beguiling arrangements of folk ballads from Latin America and Italy. Four classically trained soloists trade places, artfully slipping into rough-tongued immediacy in popular songs as in the Chilean-Swedish mezzo Luciana Mancini’s fierce take on “La Llorona.” CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
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