On her ninth album, and first in nearly a decade, Natalie Merchant echoes the lushness of her classic Ophelia from 1998—though you can hear the age in her voice. That's not a bad thing. You might not recognize her in the first notes of the excellent "Big Girls," but you will soon enough. Her voice is richer, smokier, and a stunning complement to duet partner Abena Koomson-Davis' warm lilt on both this soulful piano number and its follow-up "Come on, Aphrodite," an appeal to the goddess to deliver all the beauty and messiness of love. Egged on by vibrant horns, Koomson-Davis sounds full of longing, while Merchant is simply commanding: "Make me head over heels/ Make me drunk/ Make me blind/ Over the moon/ Half out of my mind." Merchant has said the 10 songs here "needed all the textures of full orchestrations: wood, metal, gut, reeds, skins, human breath, pressure, and friction," which led her to seven composers, including Gabriel Kahane and Megan Gould, as well as the Celtic folk group Lúnasa. Insistent cowbell escorts in sultry piano and Cab Calloway-style horns on "Tower of Babel," while "Narcissus" is set to romantic guitar and tells that Greek myth from cursed Echo's point of view, letting her speak the complete thoughts she was unable to say in the original story. "I'm nothing but the clear and empty sky above/ I'm light, can you see me?" Merchant sings, her voice at times reaching the clarity of her early 10,000 Maniacs years. And her signature vibrato is perhaps best highlighted on "Song of Himself." She covers "Hunting the Wren" by the Irish folk band Lankum, offering a softer, more delicate contrast to the stoic pain of the original, which uses the bird as a metaphor for exploited women. "Sister Tilly" is a melancholic but playful string tribute to the fading Chelsea Girls and '60s earth mothers of yore—the "women of my mother's generation who are leaving us now," Merchant has said. She lovingly chronicles "your Rilke poems and your stacks of Mother Jones, your feminist raves in your Didion shades, and your Zeppelin so loud and so proud." Near the end, it rolls into an easy, Carly Simon-like sway. (There are shades of Joni Mitchell, meanwhile, on the Celtic-tinged "Eye of the Storm.") The whole thing ends on a dramatic turn with "The Feast of Saint Valentine" and its chamber pop stylings; kudos to Merchant for managing to open a song with the line "In the deep and darkest night of your soul" and close it with "Love will conquer all" without earning any cynicism for those cliches. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Anyone who aspires to a professional career as a violinist must eventually reckon with Beethoven's Violin Concerto. This exacting instrumental jewel demands not only technical mastery, but also an extraordinary sense of lyricism and emotion from those who seek to make it their own. It is not surprising that, over the centuries, famous virtuosos have never stopped reimagining and recording this masterpiece in order to pass it on to posterity: Fritz Kreisler, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Isabelle Faust... Now, it is in their footsteps - rather intimidatingly, let's admit - that a new, irresistibly charismatic voice has now arrived.Only 20 years old, María Dueñas possesses the talent and radiance of a long-standing virtuoso. She grew up in Granada and studied in Dresden and Vienna with Boris Kuschnir. Her first major success came in 2021, when she won first prize in the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin Competition. That same year, she attracted the attention of Deutsche Grammophon, with whom she soon signed a contract. It was with this label that she presented her first album, Beethoven and Beyond."Beethoven's Violin Concerto has been with me at the most important moments of my life," says María, for whom it seems only natural to dedicate the first chapter of her discography to this work. She had the chance to record her œuvre with Manfred Honeck and the Vienna Symphony at the beginning of 2023, during a concert held in a hall with a rich history: the Vienna Music Hall - a 'home' debut, as it were. But how to stand out from the crowd? "With the Beethoven concerto, you can't show off your virtuosity, only yourself. And only sound can reveal it.”It was precisely this sound that convinced us! But that's not all: to really add her own touch to the work, María composed her own cadenzas. The album also includes cadenzas by five other famous virtuosos (Louis Spohr, Eugène Ysaÿe, Camille Saint-Saëns, Henryk Wieniawski and Fritz Kreisler) as well as works for violin and orchestra by each of these composers. María takes up the Concerto with a unique sincerity and authenticity and manages to shed a new light on Beethoven, that of her own time. Let us be the first to warn you; instead of Beethoven and Beyond, there will soon be María Dueñas and Beyond. No doubt about it, this is a Qobuzissime! Lena Germann/Qobuz

