A good chunk of the 19th century repertory for cello and piano was composed by Felix Mendelssohn, and grateful duos have responded with a good many recordings even during the years when Mendelssohn was out of fashion. This one by cellist Sol Gabetta and pianist Bertrand Chamayou can stand with the best of them. Gabetta and Chamayou have performed together for almost two decades, and it shows in their rendition of the youthful and enthusiastic Variations concertantes, with its shifts of mood and texture. There is an unusual piece here (the recently discovered Assai tranquillo) and the performances of the two hugely contrasting cello sonatas are very strong, with the almost neoclassical Cello Sonata No. 1, Op. 45, and the Romantic, stormy Cello Sonata No. 2, Op. 58, emerging with vivid individuality and a fine sense of the composer's idiomatic cello writing (Mendelssohn's brother was a cellist) from Gabetta. Another distinctive feature here is the set of contemporary pieces on the second CD in the physical version, commissioned by the performers with a request to respond to Mendelssohn's Songs without Words in some way. It is not completely clear that this works; Mendelssohn's Songs without Words, one of which is included here, proceeded from different aesthetic bases than those of Wolfgang Rihm and Jörg Widmann. However, Gabetta gets a real virtuoso vehicle in the Lieder ohne Worte II excerpts by Heinz Holliger and succeeds with it. In general, the music-making here is committed, sensitive, and often enough humorous; it will please any lover of Mendelssohn or the cello. The album made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo

For French pianists who don't approach the task in a sympathetic spirit, the nearly obligatory early-career Saint-Saëns recital can seem a chore, for both pianist and listener. Not a bit of it here. Pianist Bertrand Chamayou and the Orchestre National de France under Emmanuel Krivine absolutely nail the Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 22, with a performance notable for its combination of small detail and energy. Saint-Saëns is sometimes criticized, and indeed sometimes rightly, for being a by-the-book conservatory composer, but what to make of the unusual shape of this concerto, with its Allegro middle movement and lack of a true slow movement? Sample that middle movement, which is overflowing with melody, or the solo passage at the very beginning of the concerto, exquisitely carved out by Chamayou. The Piano Concerto No. 5, Op. 103 ("Egyptian"), with its supposedly authentic Nile tribal melody in the slow movement, is suitably colorful and exotic, and there are also gems among the rarely played small piano works that close out the program. The Etude, Op. 52, No. 6 ("En forme de valse"), which is just what it says, in the form of a waltz, but not quite a waltz, is an inspired choice. Chamayou tackles the various technical challenges with aplomb, and Erato contributes unfussy sound from a pair of sessions at the Radio France Auditorium. As good a place as any to start with the piano music of Saint-Saëns.© TiVo

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

Fresh from their latest accolade as winners of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, the critically lauded Dudok Quartet Amsterdam embarks on a new project dedicated to Franz Joseph Haydn’s six Op. 20 String Quartets. This first installment of two volumes sees the quartet explore the C major, G minor and F minor quartets. With some of the most celebrated works from the quartet repertoire, the Dudok Quartet relish delving into the monumental and dramatic gestures within Haydn’s highly developed rhetorical style. © Resonus

Oscar Lorenzo Fernândez, born in 1897, was ten years younger than Heitor Villa-Lobos, and he is best known for an orchestral piece called Batuque, that is rooted in Afro-Brazilian rhythms. Yet his music generally doesn't sound much like Villa-Lobos', and this collection of his short keyboard pieces (he wrote about 80 of them) from pianist Martin Jones is welcome. Some of them are early works that follow Debussy rather than Villa-Lobos and have little specifically Brazilian content. Even in this student phase of Fernândez's career, he seems to have had a characteristic lyrical quality. The centerpiece is a trio of 1930s works called Suite Brasileira, each with three movements. Even here, Fernândez is not really a follower of Villa-Lobos. In a way, he is more conservative, but this means he can explore charming Brazilian pop genres like the modinha and the serenade-like semesta that Villa-Lobos rarely touched. He was also capable, however, of the big, public-facing Afro-Brazilian mode, as can be heard in the Jongo finale of the Suite Brasileira No. 3. Pianist Martin Jones seems to have undertaken this project out of sheer enthusiasm, and it is likely to find admirers even in Brazil; he catches a quiet tuneful quality in Fernândez's music that makes for delightful listening. The Nimbus label backs him up with ideal sound from the Wyastone Estate Concert Hall.© James Manheim /TiVo

