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. Find the whole Top 20 list here.
Jean-Michel Blais and Lara Somogyi’s Desert and Josh Groban’s Gems continue their dance at the top of the Classical Chartz, landing at No. 1 and 2 respectively this week. Just after them, French guitarist Raphaël Feuillâtre climbs to No. 3 from No. 4 with Spanish Serenades.
There are two newcomers to the Classical Chartz this week — Ensemble Masques and Bach Telemann Albinoni, and the Summer Night Concert 2025 recorded by the Vienna Phil and conductor Tugan Sokhiev.
Founded in Montréal in 1996, Ensemble Masques is dedicated to the music of the 17th and 18th centuries, regardless of genre. In addition to Fortin, its current members are: Sophie Gent, violin, Kathleen Kajioka, viola, Mélisande Corriveau cello and viola de gamba, Tuomo Suni, violin, and Benoît Vanden Bemden, bass. For the fourth year, the Ensemble Masques is in residence at Cluny Abbey (Centre des Monuments Nationaux) in France.
Three of its members also act as soloists on the new recording.
“We have wanted to record Bach’s violin concertos with Sophie Gent ever since she joined Ensemble Masques in 2003,” says Olivier Fortin, harpsichordist and founder of the ensemble, in a statement.
Violist (and Classical FM radio host) Kathleen Kajioka takes the spotlight for Telemann’s Viola Concerto. “Telemann is a fantastic storyteller,” she says, “who provides a plot, characters, costumes and props — and leaves you to put it all together.”
Fortin chose two Albinoni sinfonie to complete the recording, released on the Alpha Classics label.
The program for the Vienna Philharmonic’s Summer Night Concert, which was held June 13, is wide ranging, and includes Bach, Offenbach, Berlioz, Bizet, Saint-Saens, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Mascagni, Puccini, Nicolai, and Emmerich Kálmán — incorporating something to please most tastes from the 18th to the early 20th centuries, in other words.
The open-air concert, which took place on the grounds of the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, represents a début at the annual summer event for conductor Tugan Sokhiev, tenor soloist Piotr Beczała, and the Vienna Boys Choir.
In a nod to history, Otto Nicolai’s Overture to the Opera Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor) was on the program. Nicolai conducted the very first of what came to be called the Philharmonic Academy concerts in Vienna 183 years ago in 1842. It laid the groundwork for what would become the Vienna Philharmonic.
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