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is one of the greatest achievements in orchestration by any composer in jazz history. Charles Mingus consciously designed the six-part ballet as his magnum opus, and -- implied in his famous inclusion of liner notes by his psychologist -- it's as much an examination of his own tortured psyche as it is a conceptual piece about love and struggle. It veers between so many emotions that it defies easy encapsulation; for that matter, it can be difficult just to assimilate in the first place. Yet the work soon reveals itself as a masterpiece of rich, multi-layered texture and swirling tonal colors, manipulated with a painter's attention to detail. There are a few stylistic reference points -- Ellington, the contemporary avant-garde, several flamenco guitar breaks -- but the totality is quite unlike what came before it. Mingus relies heavily on the timbral contrasts between expressively vocal-like muted brass, a rumbling mass of low voices (including tuba and baritone sax), and achingly lyrical upper woodwinds, highlighted by altoist Charlie Mariano. Within that framework, Mingus plays shifting rhythms, moaning dissonances, and multiple lines off one another in the most complex, interlaced fashion he'd ever attempted. Mingus was sometimes pigeonholed as a firebrand, but the personal exorcism of Black Saint deserves the reputation -- one needn't be able to follow the story line to hear the suffering, mourning, frustration, and caged fury pouring out of the music. The 11-piece group rehearsed the original score during a Village Vanguard engagement, where Mingus allowed the players to mold the music further; in the studio, however, his exacting perfectionism made The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady the first jazz album to rely on overdubbing technology. The result is one of the high-water marks for avant-garde jazz in the '60s and arguably Mingus' most brilliant moment.© Steve Huey /TiVo

The music of Camille Saint-Saëns and the other French composers featured here is a bit off the usual track for superstar pianist Lang Lang, and the album is oddly titled; only half the music on the double album is by Saint-Saëns. As it happens, Lang Lang is a pretty strong Saint-Saëns player, with clean articulation and an understanding of the composer's Gallic wit. The main feature is The Carnival of the Animals, and part of the album's goal appears to be to allow Lang Lang the opportunity to perform with his wife, pianist Gina Alice. This works out well; the two pianos are well-integrated, even if they tend to stand out too much from the orchestra. There are draws, too, on the second part of the program, performed solo by Lang Lang, except in the Petite Suite for piano four hands of Debussy (which does receive a very sharp performance). Lang Lang includes a string of pieces by recently rediscovered female French composers, and there is plenty more where these came from; all these composers need is strong star advocacy to find a permanent place in the repertory and, in the likes of Lili Boulanger's "D'un jardin claire," Lang Lang shows what is possible. Much of the rest of the second volume consists of arrangements of standard tunes like Delibes' "Flower Duet" by Emile Naoumoff, and it is delivered with Lang Lang's characteristic easy flair. Except in the works by women composers, little new ground is broken here, but the album should certainly satisfy Lang Lang fans; it landed on classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo

The historical performance group Les Siècles and conductor François-Xavier Roth is accumulating a sterling catalog of late 19th century and early 20th century French music, and this one may be the most revelatory yet, with a sequence of true riches. The historical instruments, with Roth's lively approach, result in especially lively performances of the evergreen Le Carnaval des Animaux: Grande fantaisie zoologique ("The Carnival of the Animals") and of the Danse macabre, Op. 40, but that is just the beginning. Le Carnaval des Animaux features a unique two-person "piano vis-à-vis," a face-to-face piano of the day. It seems inconceivable that L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise, Op. 128, is not better known, for this was history's first piece of film music (composed in 1908). Owing to budget constraints, it was written for a small chamber ensemble, not an orchestra, and its sonorities are unlike those of any other Saint-Saëns work. Nor are the three symphonic poems in the first part of this double-album set without interest. Two of them are devoted to the figure of Hercules, whose exploits would have been better known to a 19th century French audience than to those today, but a bit of research will reveal plenty of vivid references. The first part ends with a wonderfully unrestrained Bacchanale from the opera Samson et Dalila, Op. 47. Some of these pieces are familiar; most will be unknown, except perhaps to French audiences, but here, nothing seems like a pause or letdown. Add in clear, detailed studio sound from Harmonia Mundi, and this album becomes a rare standout, even among the flood of Saint-Saëns releases recorded during the centennial year of the composer's death in 1921.© James Manheim /TiVo