This release by the Danish String Quartet is part of a five-album series titled "Prism," each of which will apparently include three works: an arrangement of a Bach fugue for string quartet, one of Beethoven's five late quartets, and a 20th century work that somehow lies in the shadow of both, or, to use the quartet's own words, "a beam of music is split through Beethoven's prism." In this case, the program is unusually coherent, with the String Quartet No. 3 of Alfred Schnittke engaging itself directly with the Beethoven String Quartet No. 13 in B flat major, Op. 130, and Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, here played as the finale of the String Quartet No. 13 as Beethoven originally conceived the work. Logically, the Beethoven should go in the middle, but after you hear the Danish String Quartet's blistering performance of the String Quartet No. 13, you'll agree that it would be an impossible act to follow. The group gets just how radical this quartet was, especially with the Grosse Fuge in place, as sharp contrasts grow throughout the work and explode in the unthinkably intense fugue. The quartet takes the first movements of the six-movement work very rapidly, with the lighter melodic passages seeming like passing thoughts, takes a deep pause with the Cavatina slow movement, and then plunges into the fugue at top power. They are aided by magnificent engineering work from ECM, working on the Reitstadel Neumarkt, a riding stadium with famed acoustics. The Schnittke quartet is a fascinating work in itself, quoting the Beethoven extensively and exploring its sharp contrasts (sample the Agitato middle movement). One awaits the rest of the Danish String Quartet's series breathlessly, but it's possible that this volume, with a Beethoven performance for the ages, will tower over the rest. A bonus is a set of notes by the great Paul Griffiths, writing mostly for ECM these days.© TiVo

The mazurkas of Alexander Scriabin make evident a trait sometimes submerged in his music in larger forms, namely the degree to which Chopin served him as an inspiration. The unusually good booklet notes here by Simon Nicholls outline the history of the form and evocatively quote Liszt and various Russian writers about the ramifications of the mazurka as it developed from Chopin's invention of the genre as part of concert music. Pianist Andrey Gugnin leans toward clarity here rather than highly expressive treatments, and this is good: what is interesting in these pieces is to see how Scriabin dealt with Chopin's models and how those remain prominent even as the traits of his mature music begin to take over. The ten mazurkas of Op. 3 date from 1889, when Scriabin was 15. They are clearly in the Chopin mold, but there are splashes of color -- to use a term appropriate to the synaesthetic Scriabin -- that suggest what was to come. In the Op. 25 set, from ten years later, the dance rhythm is still clear in Gugnin's hands, although both chromaticism and counterpoint have been added in abundance. The pair of mazurkas of Op. 40 date from 1903, and here, we are in the realm of the mature Scriabin, with the mazurka form not only harmonically but rhythmically distorted. Yet Gugnin's elegant readings keep in touch with the music's roots, creating a flavor of early experiences remembered. Indeed, hearing the mazurka was one of Scriabin's first musical memories. This is a strong introduction to a rather neglected part of Scriabin's output.© TiVo

Born in Madrid in 1991 into a family of musicians, Pablo Ferrández is one of the most outstanding cellists of the new generation. This, his first album for Sony Classical (released six years after an album of Dvořák and Schumann Concertos for Onyx Classics) is a testament to his daring musicality, combined with a profound sound. There is also a great deal of delicacy in the phrasing and expression, as witnessed first and foremost in Elegy, Op. 3 No. 1. by Rachmaninov, whose great Sonata in G minor, Op. 19 forms the heart of the programme. Alongside his acolyte and friend, the pianist Denis Kozhukhin (a Pentatone artist whose Brahms recital in 2017 was memorable), he displays a great sense of structure and an ideal measure of restraint, without the slightest Romantic (romanticising) excess, notably in the Finale, which is totally pristine. Sumptuous - it is just a pity that the sound recording dries up the timbres of the two instruments a little. "Pablo Ferrández is truly a singular artist ... marvellous intonation, very refined vibrato, absolutely impeccable left and right hands, and a true musician", said Anne-Sophie Mutter a few years ago of her young colleague. She was not wrong.This recital, entitled 'Reflections' also features some Spanish pieces, namely two excerpts from Manuel de Falla's 7 Canciones populares Españolas, namely Nana and Asturiana, and Oriental from Enrique Granados' Danzas españolas, before concluding with the famous El cant dels ocells, a traditional Catalan piece arranged in 1939 by Pablo Casals. In these miniatures, which he alternates with transcriptions of other pages by Rachmaninov (Vocalise), Pablo Ferrández continues to fascinate with the beauty of his sonority, a veritable black sun, and penetrating phrasing  ̶ Asturiana, magic! © Pierre-Yves Lascar/Qobuz