Best of 2024

[Daverz]

[Added some video links]

Starting the best of the year thread a bit early this year.  Last years thread was "Your Favourite Purchases & Musical Discoveries of 2023"

https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php?msg=1542820

It doesn't have to be things published in 2024 or even recently.

New classical albums:

CPE Bach: Symphonies - From Berlin to Hamburg.  Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.  I love the vigorous string playing here.  An excellent introduction to CPE's symphonic ouvre.

Nancy Galbraith: Everything Flows - BMOP.  Nothing groundbreaking here, just solid and entertaining music in the modern tonal idiom.

Roberto Gerhard: Don Quixote - beautiful tonal and folk oriented works, though Don Quixote has shadows of what is to come later in Gerhard's ouvre.  Some of the tense piano ostinatos that spice up the orchestration of Don Quixote remind me of Frank Martin.

Haydn Symphonies: two clumps of Haydn symphonies joyously conducted by Johannes Klumpp, completing the Hiedelberg Symphoniker cycle started by Thomas Fey.

Walter Kaufmann: Piano Concerto No. 3, Symphony No. 3.  Another refugee from Nazi Germany.  Wonderful music that should never have been neglected for so long.

Lukas Foss: Symphony No. 1 - Falletta/Buffalo.  An adorable symphony.

Anton Reicha: Chamber Works - Albert Schweitzer Ensemble.  Particularly for the Quintet No. 2 for Flute, Clarinet, French Horn, Bassoon and Viola in E Flat Major.  As delicious as it sounds.

The Kurt Weill Album - Joana Mallwitz.  My 2023 list also had H.K. Gruber's disc with the 2 Weill symphonies.  I've come to love these works, and these are fantastic recordings of them.

Zwilich: Symphony No. 5 - BMOP.  Zwilich's tough but accessible music has really impressed me, and this disc is a good way to catch up with her work.

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6 - Cleveland Orchestra/Welser-Möst.  A high point of this slowly progressing Prokofiev cycle.

Reissues

Michael Tilson Thomas: Complete DG and Argo recordings.  Some really great stuff here: one of the best Rite's ever; the beautiful Piston Symphony No. 2; a great Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 1; the William Schumann Violin Concerto (new to CD, I believe); Ruggles's Sun Treader; great Ives and Debussy; a fantastic disc of Latin American "lollipops". [EDIT: the Boston Symphony material already appeared in the "Boston Symphony on DG" box.]

Derek Solomons: Haydn symphonies.  A consistently delightful set to dip into.

Personal discoveries

Hubert Parry: Symphonies on Chandos.  I always lumped him together in my mind with Stanford as an "also ran" composer who helped set the stage for greater English composers like Elgar and Vaughan Williams.  These are beautifully crafted works that can be enjoyed for what they are, and I no longer feel the need to dismiss them for what they aren't.

[San Antone]

A few to start with ...

Songs of Fate - Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica, Vida Miknevičűté
Together with his Kremerata Baltica chamber ensemble and soprano Vida Miknevičiūtė, Kremer approaches scores by Baltic composers Raminta Šerkšnytė, Giedrius Kuprevičius, Jēkabs Jančevskis and the Polish-Jewish composer Mieczysław Weinberg. (ECM)



Tchaikovsky, Korngold: String Sextets - The Nash Ensemble
The teenage Korngold possessed a compositional fluency and maturity which belied his youth; in contrast, Tchaikovsky feared "wholly unjustifiably" his own creative powers to be on the wane when writing 'Souvenir de Florence'. The Nash Ensemble brings passion and conviction to both.(Presto)



In The Shadows: Michael Spyres, Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset
this is another fine, fascinating album from an unusually interesting and intelligent artist, handsomely recorded. — Gramophone Magazine, April 2024

[DavidW]

And then personal discoveries:

[André]

From Amazon, with no comment (feeling lazy):

[Maestro267]

Finally completed the George Lloyd symphony cycle thanks to Lyrita reissuing them in two box sets.

[Mandryka]

Arianna Savall, Sibil. Petter Udland Johansen, Draumkvedet

[André]

From Presto:

[Mandryka]

Duo Enssle Lamprecht Passion

[Selig]

Gringolts' Brahms

[Mandryka]

Kummer Montfort. This recording of very beautiful introspective music was originally released by ORF, and I got to know ot this year because it has been rereleased by Fra Barnardo. I can't find an image of their publication.







Kummer Laurin.

