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.
Jean-Michel Blais and Lara Somogyi and Desert remain at No. 1 on the Classical Chartz for yet another week. It’s notable that contemporary neoclassical music has dominated that top spot for a few months now.
In second place is pianist Stephen Hough and Chopin: The Complete Waltzes, which also remains unchanged week over week. The collection includes the Valse newly discovered in the collection of New York City’s Morgan Library & Museum, which has been added to a re-release of what many consider Hough’s definitive recording of Chopin’s waltzes back in 2011 on the Hyperion label.
At No. 3, Yuja Wang and the Boston Symphony Orchestra make the biggest climb with their recording of Shostakovich: Piano Concertos. It’s up from No. 10 last week. Andrea Nelsons conducts what winds up the BSO’s GRAMMY-winning Shostakovich cycle, launched a decade ago. Its release coincides with the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death, and contrasts his Concerto No. 1 in C minor and No. 2 in F major. The recording adds six of Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues for solo piano from Opp. 34 & 87, as chosen by Wang.
There are three newcomers to the Top Ten this week. Perennial favourite Josh Groban debuts on the Classical Chartz at No. 5 with his latest album Gems. With tracks that span his entire career, it includes two new recordings along with a pot pourri of fan faves. Groban has sold over 35 million albums over his 25-year career, and the list of hits includes originals like You Raise Me Up, along with classics Somewhere Over The Rainbow, and many more.
Lise Davidsen and Gerald Finley make the climb from No. 11 last week to land at No. 8 with their release of The Flying Dutchman. In his 1870 autobiography, Wagner claimed that he’d gotten the inspiration to write the opera, for which he composed both music and libretto, during a stormy sea crossing from Riga to London in 1839. However, earlier in 1843, he had admitted that he’d cribbed the story from poet and writer Heinrich Heine, who included a version of the legend in his novel The Memoirs of Mister von Schnabelewopski (1833).
Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen teams up with Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley in the recording of Wagner’s popular opera, also known as Der fliegende Holländer, with a stellar supporting cast: Brindley Sherratt, bass; Stanislas de Barbeyrac and Eirik Grøtvedt, tenors; Anna Kissjudit, mezzo-soprano; Orchestra and Chorus of Norwegian National Opera. Edward Gardner conducts the two live performances from August 2024 at the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo.
Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s Shostakovich & Britten rises from No. 13 last week to hit the Classical Chartz at No. 10 this week. For his debut recording, Kanneh-Mason chose Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1. He follows up here with No 2, recorded during his tour with John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London. He adds the Shostakovich Cello Sonata and Britten’s Cello Sonata, which Sheku recorded with his sister and duo partner Isata Kanneh-Mason.
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