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.
It seems like once an album reaches the top of the Classical Chartz, it doesn’t like to let go of that pinnacle. For a second week, Yunchan Lim and his Bach Goldberg Variations, and Pygmalion with J.S. Bach: Johannes-Passion, sit at Nos 1 and 2 respectively.
There’s a dramatic change at No. 3, however., where Canadian piano virtuoso Jan Lisiecki and his album Mozart have made a huge leap up from No. 14 last week. The Deutsche Grammophon release, which features the Bamberger Symphoniker under conductor Manfred Honeck, along with the pride of Calgary, Alberta, includes the Piano Concerto No. 9 “Jeunehomme” in E-Flat Major, K. 271, and Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-Flat Major, K. 482.
Lisiecki devoted his debut album to the composer back in 2012, and he revisits Mozart as a more mature artist. He’s celebrating the composer’s 270th birthday anniversary in style.
“Within the extensive collection of 27 concertos composed for the piano by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, these two concertos, both In the key of E flat major, emerge as singular masterpieces,” he says in a statement.
“Engaging with the genius of Mozart’s music is a true privilege. It is characterized by purity, elegance, emotional depth, intellectual challenge, and profound rewards.”
The two concertos both contrast and complement each other.
“Recording these two works was a dream of mine,” says Lisiecki, “and I’m very glad to have been able to do so with a dream team, too.”
Lisiecki first worked with Honeck in 2019, and the duo immediately recognized a kindred musical spirit in each other.
“I immediately felt that he had such an affinity and respect for Mozart’s music and was able to communicate it with the orchestra — the phrasing, the elegance, the beauty,” he recalls in the album’s liner notes. “So to work with him on a recording of Mozart is an absolute joy and privilege.”
The top five is rounded out by Sinfonia of London and their Puccini Orchestral Works, which stands at No. 4 for a second week, and fellow Londoner Isata Kanneh-Mason, whose Prokofiev has stepped up from No. 6 to land at No. 5.
The other newcomer to the Classical Chartz Top Ten this week is, coincidentally, another album focused on Mozart. Mozart: Sonatas for Fortepiano & Violin, Vol 4 by Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov rises from No. 13 to sit at the No. 8 spot this week.
The album, the fourth and final in the duo’s Mozart Sonatas series on the Harmonia Mundi label, includes the composer’s Sonata in C Major, K. 296, Sonata in C Major, K. 303 (293c), Sonata in E-flat Major K. 380 (374F), and Sonata in E-flat Major, K. 481.
The selections present a range of Mozart’s oeuvre, from the early Palantine sonatas, composed during 1778 while Amadeus was in Mannheim, and dedicated to Elisabeth Auguste, Electress of the Palantine, to his later and more complex works.
Faust, who plays on gut strings on her 1704 “Sleeping Beauty” Stradivarius, takes a historically informed approach to her performance. Alexander Melnikov is her long time chamber music collaborator, and he plays a Fortepiano replica to match her authentic period sound.
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