Enjoy new music with our classical music chart for this week. Our weekly selections are based on sales numbers and simply what albums we love and think you NEED to hear.
For the complete top 20, tune into Classical Chartz with the New Classical FM’s Mark Wigmore every Saturday from 3-5 p.m.
It doesn’t happen so often, but this week, there are no newcomers to the Classical Chartz Top Ten. In fact, the top two spots are locked at the positions they held last week, with Max Richter (In a Landscape) holding on to the top spot, and German tenor Jonas Kaufmann at the No. 2 with Puccini Love Affairs.
It’s worth noting the nice contrast they make. From a postminimalist/contemporary composer and his own work, to an homage to one of opera history’s favourites, it illustrates the depth and breadth of the classical music world as it is today.
The two fastest rising releases this week belong to Toronto’s own Tafelmusik & Rachel Podger, with their simply named Haydn Symphonies 43 & 49, and Igor Levit, with conductor Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic and their equally prosaically titled Brahms.
Levit talks about recording with the Vienna Phil at the legendary the Wiener Musikverein in a media release. “I was sitting in the first rehearsal and the horn began to play. You do not really want to start playing, but rather to say to the hornist: can you please play that again? It was so beautiful.” The pianist is drawn to the romanticism and deep emotions touched on in Brahms’ work.
Haydn Symphonies 43 & 49: Mercury & La Passione may be the first recording for the fruitful partnership of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and violinist Rachel Podger, but the Haydn Symphonies are familiar territory for the ensemble.
Back in the 1990s, Tafelmusik released several recordings, including the Haydn symphonies with conductor Bruno Weil. The German-born conductor, who’d go on to become Tafelmusik’s principal guest conductor, had extended an invitation to the orchestra to be the resident orchestra at his period-instrument festival “Klang und Raum” in Irsee, Bavaria.
Tafelmusik and Weil would also go on to record an acclaimed series of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos with pianist Jos van Immerseel and Weil at the helm, along with other Haydn Symphonies and more. Together, Bruno Weil and Tafelmusik were awarded the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis (Echo Klassik Award) as Orchestra of the Year in 1996 for their recording of Haydn’s Missa Sancti Bernardi.
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