By
Published: Friday, 13 December 2024 at 10:30 AM
The 13 best classical albums of 2024
2024…it’s been a bumper year for classical music, with some truly exceptional albums released by established artists and up-and-coming stars. From the many hundreds of albums reviewed by the BBC Music Magazine team, we bring you the best classical albums of 2024 – 13 must-have recordings to add to your collection…
Penderecki
Sacred Choral Works
Latvian Radio Choir/ Sigvards Kļava
Ondine ODE 1435-2
Sumptuous, passionate and uplifting, Penderecki’s sacred choral music spans his career. From the early avant-garde outbursts to the refreshed traditional sounds of his maturity, these expressions of often defiant piety are central to his output. Rarely, though, have they received such assured and lovingly committed performances as on this ravishing album from the Latvian Radio Choir and conductor Sigvards Kļava.
Read the full Penderecki review
Buy Penderecki Sacred Choral Works from Amazon
Take 3
Works by Bartók, Poulenc, Schoenfield, Nichifor
Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), Reto Bieri (clarinet), Polina Leschenko (piano)
Alpha Classics ALPHA772
Listening intently, Kopatchinskaja, Bieri and Leschenko bounce exuberantly off each other, generating a vividly characterised, conversationally sophisticated tour de force. It’s capped by a finale overflowing with impish snap, crackle and pop. All in all, chamber music at its most vivaciously invigorating and life-enhancing. Cue a party!
A Lionel Tertis Celebration
Works by Tertis, Bowen, Brahms, Bridge, Schumann, Vaughan Williams et al (trans. Tertis et al)
Timothy Ridout (viola), Frank Dupree, James Baillieu (piano)
Harmonia Mundi HMM905376.77
If violists owe Lionel Tertis an inescapable debt of gratitude, with this release Timothy Ridout repays those dues handsomely. Inspired by the violinist Fritz Kreisler – and arguably doing for the viola what his contemporary Casals, also born in 1876, was accomplishing for the cello – Tertis set about raising the instrument’s profile, in the process tackling the problem of solo repertoire head-on through commissioning, composing, and arranging.
From imposing sonatas to salon bonbons, these recordings constitute a deft salute not just to Tertis the man and multi-faceted musician, but also to his enduring legacy which lives on in distinguished successors – not least among them Timothy Ridout himself.
Read the full Lionel Tertis Celebration review
Buy a Lionel Tertis Celebration from Amazon
More of the best classical albums of 2024…
Benevoli
Missa Tu es Petrus et al
I Fagiolini, The City Musick/Robert Hollingworth
CORO COR16201
This revelatory project unveils the shadowy Franco-Italian composer Orazio Benevoli – born in 1605 in Rome, the son of a French baker, he became choirmaster of the celebrated Cappella Giulia of St Peter’s in the mid-17th century. As this world premiere recording of his Mass Tu es Petrus amply demonstrates, Benevoli was a vital figure in forging the so-called ‘Colossal Baroque’ style, developed to fill the vast spaces of Roman basilicas with resplendent sound.
Marc André Hamelin
New Piano Works
Marc-André Hamelin (piano)
Hyperion CDA68308 74:00 mins
The jaunty theme from Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 has long provided a musical diving board: composers from Brahms to Beamish have plunged the melody beyond the violinist’s own brilliant variations. Rachmaninov’s rhapsodic experiment furthered the work’s pianistic possibilities; that dramatic lyricism is matched by Marc-André Hamelin’s grittier 2011 set, recorded for the first time here by the composer. The original melody is sharpened by rapid development; the tonality is ultimately discoloured by cluster chords and flitting harmonies.
Read the full Marc André Hamelin review
Buy Marc André Hamelin from Amazon
Augusta Read Thomas
Terpsichore’s Box of Dreams*; Carnival for Bassoon and Wind Ensemble; Star Box; Dance Mobile etc
*Grossman Ensemble/
Tim Weiss et al
Nimbus NI 6445
For composer Augusta Read Thomas, the arrival of a new musical idea often feels ‘like a spark or lightning bolt – like lighting a match – and suddenly, poof, there’s an illumination, an inspiration, if you will.’ Thomas’s music itself fizzes with this same vivid sense of energy; her complex, imaginative scores verily zing with life and colour, while readily charting profound emotional depths. As such, Thomas is well-established as one of America’s most accomplished and inventive contemporary composers.
Read the full Augusta Read Thomas review
Buy Augusta Read Thomas from Amazon
More of the best classical albums of 2024…
Elgar
The Dream of Gerontius
Nicky Spence (tenor), Anna Stéphany (mezzo-soprano), Andrew Foster-Williams (bass-baritone); Polish National Youth Choir; Gabrieli Consort, Roar and Players/Paul McCreesh
Signum Classics SIGCD785
This Gerontius sounds different from the start, as conductor Paul McCreesh intends it to. The mainly gut strings and delicately toned French woodwind of the Gabrieli orchestra, playing instruments of Elgar’s own period, have a less plushly upholstered, more vulnerable sound than usual in the Prelude, with a rawer edge in tutti.
