The Well-Tempered Ear
The New York Times names the top 25 classical recordings of 2020 and includes sample tracks
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By Jacob Stockinger
What did the holidays bring you?
Did Hanukkah, Christmas or Kwanzaa bring you a gift card?
A subscription to a streaming service?
Maybe some cash?
Or maybe you just want to hear some new music or new musicians or new interpretations of old classics?
Every year, the music critics of The New York Times list their top 25 recordings of the past year. Plus at the end of the story, the newspaper offers a sample track from each recording to give you even more guidance.
This year is no exception (below).
In fact, the listing might be even more welcome this year, given the coronavirus pandemic with the lack of live concerts and the isolation and self-quarantine that have ensued.
The Ear hasn’t heard all of the picks or even the majority of them. But the ones he has heard are indeed outstanding. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear a sample of the outstanding Rameau-Debussy recital by the acclaimed Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafssen, who scored major successes with recent albums of Philip Glass and Johann Sebastian Bach.)
Here is a link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/17/arts/music/best-classical-music.html
Of course not all critics agree.
The Ear has already listed the nominations for the Grammy Awards (a link is below), and more critics’ picks will be featured in coming days.
You should also notice that a recording of Ethel Smyth’s “The Prison” — featuring soprano Sarah Brailey (below), a graduate student at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music and a co-founder of Just Bach — is on the Times’ list as well as on the list of Grammy nominations.
What new recordings – or even old recordings — would you recommend?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: WQXR names the best classical recording of 2018. Plus, here are other guides to help you use gift cards
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is another gift list that The Ear just found. Even though it was compiled before the holiday, he looked for it but didn’t find it.
It’s another of the top classical recordings of 2018. But this time, the list – with plenty of sound samples — comes from WQXR, the famed classical music radio station in New York City.
It may be too late to use for holiday gift giving – unless it is for yourself. After all, there are a lot of gift cards waiting to be redeemed.
Also below are several other lists so that you can cross-check and compare. The CD of Chopin ballades and nocturnes by Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes (below), for example, makes almost all the lists, which is a good sign of quality. (You can hear Andsnes play the Ballade No. 4, The Ear’s favorite, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is the link to WQXR:
https://www.wqxr.org/story/best-classical-releases-2018/
Here is a link to the top picks by critics for The New York Times and the Top 10 for National Public Radio (NPR):
And here are the nominations for the 2019 Grammy Awards:
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: Famed radio station WQXR names the best 100 recordings of 2019. Listen to samples of them here
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By Jacob Stockinger
Did you get a gift card for the holidays?
Are you looking how to spend it by either purchasing CDs or subscribing to a streaming service?
Help and guidance are available.
Few names in the airing of classical music carry more prestige than the famed radio station WQXR in New York City.
To check out the radio station’s choice of the best recordings of 2019 is also to see where the worlds of recording and concertizing are heading.
Such trends include rediscovering neglected composers and championing new music as well as women composers, such as Clara Schumann, and composers of color, such as the American composer Florence Price (below), who has often been featured on Wisconsin Public Radio this past year.
But you will also find noteworthy recordings of such classics as Johann Sebastian Bach – and two of his rarely heard cousins instead of his sons – and well as outstanding recordings of symphonies and piano sonatas (below, the set by Igor Levit) for the upcoming Beethoven Year to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of the composer.
And you will also find names of outstanding performers you may not have heard of — such as the exceptional Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang (below), a Van Cliburn Competition gold medalist whom The Ear would like to see perform here.
Here is a link to 25 picks with commentaries– plus another 75 titles and samples, without commentary, to round out a Top 100.
Happy listening!
https://www.wqxr.org/story/best-classical-recordings-2019/
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