His talent is huge but it never brought him to mainstream success. Yet, Dominic Miller is one of the most brilliant guitarists of his generation. Guitar aficionados certainly know him from his work with Sting, among other collaborations. Born in Argentina in 1960 of an American father and an Irish mother, Dominic Miller grew up in the US and lived in the UK as a student. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with many stars, including Paul Simon, the Chieftains, Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams, Phil Collins, Sheryl Crow, Peter Gabriel and Plácido Domingo. His debut album Silent Light, was released in 2017 on the ECM label. For this evocative and refined record Miller was solo on the guitar with the only support of Miles Bould’s elegant percussion. Two years later, with Absinthe, he teamed up with Santiago Arias on the bandoneon, Mike Lindup on keys, Nicolas Fiszman on bass and Manu Katché on drums. “The first thing that came to me, even before any songs on the record, was the album title. I live in the South of France and I am fascinated with impressionism. I enjoy the grazing and enchanting lights that the wind creates and I understand how their combination with high alcohol led many of impressionism’s representatives to madness. Hence its green skies, its blue faces and its distorted perspectives”. Along with his quintet, Dominic Miller never tries to recreate with music and sound the paintings of Renoir, Cézanne, Monet or Manet. Rather, what he does is to develop an intense yet soft lyricism. His nylon and steel strings guitars intertwined with Arias’ bandoneon reach a transcendent space. This alluring album is both original and captivating. © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz

Post Malone’s new blockbuster arrives a year and a half after the sales-shattering Beerbongs & Bentley, carried by the huge hit Rockstar. The formula is pretty much the same here: a skilful mix of 21st century trap (the kind that was concocted in the dark corners of Atlanta and Chicago before it invaded pop) and melodic alternative rock which draws in festival-goers from all around the world. In short, we find stadium rap with unstoppable riffs and crushing beats, which stretches out wide and sweeps along everything in its path. Post Malone has become one of the biggest popstars of his time, largely because he’s an outstanding performer on his own (even if his famous rapper friends are all present here - from Future to Swae Lee to Young Thug). Each of the songs on Hollywood’s Bleeding are hit-worthy, particularly thanks to the melodic prowess of this Syracuse-born rapper, who was bottle-fed on country and heavy metal, swallowing and spitting out decades of American popular music. Post Malone is supernatural on On the Road, yet challenged by two of the liveliest rappers on the scene, Meek Mill and Lil Baby. He has some fun with 80’s pop-rock weirdness on Allergic. He puts Ozzy Osbourne and Travis Scott in the same studio to see what happens (Take What You Want). He reveals yet another rap club hit with Wow. All with an unbelievable amount of phlegm and cheek. © Damien Besançon/Qobuz

