Matthias Goerne not only performs at the highest level as a baritone himself, but his piano accompaniments also rank among the Champions League of classical music. For his first album, which was dedicated to Beethoven songs, he brought Jan Lisiecki on board. This was followed by the album Abendrot with melodies by Wagner and Strauss, among others, together with the young talent Seong-Jin Cho. Now we may experience the baritone in duo with the world-class Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, presenting us with a metaphysical program of Berg, Schumann, Wolf, Shostakovich and Brahms.The combination of music and poetry was brought to a climax in the form of the Romantic art song by Franz Schubert. The composers presented here build on this tradition, and despite the wide, temporal span of their publications - there are 135 years between Schumann's Dichterliebe and Shostakovich's Michelangelo Suite - the closeness and significance to the text and its authors is equally evident in all of them. Schumann's Dichterliebe is probably one of the best examples of this: the setting of Heinrich Heine's texts brings together two masters of Romanticism who could not be better interpreted by Goerne and Trifonov. Themes of impossible love and human suffering are unfolded through extremes in the monologue as well as the music, with Goerne maintaining this "strong sensitivity" throughout. In the same vein, the unspoken finds its place on the piano and takes on much more than just an accompanying role in his interpretation - as well as in art song in general. Trifonov is in direct musical dialogue with Goerne, the two artists communicating at eye level.A similar symbiosis is evident in the Michelangelo musical settings by Wolf and Shostakovich. By abandoning tonality in the latter, the connection between piano and spoken word is again reinforced on another level. A unique duo project by two contemporary greats whose paths will hopefully cross more often. © Lena Germann/Qobuz

John Eliot Gardiner literally has a lifetime of intimate familiarity with J.S. Bach's six motets without independent instrumental accompaniment; he reports that as a boy chorister of 11 or 12 he knew the treble lines to all of them. That familiarity is evident in these exceptionally insightful and exceptionally well-sung performances with the Monteverdi Choir. The group lives up to its reputation as being in the very highest echelon of choirs worldwide, singing these especially treacherous works with almost superhuman precision, immaculate tone and balance, and infectious, unguarded passion. The singers handle Bach's exquisitely interwoven counterpoint with apparent ease even at the outrageously fast but emotionally appropriate tempos that Gardiner takes. He avoids the academic rigidity that can easily prevail in performances of counterpoint this intricate by always maintaining a dancing sense of lightness and buoyancy. The performances are also characterized by a warm intimacy. That's due at least in part the choir's remarkable control of dynamics; at its quietest moments the music comes across as an almost hushed whisper. That, in combination with the stellar engineering, creates the impression that the listener is being treated to a private performance by singers nearly close enough to reach out and touch. At the same time there is no sense of crowding and the performers have plenty of room for their singing to ring out brilliantly. Gardiner deploys a small continuo group colorfully but discreetly, offering an ideally balanced underpinning for the choir. Listeners who want to hear these small masterpieces need look no further than these exemplary and thoroughly engaging performances. Highly recommended. © TiVo

Valentin Tournet and his choral and instrumental ensemble, La Chapelle Harmonique (founded in 2017), are newcomers to the French Baroque scene. Here they offer their second recording dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach. This stunning album was recorded in the—almost too—generous acoustics of the Royal Chapel of the Palace of Versailles, where this style would have been unheard of in the time of Louis XV.This joyous and original Latin take on Bach’s Motets contrasts with more introspective listening habits. The six Bach Motets are difficult to define. They evoke searching questions with regard to their attribution and interpretation. Were they all truly composed by Bach? Are they intended for an acapella choir (i.e., unaccompanied)? Should they be supported by basso continuo, or even an organ and instruments?Commonly composed to honour the memory of the deceased and to accompany the raising of the corpse, they are works of incredible musical depth that were admired by Mozart. They combine a certain succinctness with a complexity of writing that specifically enhances the vocal text. The present programme also contains echoes of other works, particularly two choral compositions (composed by Bach’s predecessors and reworked by Bach). © François Hudry/Qobuz