[San Antone]

Christian Poltéra, Ronald Brautigam: Brahms, Schumann - Cello and Piano
Poltéra fully exploits the woody resonance of his 1711 'Mara' Stradivari, unafraid to sing as the solo line rises above the stave, but with a special emphasis on the baritonal gruffness to be found in the lower register. Brautigam plays a copy by Paul McNulty of an 1868 Streicher, with its softer attack and slightly attenuated dynamic range. The opening of the Second Sonata is impetuous to say the least, but in this reading there is a contrasting lightness of touch in the gnomic central movement of the First and an imaginative variety of phrasing that prevents its closing fugue from becoming clotted. (the Strad)



Victoria: Tenebrae Responsories - I Fagiolini, Robert Hollingworth
The vocal timbre Hollingworth has coaxed from his soloists is intensely pure and smooth, yet there is nothing pallid about this particular early-music sound – surges of passion abound. — BBC Music Magazine, June 2024



But Not My Soul: Price, Dvořák, Giddens – Ragazze Quartet
Ragazze Quartet perform works by two female composers Rhiannon Giddens (*1977) and Florence Price (1887-1953), combined with the 'American' String Quartet No.12 by Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904).

[Daverz]

Christian Poltéra, Ronald Brautigam: Brahms, Schumann - Cello and Piano

Poltera also has a new recording of the Prokofiev Symphonie Concertante out.  I've only given it one listen so far, but it sounded wonderful.

[Maestro267]

Now I've had time to think, I have some more highlights from my collection this year.

Complete solo piano works of Chopin (Ashkenazy), Debussy (Kocsis) and Bax (Parkin)

Rachmaninov Piano Trios, Cello Sonata etc.

Most of Schumann's chamber music

Just this week, I completed collecting Rubbra's symphonies.

[San Antone]

The Haydn 2032 series is one of my favorite recording projects, and 2024 had two offerings Vols. 15 & 16:

[Mandryka]

Pletnev Brahms and Chopin - just astonishing music making, which is hard in 19th century warhorses.

[Mandryka]

Sokolov Purcell. Really authoritative confident articulate playing - special.

[Mandryka]

Van Kuijk Quartet French bonbons. This was all completely new music for me and I think it's really magic - it's one of those recordings which I can't easily tear myself away from. Immaculate, fluid, joyful, evocative playing to boot. This is a good Christmas present.

[Brian]

Here are some 2024 releases that impressed me, in no particular order.

Music I didn't know before that sounded really cool in these new releases:



The Music of Brazil series on Naxos is basically my favorite ongoing series of anything. Hat tip to @kyjo for the Huber, which is very fun romantic salon-ish music in surprisingly large forms.

I don't know the Elgar very well but these ultra-passionate, red-blooded performances do not sound like the stereotype!

Good new performances of classic works:



Savvy programming that makes for interesting listening experiences:



Also this is my mental note (OK...printed note) to listen to the following:
- Roger Muraro's Liszt
- James Ehnes' Sibelius
- the Roussel violin sonatas on Naxos

Gringolts' Brahms

I never tried this one because the track timings appeared unusually slow, but will now that you have recommended it - there must be an unusual or special conception at work.

Michael Tilson Thomas: Complete DG and Argo recordings.  Some really great stuff here: one of the best Rite's ever; the beautiful Piston Symphony No. 2; a great Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 1; the William Schumann Violin Concerto (new to CD, I believe); Ruggles's Sun Treader; great Ives and Debussy; a fantastic disc of Latin American "lollipops". [EDIT: the Boston Symphony material already appeared in the "Boston Symphony on DG" box.]

Derek Solomons: Haydn symphonies.  A consistently delightful set to dip into.

Agree on the Solomons Haydn and the Foss Symphony No. 1 (didn't like the rest of the Foss as much). I am not getting the MTT box because although I badly want that Latin American disc, I already own nearly everything else via the DG complete Boston recordings box, including the Schuman, Piston, Tchaikovsky, Ruggles, and Rite.

[Daverz]

The Fernandez disc is excellent.  He's usually only known by his very brief "Batuque".  I haven't lived with the Schmitt disc quite long enough.  But I don't know of any other recording that includes so much of the music (over an hour here).

I badly want that Latin American disc,

If you can't find the original, it was also released on Eloquence as "Latin American Classics"

[San Antone]

This album presents Zelenka's daring chamber music masterpiece in a fresh and invigorating account by young, top-class soloists. The Trio Sonatas are interspersed with "Ghosts"; interludes by Chinese-American composer Tonia Ko, inspired by Zelenka's vocal music.

Zelenka: Trio Sonatas Zwv 181 & Ghosts -
Theo Plath, Armand Djikoloum, Olivier Stankiewicz