The back story of Kanye West's 2016 release, The Life of Pablo, is nearly impossible to put in a nutshell, but it involves an ever-changing album title, including one that offended Wiz Khalifa so much that a twitter war ensued. Then there was a "Bill Cosby is innocent" tweet, and a consensus among producers and insiders that this was the culmination of his career. There was the Season 3 release of West's fashion line, a coinciding event that seemed just as important to Yeezy as dropping this LP. More important, maybe, since the runway models all made their cues while The Life of Pablo missed its release date, and while the idea that this is Kanye's career in one album can be loosely applied, it's more an angelic-themed LP in the vein of 808s & Heartbreak, with another vicious, trite, spiteful, parasitic release nibbling at its host. The opening masterpiece, "Ultralight Beam," represents the angelic side, offering a complicated emotional ride with the Gospel of Kirk Franklin fueling the song's jaw-dropping climax. Then, on a smaller scale, there's "No More Parties in L.A." with Kendrick Lamar and Madlib as co-producer, plus samples of Junie Morrison and Larry Graham, all supporting a smooth, rolling soul song they never could've imagined -- one about dropping your own shoe line -- plus "sheets still orange from your spray tan." Add the gorgeous "FML" ("I will die for those I love/God, I'm willing to make this my mission"), which comes with the Weeknd, and a marvelous sample of post-punkers Section 25, and the vibrant The Life of Pablo circles the wagons around family and soul mates in a manner that makes this the most holy of endeavors. And yet, when "Real Friends" explores the flipside, the emotions are tweet-sized and click bait, because paying a cousin a quarter million just to get a laptop back, just because of ex-girlfriend nudes, seems like G-Unit bragging or yesterday's bossip. There's the much talked about Taylor Swift diss in "Famous," which is not only callous, trite, and illogical but sits on a sub-Yeezy beat, and yet "Waves" (sounds like Kraftwerk remixing Chris Brown), "Highlights" (Young Thug and Yeezy connect supremely, like Drake and Future), and "Low Lights" (nothing but bass and a woman testifying for pure perfection) are all captivating, and make Pablo a soul-filling, gospel-fueled alternative to West's vicious, industrial-powered LP Yeezus. The bleached anuses that ruin expensive t-shirts in "Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1" just don't seem as interesting in this context, but the other way to look at the erratic Pablo is as an "instant" LP, one that was mastered at the last minute and debuted via streaming. On that count, it's a fascinating, magazine-like experience with plenty of reasons to give it a free play, and with "Feedback" adding "name one genius that ain't crazy" to the mix, Pablo excuses itself from the usual criticisms, although it could have been tighter.© David Jeffries /TiVo

Of the various young cellists contending for the crown these days, Bruno Philippe is among the strongest, with a highly varied palette of tone production. He applies the full power of the instrument sparingly, keeping a light touch in lyrical sections and making details clear even at the growling bottom of the instrument's range. The large pieces here are perhaps of varying quality, but they serve Philippe well. The Violin Sonata in A major of César Franck was transcribed for cello with the composer's approval, but it is a different work lower down, losing the soaring quality of the finale's melodies. Still, it fits Philippe's way with a tune nicely, and he applies a good deal of tempo rubato in a way that holds the interest. Philippe keeps the cello lines clear in Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33 (the mix of cello-and-piano works with a cello concerto is entirely characteristic of what might have been offered in these composers' own era), featuring the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. Francis Poulenc's Cello Sonata was sketched out by the composer in 1940, laid aside, and completed only reluctantly in 1948. The composer disparaged it, and no one would pick it as top-grade Poulenc, but for all that, it has a remarkable Cavatine slow movement that displays Philippe's lyrical gifts to the hilt. Serving as intermezzi among these works are short pieces by Fauré, and these, too, show Philippe as the possessor of a remarkable cantabile. Philippe is ably accompanied by the veteran pianist Tanguy de Williencourt; they make an effective pair, with the pianist's restrained style seeming to keep the young Philippe within bounds. Harmonia Mundi contributes idiomatic chamber music sound from the Hessische Rundfunk studios in Frankfurt on an album that will appeal to any lover of French chamber music.© James Manheim /TiVo

Violinist Daniel Hope's publicity for this 2024 release promotes it as "[t]racing the history of Western dance from medieval times to the 20th century." It is true that the double album includes music of many eras, from traditional pieces to the 20th century, but this formulation fails to capture the mood achieved here by the always crowd-pleasing Hope. All his selections are short, and for the most part, they jump across the centuries rather than being chronological. Hope both plays and conducts the Zürcher Kammerorchester, and the overall effect is kaleidoscopic, like one of those concerts where pieces follow one another as if in a medley, with lighting effects to match. A double album of short pieces may seem a lot, but this is Hope's point; he seeks to expose the variety of dance rhythms that course through Western classical music, in which dance is not usually thought to play a very significant role. The album is a great deal of fun, with Hope alternately picking up his violin and laying it aside and veering from Baroque dances to Florence Beatrice Price's jazzy "Ticklin' Toes" (it is good to hear her music showing up on non-U.S. releases). In the end, the energy in this big group of 42 pieces never flags.© James Manheim /TiVo

