ClassisTodays.com’s Top Ten CDs of 2009
As in years past, all of our top ten CDs received a 10/10 rating from both the English and French-language sites (and from anyone else with the taste and discernment to agree with us). A few words about our choices:
2009 was a “Haydn Year,” and we have two selections of particular merit: Zhu Xiao Mei’s marvelous disc of piano sonatas on Mirare, and the Auryn Quartet’s Op. 17 string quartets for Tacet. This set deserves special mention, as the complete cycle is shaping up to be far and away the finest yet recorded. If you thought that the great Haydn quartets started with Op. 20, then you must hear this release.
Three discs highlight the astoundingly fine work still being done in period performances of Baroque music: Suzuki’s joyous set of Bach Brandenburg Concertos (and Orchestral Suites) on BIS, and Richard Egarr’s stunning new release of Handel Organ Concertos Op. 7, surely the finest recordings of those works yet captured on disc. Finally, as CT.com’s Bob Levine said in his original review: “Sacrificium,” Cecilia Bartoli’s collection of castrato “greatest hits” may not be authentic as regards the sex of the singer, and the artwork may be grotesque, but there’s no doubt about it--this woman has balls. She blasts her way through an imaginative and largely unknown selection of arias firing off more notes per second, and at a higher level of histrionic intensity, then you’ll ever believe possible. A must-hear collection.
No “best of the year” collection would be complete without a special Mahler symphony disc, and in Ivan Fischer’s Mahler 4th on Channel Classics we have one of the very greatest interpretation of that work for many a year. In the “interesting but unknown” repertoire department, try Alfredo Casella’s serious and moving Sinfonia per orchestra (actually his Third Symphony) on CPO. Marin Alsop’s magnificent recording of Bernstein’s “Mass” for Naxos actually outclasses the composer’s own version, and triumphantly proves the work’s independent viability once and for all.
Finally, on a more intimate level, PentaTone released an astonishingly fine Schubert “Trout” Quintet, while Gerald Finley’s elegant and perfectly sung collection of Ravel songs for Hyperion certainly qualifies as one of the outstanding Lieder recitals of this or any other year.
Just click on the covers to access the individual reviews.
Thank you all for your support, and Happy Listening in 2010!
Dave Hurwitz
Executive Editor
