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 full Top 20 Classical Albums list here.
The Classical Chartz Top Ten is remarkable this week for its similarity to last week’s. Incredibly, the top six positions remain unchanged, including the Vienna Philharmonic and Yannick Nézet-Séguin with the New Year’s Concert 2026 (No. 1), Eric Lu’s prize-winning performance of Chopin (no. 2), André Rieu’s tribute to two centuries of waltzes and polkas, Thank You, Johann Strauss! (No. 3), British classical guitarist Alexandra Whittingham’s Letters From Paris (No. 4), Icelandic pianist Vikingur Ólafsson’s Opus 109 (No. 5), and Nicola Benedetti’s Violin Café (No. 6).
Toronto fans should note — both Ólafsson and Benedetti will be making city appearances next month.
Russian pianist Mikhail Pletnev’s recording Chopin & Scriabin Preludes makes another step up, coming in at No. 7 after its debut in the Top Ten at No. 10 last week.
The sole newcomer to the Top Ten classical music albums this week is Anastasia Kobekina with her release Bach: Cello Suites, which makes the leap from No. 15 last week to land at No. 10.
The Russian cellist was born in Yekaterinburg into a musical family, and began studying the cello at the tender age of four. She was accepted into the Moscow Conservatory at 12, and a decade later, would continue her education at the Berlin University of the Arts. She won third prize at the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019, and received both the Leonard Bernstein Award and the Opus Klassik Award in 2024. A four-part documentary on her career title Now or Never (“Jetzt oder nie!”), released in 2024, also served to raise her profile in the music world and beyond.
Bach: Cello Suites was released on the Sony Classical label in September 2025, and was recorded in the Theatre Saint Bonnet, Bourges, France, from January 19 to 25, 2025. Kobekina performs on the historic 1698 Stradivarius cello, called “De Kermadec-Blass,” and the 1717 “Bonamy Dobree Suggia” on the release.
Bach’s cello suites are considered seminal repertoire for the instrument.
“The dialectic nature of Bach’s suites — their internal dialogue and contradictions — has always fascinated me,” says Kobekina in a statement. “The language is abstract, architectural, rational, logical, and at the same time passionate, emotional, and deeply personal to the performer.” For her listeners, she’s aiming to create “a shared space for interpretation, mine and yours”.
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