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., and check out the Top 20 here.
French pianist/composer Jean-Michel Blais and harpist Lara Somogyi hang on to the No. 1 spot on the Classical Chartz for another week with their release Desert.
Underneath them, most of the Top Ten have shuffled around a step or two between this week and last, leaving Bach to reign over the No. 2 and 3 positions, including releases by the National Arts Centre Orchestra with James Ehnes, and Nevermind’s Goldberg Variations.
It’s worth nothing that Ludovico Einaudi’s album The Summer Portraits finds itself still taking up a spot on the Top Ten (No. 8 this week) after months on the Classical Chartz.
There are two newcomers to the Top Ten: Krystian Zimerman and his release Johannes Brahms, and Leif Ove Andsnes with Liszt.
Johannes Brahms rises from No. 12 lasts week to land at No. 9. Polish pianist and conductor Krystian Zimerman teams up with cellist Yuya Okamoto, violinist Maria Nowak and violist Katarzyna Budnik to perform the composer’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 26, and Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 60.
In the liner notes, Zimerman says, “All Brahms’s chamber music is fantastic — the sonatas, the trios, the Clarinet Quintet. There is no bad piece among them.” He adds, “I particularly love the third quartet. It’s crazy. It’s so powerful. It has unbelievable drive.”
Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works is joined by The Norwegian Soloists Choir and conductor Grete Pedersen in this dive into Liszt’s sacred music— among the most neglected of his works. It lands at No. 10 this week, stepping up from No. 11 last week.
Via Crucis (The 14 Stations of the Cross) was composed for piano, choir and soloists, and Andsnes adds pieces for piano solo to complete the album: Consolations, and two movements from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses.
This isn’t the virtuosic and wildly emotional Liszt of his youth; instead, this is the music of the contemplative, spiritual man he became late in life, after he retired from the concert stage. Andsnes believes the work is a masterpiece that deserves greater recognition; it’s hard to argue with that logic.
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