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.
Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki, one of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Spotlight Artists for the 2024/25 season, retains his hold on the No. 1 position of the Classical Chartz for the second week in a row. Lisiecki’s album Preludes explores the genres’ expressive power in pieces by (of course) Chopin and Bach, along with Rachmaninoff, Messiaen, and Górecki.
The fastest rising album on the Classical Chartz Top Ten this week belongs to Montréal-based pianist Jean-Michel Blais, together with innovative harpist Lara Somogyi on their release Desert. The album of collaborative original music was captured at a single studio session in Joshua Tree, California. It makes the leap from No. 8 last week to land at No. 3. Close behind is Nevermind and Bach: Goldberg Variations, which takes a giant step from No. 10 to No. 6 this week. A creative exploration of a much-recorded work, the four baroque specialists of Nevermind, Anna Besson, Louis Creac’h, Robin Pharo and Jean Rondeau, reimagine Bach’s venerable piece with their own set of variations.
Another Canadian pianist is the only newcomer to the Top Ten this week. Charles Richard-Hamelin’s album Echoes continues his ongoing exploration of the works of Frédéric Chopin. Here, he adds rarely heard works by Spanish composers Isaac Albéniz (La Vega), and Enrique Granados (Valses Poéticos and Allegro de concerto) to sweeten the pot. Both Spanish composers, interestingly, were nationalists in both their political and musical leanings. All three composers were also virtuoso pianists, and they composed music that was richly melodic and complex.
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