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.
Jan Lisiecki and Mozart hold on to the No. 1 spot on the Classical Chartz for another week, but the rest of the list undergoes a shake up. Camille Thomas’ Rendez-Vous climbs from No. 5 to take over the No. 2 spot, as Pygmalion’s J.S. Bach: Johannes-Passion falls one position to land at No. 3
No. 4 finds Sofiane Pamart’s Movie, which makes the leap up from No. 8 last week. Sinfonia of London rounds out the top five spots at No. 5, falling one position from No. 4 last week with Puccini Orchestral Works.
There are two newcomers to the Classical Chartz Top Ten: Schubert & Schumann by Arcadi Volodos, making the biggest jump of the week from No. 16 to take over the No. 6 position, and Reinecke: Flute Works by Jeehee Han, rising from No. 15 to land at No. 9.
Russian-French pianist Arcadi Arcadievich Volodos is a multi award winner. He’s taken home the Echo Classic, Gramophone Awards, Diapason d’Or, and the Edison Award for previous releases. On his latest album, he offers Schubert’s Sonata in D major D 850, and Schumann’s Kinderszenen.
Schubert’s D 850 was written in 1825, when he spent the summer at Bad Gastein, south of Salzburg, and so is often called the “Gastein” Sonata.
In a statement, Volodos explains why he prefers a flexible tempo approach to the piece.
“It is absurd to want to fix the tempo by means of a metronome” he argues, because “music is a language, not an equation.”
Schumann’s Kinderszenen is a set of 13 miniatures, including the famous “Träumerei”.
“I think that it is only when you grow older that you understand these pieces better and better,” says Volodos. Not really written for children, Kinderszenen can be thought of as an expression of childhood. “It is a question of rediscovering within oneself the child’s sense of wonderment, this pure and sincere understanding of a world that one spends an entire lifetime trying to rediscover.”
South Korean flautist Jeehee Han presents three works by Carl Reinecke on her new album, including the Flute Concerto in D Major, Op. 283, Flute Sonata in E Minor, Op. 167 “Undine”, and Ballade in D Minor, Op. 288. She’s joined by stellar accompanists on the release, including Lang Lang for the Undine sonata for flute and piano, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director Vasily Petrenko for the other two pieces.
“I fell in love with Reinecke when I was thirteen,” says Han in a statement. She discovered the music through recordings by the great French flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal.
Han wrote her Master’s thesis on Reinecke’s Flute Concerto, and it’s a natural selection for her debut album.
Jeehee studied in Vienna, Paris, and in the US at Oberlin College. Wife of of Yong-jin Chung, Chairman of Shinsegae Group, one of Korea’s largest business groups, she took a career break to raise a family.
This album announces her return to an active career on the stage as well as the recording studio.
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