The essence of Camille Saint-Saëns' music comes through perhaps most clearly in his music for solo instrument and orchestra, which exemplifies his elegant combination of melody and conservatory-generated virtuosity. The two cello concertos are here, plus a pair of crowd-pleasing short works for piano and orchestra, and the evergreen Carnival of the Animals, with pianists Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier joining forces along with a collection of instruments that includes the often-omitted glass harmonica. There are all kinds of attractions here: the gently humorous and not over-broad Carnival, the songful cello playing of Truls Mørk, and the little-known piano-and-orchestra scene Africa, Op. 89, with its lightly Tunisian flavor (sample this final track). But really, the central thread connecting them all is the conducting of Neeme Järvi and the light, graceful work of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra; French music is the nearly 80-year-old Järvi's most congenial environment, and in this recording, perhaps his last devoted to Saint-Saëns, he has never been better. Chandos contributes idiomatic sound from the Grieg Hall in Bergen, and even if Saint-Saëns has little to say about life's deep questions, you won't care.© TiVo

This beautifully packaged album consists of seasonal songs and music from around France and is Malicorne's most consistently excellent album.© Steve Winick /TiVo

Bruce Springsteen's debut album found him squarely in the tradition of Bob Dylan: folk-based tunes arranged for an electric band featuring piano and organ (plus, in Springsteen's case, 1950s-style rock & roll tenor saxophone breaks), topped by acoustic guitar and a husky voice singing lyrics full of elaborate, even exaggerated imagery. But where Dylan had taken a world-weary, cynical tone, Springsteen was exuberant. His street scenes could be haunted and tragic, as they were in "Lost in the Flood," but they were still imbued with romanticism and a youthful energy. Asbury Park painted a portrait of teenagers cocksure of themselves, yet bowled over by their discovery of the world. It was saved from pretentiousness (if not preciousness) by its sense of humor and by the careful eye for detail that kept even the most high-flown language rooted. Like the lyrics, the arrangements were busy, but the melodies were well developed and the rhythms, pushed by drummer Vincent Lopez, were breakneck.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Kent Nagano's 2016 collection of supernatural-themed tone poems brings together three orchestral classics and three less frequently programmed pieces. Paul Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Modest Mussorgsky's A Night on the Bare Mountain are famous from their use in Walt Disney's Fantasia, and Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre has become standard fare for Hallowe'en concerts. However, Antonín Dvorák's The Noonday Witch, Mily Balakirev's Tamara, and Charles Ives' Hallowe'en are likely unfamiliar to most listeners. The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal delivers vivid live renditions that capture the spookiness and fun of these eerie compositions, and are at their best in the swirling demonic passages of A Night on the Bare Mountain and Danse Macabre. The stories of Tamara, an evil queen who lures men to their doom, and the Noonday Witch, who is summoned to punish a misbehaving child, are easy to follow with the descriptions in the booklet, and Ives' more general depiction of children dancing around a bonfire is a lively encore that closes the album with a bang.© TiVo

Following the success of his first Decca release of solo piano music by Chopin, Liszt, and Ravel, Benjamin Grosvenor demonstrates his aptitude in the concerto repertoire on his second CD, Rhapsody in Blue, recorded with James Judd and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. This is a refreshing change from the usual Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov concertos one hears from young artists eager to impress, and Grosvenor is clever enough to play not only engaging concertos by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, and Gershwin, but to toss in short bon-bons by these composers to sweeten the program. Grosvenor has sometimes described as a Romantic pianist, which suggests anything from excessive sentimentality to headstrong individualism, but this is something of an exaggeration. It is true that Grosvenor has the passion and expressive grandeur for music of the period, notably displayed in Saint-Saëns' grandiose Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, but he also possesses a modern sensibility that is ideal for the lighter textures and piquant expressions found in Ravel's effervescent Piano Concerto in G major and Gershwin's insouciant Rhapsody in Blue (performed here in the original jazz band version arranged by Ferde Grofé). Grosvenor is much more rounded in his tastes and abilities than may be apparent from reviews, but given time, his judgment in programming will be as obvious as his prodigious skills at the keyboard. Decca's reproduction is close-up and vivid, so the piano has real presence, and its volume almost eclipses the orchestra at times.© TiVo