The virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin isn't the first pianist one would think of when it comes to Fauré's music, but he has recorded all kinds of things, even ragtime, and as it happens, he does quite well with the dense miniatures heard on this album. Fauré's Nocturnes are at some level connected to Chopin's but are quite different, with murky chromaticism, especially in the later ones, setting the night atmosphere. Fauré is thought of as a musical conservative, but one would hardly know it from the pieces here that stubbornly refuse to settle on a tonal center. The counterpoint is complex, and a successful performance is one that untangles it. There isn't big, pianistic virtuosity here, but Hamelin's ability to balance Fauré's registers is virtuosic in its own way. The Barcarolles, a genre not much pursued by other composers but for Fauré seeming to allow rays of Venetian sunshine into his rather closed-in French world, are lighter but basically cut from the same cloth. Things lighten up with the final Dolly Suite, Op. 56, where Hamelin performs with his wife, Cathy Fuller. (For those wondering, neither Mi-a-ou nor the Kitty-valse has anything to do with cats.) Although Hyperion's church sound is not idiomatic, it does not damage the remarkable clarity in what is a significant entry in the Fauré discography, one that landed on classical best-seller lists in the late summer of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo

Neither Mozart nor Strauss is much known for songs, but their pairing here, nicely framing the golden age of the German lied, succeeds in showing the virtues of both as song composers. Soprano Sabine Devieilhe has often taken up Mozart's music. She is new to Strauss, but she catches his Classical, or neo-Classical, side in the selections on this album, wisely avoiding heavier material. The elegant little structures of Mozart's songs seem to bloom into Strauss' more elaborate treatments of similar structures, and when Strauss does open up his range, as in the wildly flowery Amor, Devieilhe, known for her interpretation of the Queen of the Night's "Der Hölle Rache" in Die Zauberflöte, K. 620, is ready. Mozart, in turn, is ennobled by this program, with small melodic details emerging nicely in the work of Devieilhe and the lively and timbrally varied accompanist Mathieu Pordoy. The whole project has the feel of small treasures known to performers who take pleasure in sharing them, an impression reinforced by the photos of the pair in the graphics and also by the acoustic environment of a small hall at the Paris Opera. A delightful song recital that rightly made classical best-seller charts in the spring of 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo

Fazil Say, who made his debut on this label with a very, very well-received work on Mozart’s Complete Piano Sonatas, is now turning his attention to Chopin, but a more confidential side of Chopin, much less virtuoso, the Chopin Nocturnes, the almost complete work of which he recorded in the Mozarteum Salzburg in March 2016. An “almost complete work” because the Nocturne in C-Sharp minor Op. 71/1 is missing, most likely due to CD running time restrictions as the total exceeded the limit by just a handful of seconds… Regardless the interpretation is dazzling and almost symphonic, taking these Nocturnes out of the hyper-romantic state of torpor they are so frequently plunged in by musicians. In addition to Chopin’s music, a few of Say’s short-lived grunts can also be heard who, much like Gould (albeit to a lesser extent), sometimes enjoys humming in the background. © SM/Qobuz

"I discovered Rachmaninov’s Vespers singing in a choir, and the work made a genuine emotional impact on me! This music gives off an impression of naturalness and "simplicity", yet in fact its architecture is complex and innovative for its time in the quasi-orchestral treatment of the voices. I wanted to place the work in a liturgical context that I conceived by drawing my inspiration from the Orthodox ceremonies I have been lucky enough to attend in Russia and Romania. The special characteristic and the beauty of this Vigil service (which in the Orthodox churches includes both Vespers and Matins) is that it accompanies the prayers of the faithful from dusk until sunrise". (Simon-Pierre Bestion) © Alpha Classics

The first volume of Cécile Chaminade’s piano music on Piano Classics won the same kind of universal accolades as the rest of Mark Viner’s fast-growing catalogue of albums for the label. His masterful advocacy is helping her to regain the reputation she enjoyed during her lifetime, when she could count Queen Victoria among her legion of ardent fans, in a long and fruitful career capped by becoming the first female composer to be awarded the "Legion d’honneur", in 1913 – when she still had more than 30 years of productive music-making ahead of her. The reason for Chaminade’s popularity is the charm, tunefulness and general accessibility of her music. It touches a ready chord with every music lover, and the fancy titles and not overly virtuosic piano writing made that her works became drawing room favorites of the epoch. Chaminade is principally remembered today as a composer of salon music, but she began her career writing on a much grander scale and with loftier expressive ambitions, both for the piano and in other genres. Such ambitions leave a mark on the set of six Etudes de concert which Mark Viner has compiled from different opus numbers (distinct from the Op. 35 set recorded on Volume 1), beginning in dazzling style with the flashing runs of the Etude romantique, Op. 132 and ending with the no-nonsense counterpoint of the Etude scolastique, Op. 139. Au pays dévasté, Op. 155 is one of Chaminade’s most profound conceptions, among the most serious of her late works, published in 1919 in the wake of the First World War, which she had spent as a nurse to wounded soldiers away from the front line. However, there is also plenty of Chaminade the charmer here, at the peak of her powers in the Six Pièces humoristiques – the first and last of which receive their world premiere recordings here. The album opens with Ondine, among her most supple and delicately textured tone-poems, and closes with the irrepressibly cheeky Lolita, a "caprice espagnol" worthy of Carmen herself. Further highlights in between include a swaying and sensuous Danse créole, Op. 94 and the offbeat, coquettish Guitare, Op. 34. Under Mark Viner’s fingers, Chaminade casts the same spell here as she did over audiences across Europe 150 years ago. © Piano Classics