After a prolific tear through the mid-'80s, the Cocteau Twins slowed down near the decade's end. Having released 5 albums and 8 standalone EPs between 1982 and 1986, they took an unheard-of two years to release Blue Bell Knoll, their first on U.S. major label Capitol Records, after which ... silence. There was no tour. No promo jaunt. Just a few magazine features and, if you were lucky to catch it on 120 Minutes, a music video featuring the group and their ever-faithful reel-to-reel machine. News reports surfaced that Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie had a baby, and that Simon Raymonde's father had died. Whispers circulated that Guthrie's cocaine habit was out of hand and that, despite the new baby, he and Fraser's relationship was in tatters. It would not have been surprising if the next thing the public heard from the Cocteau Twins was an announcement of their breakup. Instead, in September 1990, they released Heaven or Las Vegas, an album that could easily stand as the best work in their entire catalog. (4AD label head Ivo Watts-Russell called it "a perfect record," though that didn't stop him from dropping the band a month after its release, due to irreconcilable personality differences.) Despite whatever turmoil and crisis was consuming the band at the time—and by all accounts, there was more than plenty—Heaven or Las Vegas shines and shimmers with a sense of emotional resonance and clarity that had previously never been fully realized on a Cocteau’s release. The pop songs here–"Iceblink Luck," "Fotzepolitic," the title track–are explosively joyful and irresistibly catchy. Guthrie's intricate, gossamer guitar work glides atop sturdy, forceful beats anchored by Raymonde's liquid basslines and Fraser's voice at its most expressive and expansive (and nearly intelligible). Meanwhile, midtempo, introspective tracks like "Fifty-Fifty Clown" and "I Wear Your Ring" and, especially, the heart-wrenching beauty of the album's final three tracks ("Wolf in the Breast," "Road, River and Rail," and "Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires") traffic in an emotional purity that's as close to plain spoken as the group had ever been. And while the precise lyrical components are still quite cryptic, the impact is inarguable. Heaven or Las Vegas is pure flex on behalf of the Cocteau Twins, showing off everything they're capable of doing, all at once, and at the highest level. It would be a remarkable piece of art by any group, but for one that was literally falling apart at the time, it's a dizzying accomplishment. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Robert Schumann was never more purely Romantic than in his set of piano pieces Kreisleriana, Op. 16. The set is of extramusical, literary inspiration, taking its name from a character in stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann, and it features the explosive imagination of the young Schumann at its best. Schumann announced the work, which he apparently wrote in four days, rather breathlessly to his inamorata, Clara, and more than almost any other work of his, it seems to spill over the boundaries of the short piano piece. Hélène Grimaud has recorded the work before, but she seems to have added intensity this time around. She is nervously excited in the faster virtuosic numbers, but sample No. 4 to hear her marvelous control over the tonal instability that appears in many of these pieces. The Brahms Intermezzi, Op. 117, were also "For Clara," sent to Clara Schumann toward the end of his life; the two had remained friends, and here, in Grimaud's evocation of tempestuous old-school pianism, one is stirred to wonder what Clara sounded like playing this music. The connection of the nine Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 32, of Brahms to Clara is less clear, and the set, with baritone Konstantin Krimmel on the vocals, may seem like an afterthought; the three performances on the album were all made at different places and times. However, taken on its own terms, it is a fine performance of this set, consisting entirely of settings of texts by Eastern poets. Krimmel catches the rather mystical nature of the songs, and Grimaud, with whom he has worked in the past, is effective as an accompanist. This is an important entry in Grimaud's catalog, with a Kreisleriana that is as fine as any.© James Manheim /TiVo

After two glorious albums devoted to Chopin and Liszt, Benjamin Grosvenor continues his exploration of the Romantic period by tackling the third leading faction of the genre, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms (who was a close friend of both the Schumann’s). The Kreisleriana, like many of Schumann’s other cycles, are a virtuosic reflection on his artistic 'doubles'; Eusebius, the melancholic dreamer, and Florestan, the feverish and passionate rake. The Three Romances Op.28 expresses Schumann's eternal and unconditional love for Clara, who saw in these pieces "the most beautiful love dialogues". In the last movement of the Sonata No. 3 Op.14, Schumann makes an elegant reference to his own Kreisleriana. Clara Wieck's Variations on a Theme of Schumann later inspired Brahms to write his own variations on the same theme. There are similarities in character to his Intermezzi at the end of the album. With his singular and unmistakable touch, Benjamin Grosvenor delivers an interpretation of unadulterated purity, with a simple and luminous audio recording that gives these great passages their deserved nobility. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz

"From Afar" is a new album full of beautiful arrangements recorded on two pianos with the repertoire mirrored on both grand piano and upright piano. Inspired by a meeting with the iconic Hungarian composer György Kurtág, this album is a musical response with music from: Kurtág, J. S. Bach, Brahms, W. A. Mozart, Adès, Schumann, Birgisson or Kaldalóns. With beautifully evocative titles & forgotten melodies, Víkingur Ólafsson creates a thread of stories within a bigger structure: nature, home, childhood, family. © Deutsche Grammophon

Constantly shifting from the most impulsive exuberance to the most restrained meditation, from the most intense passion to the most innocent tenderness, this programme forms a representative panorama of Schumann’s chamber music. Going beyond the Piano Trios, which already give us a fully rounded account of Schumann, the Trio Wanderer have invited their favourite partners to join them for their interpretation of two supreme masterpieces, the Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet. © harmonia mundi

Conductor Rafael Payare is the podium wunderkind of the moment, a product of the El Sistema system in Venezuela that produced Gustavo Dudamel. Recently elevated to the music directorship of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, he quickly made his debut with the group on this 2023 PentaTone Classics release, and his Mahler Symphony No. 5 is quite a promising thing. There is nothing epic about it, as there was with the classic recording of Leonard Bernstein. He does not try to turn the famed Adagietto into a transcendent counterpart of the Symphony No. 9 finale but rather moves through it songfully, cognizant of its status as a serenade to Alma Mahler. It is true that Mahler marked the movement Sehr langsam (very slowly), but the conductor who knew him best, Willem Mengelberg, took it at seven minutes, and so, apparently, did Mahler himself. Payare comes in at just under nine minutes, refreshing in comparison with Osmo Vänskä's 12 and a half plus with the Minnesota Orchestra, and it is the same with the rest. It is not so much that his tempos are quick; they are about average, but he keeps things moving. This is not the neurotic Mahler that Bernstein made the norm for so long, but one that moves implacably to the big collapsing climaxes. Payare's finale is unusually joyous. The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal sounds great in a difficult work where conductors more often wait until they get better acquainted. PentaTone Classics moves confidently into the Maison symphonique in Montreal and finds a spacious acoustic that brings out the many details Payare finds in the score. One hopes for more Mahler from this combination.© James Manheim /TiVo