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.
The top three positions in the Classical Chartz remain unchanged from last week: Josh Groban’s Gems at No. 1, Yunchan Lim at No. 2 with his winning performance of Rachmaninoff 3 at the Van Cliburn, and at No. 3, superstar organist Anna Lapwood’s Firedove.
There’s a lot of up and down movement beneath the top three in the Chartz until you reach Nos. 9 and 10, where two new artists and releases make their debut on the Top Ten.
Benjamin Grosvenor tackles Chopin: Sonatas 2 & 3 in his latest, which lands at No. 9, up from No. 13. While consecutive in number, the works were written with a gap of several years between them, and contrast each other beautifully. It’s Chopin at his most romantic, with emotions that range from tumult to intensity to heartache and despair.
Along with Chopin’s Piano Sonata Nos. 2 & 3, the Decca Classics release includes his Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23, Berceuse in D-Flat Major, Op. 57, and Nocturnes Nos. 15 and 16 (Op 1 and 2).
Grosvenor talks about his early and long lasting love of Chopin in an interview with the Princeton Prospect.
“He’s a composer who really sent me on my journey. It was his music that lit my flame for music. The first piece of Chopin I played was a Chopin waltz, and the quicksilver nature of the music, the fact that you know within a few bars that the emotion changes, was appealing to me. It was almost like a conversation. He was speaking to me. There’s something about his melodies that is tailored to the decay. He knew he was a master of the instrument, and he just had a very unique harmonic language and this incredible gift of melody, and that’s what I’ve always found captivating.”
Mandolin virtuosos Avi Avital’s simply titled Italy is the first of his news series, a planned set of three EPs with diverse themes that he’s releasing prior to the full album Song of the Birds. It comes in at No. 10, up from No. 15 last week. His new ensemble Between Worlds is composed of international musicians, each bringing their own style and background. Along with Avital, they include:
- Simos Papanas – Violin
- Davide Dalpiaz – Violin
- Jenny Anschel – Viola
- Jakob Nierenz – Cello
- Uxía Martínez-Botana – Double bass
- Gilad Harel – Clarinet
- Alex Sopp – Flute
- Louise Grandjean – Harp
- Itamar Doari – Percussions
Each of the three EPs will cross the borders between classical and folk music, and each will be dedicated to a specific geographic region. Future releases will be dedicated to the Iberian Peninsula, and the Black Sea; the inaugural album focuses on works from the south of Italy.
It’s just the beginning; Avital plans much more music with Between Worlds.
“Feeling at home in places that seem foreign, even discovering parts of yourself in them, is a deeply moving idea for me. This is the heart of the Between Worlds project,” he says in the liner notes.
The album includes traditional songs juxtaposed against classical composers of the region, with arrangements for mandolin, ensemble and voice by David Bruce and Segatta & Gozlan. The full album will be available on CD August 8.
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