Together with the Berlin-based Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester (DSO) Mari Kodama and her husband Kent Nagano have now completed the recording of all of Beethoven's piano concertos by jumping, as it were, back in time twice: the last element of this recording series that has spanned more than 13 years was Beethoven's concerto "number nought" (WoO 4) – personally edited by Mari Kodama from the autograph score. The original manuscript of this piano concerto is kept at the State Library in Berlin. This is not a completed score, because there is no orchestration. That said, Beethoven annotated the short score, especially in the first two movements, with indications as to which instrument was to play which part. The orchestra score which is available today was written in the early twentieth century based on those annotations. The only problem is: "Today, armed with the knowledge we now have acquired about the young Beethoven, we would perform this concerto quite differently in places," explain Mari Kodama and Kent Nagano in unison. They therefore present a very personal adaptation that emerged during rehearsal with the orchestra and at the recording sessions, and which reflects Kodama's and Nagano's individual image of Beethoven. They aim to make audible the exuberant freshness and urgent sense of awakening in the young, almost childlike Beethoven's writing shortly before his artistic powers were to burst forth, the joie de vivre and vital energy in a style that owes something to the playfulness of both Haydn and Mozart. That is Mari Kodama's intention, and she plays it in precisely such a versatile manner. Combined with the classical canon of the piano concertos nos. 1–5, the resulting comprehensive edition is complemented by the Triple Concerto for piano, violin and cello op. 56, the Rondo WoO 6 and the Eroica Variations op. 35, offering insight into the artist's longstanding involvement with her musical companion Ludwig van Beethoven. And the recordings of his works seem to lead the listener through the composer's life. "If you play all of them, it is like accompanying Beethoven on a journey through his life," explains Mari Kodama, and Kent Nagano adds: "You acknowledge the musical genius and at the same time you recognise the development of European music, because Beethoven was undoubtedly its pioneer." He led the way in changing the structure, form and harmony of music, just as there was an equally radical shift in the world around him; after the French Revolution society and business and the incipient industrial revolution began to alter the way people lived. "He is and remains an optimist, someone who can do no other than believe in what he wishes to communicate to us through his music," explains Kodama. She says this helps her. The fact that she herself is an optimist can partly be attributed to Beethoven. Kodama, Nagano and the DSO – one might imagine them almost as a trio where all the musicians have blind faith in each other and are therefore able to produce a degree of musical intensity that brings the young Beethoven back to life. © Berlin Classics

This is an album fit to satisfy the most refined and demanding gourmets. Magdalena Kožená and friends, including husband Sir Simon Rattle on the piano, have carefully concocted a programme of choice melodies for voice and various instrumental ensembles. Ranging from rarities (Chanson perpétuelle by Ernest Chausson opens the album) to curiosities (Arias by Dvořák, the wonderful Two Songs, Op.91 by Brahms with a bewitching solo viola played by Yulia Deyneka), the record takes in a series of treats (childish rhymes, Říkadla, by Leoš Janáček) and also affords us the precious Chansons madécasses by Ravel, an unusually lascivious and sensual denunciation of slavery and colonialism, and the very rare Three Songs from William Shakespeare, written in 1953 by a Stravinsky who had been converted to hardcore serialism by his friend Robert Craft. The excellent English soloists accompanying Magdalena Kožená show a little humour by ending this Soirée at the first rays of morning, with a transcription of Morgen by Richard Strauss for mezzo-soprano, violin and piano. English humour, for sure. © François Hudry/Qobuz

In this collection of orchestral songs by Richard Strauss, including the Four Last Songs, Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski demonstrates that this is obviously repertoire in which she is fully at ease and which is ideally suited to her voice. Strauss demands a nuanced command of a broad range of vocal colors and weights, and Isokoski shows an idiomatic mastery of his style. She has the suppleness and lightness to make "Säusle, liebe Myrte" really sparkle, and she brings a rich warmth to "September" and "Im Abendrot." And she can radiantly soar over the orchestra in "Befreit," and in all the Four Last Songs. Isokoski's voice doesn't have the natural luminosity or openness to put this in the very top ranks of recordings of these songs, but hers is a very fine performance; it should delight her fans and also be of interest to listeners who love the songs and who savor hearing a variety of interpretations. Marek Janowski leads Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in a rhythmically supple performance, although the strings don't have the richness of the most acclaimed orchestras. He doesn't fully capture the twilight glow of the Four Last Songs, and the ending of "Im Abendrot" comes across as flaccid rather than evocative. The sound of Ondine's 2001 recording is warm and nicely ambient, but it tends to slightly favor the orchestra, so that Isokoski doesn't always shine with the brightness of which she is clearly capable.© TiVo

With their poetry, their passionate and intimate lyricism, their refined style that gradually reveals hidden depths, the thirteen Nocturnes of Gabriel Fauré are the most significant group of works in his oeuvre for solo piano. Composed over a period of forty-six years (between 1875 and 1821), they bear witness to the composer’s remarkable stylistic evolution. From a form of expression rooted in romanticism, to an aesthetic fully aligned with 20th-century modernity, Fauré can be said to have shaped his musical personality like a sculptor. His Nocturnes are not all of equal importance, but as a whole their diversity and development offer a perfect panorama of his art. Éric Le Sage, one of the French piano school’s main representatives, whose many recordings for Alpha include the complete chamber music of Fauré, here interprets the repertoire closest to his heart. © Alpha Classics

His Debussy and Chopin recordings for harmonia mundi already offer ample evidence that Alain Planès is highly adept at selecting a period instrument best suited for the repertoire. For this complete recording of the Chopin Nocturnes, he has chosen a superb 1836 Pleyel – dating from the same decade during which many of these masterpieces saw the light of day. With this instrument’s unique colour palette at his fingertips, our poet of the keyboard deftly recreates the delicate magic of these immortal pages in which the composer, fascinated by the art of bel canto, developed a new approach to making the piano sing. © harmonia mundi