Buy Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius from Amazon
Brahms
Clip: Brahms – String Quintet No. 1 in F Major
String Quintet No. 1 in F major; String Quintet No. 2 in G major
Lilli Maijala (viola), Gringolts Quartet
BIS BIS-2727
In this superb recording, the Gringolts Quartet – Ilya Gringolts and Anahit Kurtikyan (violins), Silvia Simionescu (viola) and Claudius Herrmann (cello) – and violist Lilli Maijala do the quintets proud, with a passionate, committed account that seems to employ 360 degrees of expressive technique.
There’s a wealth of characterisation within this richly unified, bronze-dark ensemble. A deep-dug, chunky tone, often quite rugged, is offset by moments of intense sweetness, as well as great delicacy and refinement.
Buy Brahms String Quintets from Amazon
Gabriela Ortiz
Clip: Revolución diamantina, Act IV
Revolución Diamantina*; Altar de cuerda; Kauyumari
*María Dueñas (violin);**Los Angeles Master Chorale; Los Angeles Philharmonic/Gustavo Dudamel
Platoon LAPHIL02
For Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, composing requires two distinct types of brainwork. ‘When I write music,’ she says, ‘ I am always swinging between the rational part, how we function mentally, and the irrational part, the instinct… the magic part.’ This twin approach is clearly heard in her complex, dazzling scores that are at once tautly constructed yet freewheeling in their imaginative reach. Weaving together Latin and Mexican sonorities and folklore to powerful effect, her music sounds like nobody else’s, and this excellent new album of recent works, recorded by longstanding collaborators Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a thing of wonder indeed.
Read the full Gabriela Ortiz review
More of the best classical albums of 2024…
Mason Bates. Bruckner
Clip: Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E Major – III. Sehr schnell
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7; Mason Bates: Resurrexit
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/Manfred Honeck
Reference Recordings FR-757SACD
Manfred Honeck has already released Bruckner’s Fourth and Ninth symphonies with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, to widespread acclaim. This new Seventh ups the ante further: it’s undoubtedly one of the best recordings of the symphony in the digital era.
The Pittsburgh cellos exude a wonderfully reassuring confidence in the expansive opening theme, and the violins display a similar savoir-faire on taking it over a page later. This is an orchestra by now deeply acculturated to the Austrian conductor’s essentially old-school style of Bruckner interpretation, with warmly blended tones and a meticulously gradated approach to the music’s architecture.
Read the full Mason Bates and Bruckner review
Buy Bates and Bruckner from Amazon
C Schumann. R Schumann
Clip: R Schumann – Mondnacht, Op. 39 No. 5
R Schumann: Three Romances, Op. 94; Fantasiestücke, Op. 73; Three Pieces from ‘Fünf Stücke im Volkston’, Op. 102; Liederkreis – Mondnact, Op. 39 No. 5; Three Duos; Adagio und Allegro, Op. 70; C Schumann: Three Romances, Op. 22
Nicholas Daniel (oboe), Julius Drake (piano)
Chandos CHAN20295
Robert Schumann only wrote one work for oboe – but that hasn’t stopped oboist Nicholas Daniel drawing together a gorgeous album of his music. Played with such warmth and eloquence, the arrangements chosen here often feel as if they were tailor-made for the instrument, while the sensitive programming paints a loving portrait of the Schumann household. Through the prism of the oboe, we hear pieces written for an array of other instruments – violin, clarinet, horn and the rare pedal piano – arranged and edited by various names including Daniel himself and the late Howard Ferguson.
Read the full C Schumann and R Schumann review
Buy C & R Schumann from Amazon
Welcome Joy – A Celebration of Women’s Voices
Clip: Ushas – Goddess of Dawn by Sruthi Rajasekar (Corvus Consort)
I Holst: Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow; G Holst: Two Eastern Pictures; Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda etc; Poston: An English Day-Book; plus works by Judith Weir, Hilary Campbell, Olivia Sparkhall, Gemma McGregor and Shruthi Rajasekar
Louise Thomson (harp); Corvus Consort/Freddie Crowley
Chandos CHSA 5350
Under its founder-director Freddie Crowley, Corvus Consort is always full of fresh thinking. Here we have a collection of works spanning a century up to the present day, composed for female voices and solo harp. Gustav Holst was a champion of this combination of forces, and three of his works provide a framework for ten compositions by women, introduced by his daughter Imogen Holst’s Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow, a setting of six Keats poems inspired by the poet’s love of Devon.
Read the full Welcome Joy review
Clip: Alex Paxton – Hairy Pony Estampie (Slide Action)
Re:Build
Ryan Latimer: C. Exigua; Laura Jurd: Swamped; Emily Hall: Close Palms; Alex Paxton: Hairy Pony Estampie; Joanna Ward: Playing Frisbee May 2022; plus works by Matthew Locke, Benny Vernon et al
Slide Action
NMC NMC D289
The future of brass ensemble playing is – as yet – a relatively untapped area for contemporary composers. Brass bands, 20th-century big bands and some orchestral playing have certainly made inroads, but the real development of this soundworld is surely yet to come. If any group is likely to move this on in leaps and bounds it is Slide Action.
This album commissions composers and arrangers (including significant contributions from the group themselves) to harness the great harmonic, rhythmic and melodic timbres offered from a trombone quartet, and creators have gleefully leapt on these possibilities.
Read the full Slide Action review