Best wonderful but not blockbuster classical music album of 2023

[davidhendon]

This is not take anything away from the main 2023 best album thread, but for people who listen mostly to classical music, there will be their go to albums of 2023 that wouldn’t necessarily make the best album thread.

I suggest that we should avoid re-issues, re-masterings, and special vinyl pressings and other such recordings, but be tolerant of music that people found this year that was released earlier but has become important to them.

Let’s make this a thread for classical enthusiasts to dip into before going off to Qobuz or Tidal to check out something they might have missed.

My starters just to get things going are:

I love both of these recordings.

[Daan]

Thanks David, nice idea for a separate thread. There must be more I could mention, but here’s one of my favorites from this year.

[Naimsw]

Yes, great idea for a thread. Here is a suggestion. It gives deserved attention to Elizabethan keyboard music played on a modern piano. Lovely.

[anon70766008]

Yuja Wang’s Rachmaninov Concerto set on Deutsche Grammophon.

She’s a real pianistic talent, and so much more than a very photogenic young lady.

(I saw her perform a John Adams piece earlier this year as part of the Brighton Festival.)

[crispyduck]

I’ve posted a couple of ‘blockbuster’ classical albums in the main Album of the Year thread but I have also really enjoyed these this year

[crispyduck]

And this

[anon70766008]

The ‘Tallis Fantasia’ is wonderful piece of music. I have an old Nimbus-pressed ‘SuperCut’ LP, sold through HiFi News, Practical HiFi (or some other mag), with Sir John Barbirolli conducting it on an LP called ‘English String Music’.

[PeakMan]

You beat me to it as that’s my disc of the year too and to think it’s a ballet only composed a year or two ago. How often can one say that about a classical piece? Currently on stage at the Royal Ballet, I believe.

I’ve had difficulty connecting with the music of Tom Adès’ before, but not here. This really is quite something. I suspect the wonderful first part will become popular with crack orchestras wanting to show off their technique. And the second and third parts are so very different but equally compelling. Excellent recording too.

At the end of his review of the piece on the Presto website James Longstaffe says “I adore this piece and I hope you will too.” Well, I do.

Roger

[Maddog]

These sonatas were completely new to me and sound super on my system which doesn’t always handle this sort of material well.

[davidhendon]

I’ve been listening to these this afternoon. I decided that even though I had paid for a ticket, I didn’t really want to go to the cinema with my wife and her friend to see Napoleon and instead stayed at home listening to these through @HungryHalibut’s SL2s, with my old cat Fred asleep on my lap.

These piano trios are just so interesting and very well played. I may have drifted off for a few minutes too, possibly. Anyway I highly recommend.

[Naimsw]

Terrific album of Rameau, Ravel and Alkan. I love those Rameau variations at the start and another top quality Miroirs and rarely heard Alkan never goes amiss. The final track ‘La Poule’ was used in a different version as the theme to the original ‘Going For A Song’ series on the BBC in 1971. This was the ‘Album of the Week’ on R3 Record Review last Saturday and I can see why.