The Best Classical Albums From January

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Illustrations by Dane Thibeault | Notes from the recordings adapted from IDAGIO
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As we say goodbye to January, Cannopy presents a curated list of the classical releases we were listening to this month. And thanks to our recent partnership with the streaming platform IDAGIO, you can listen along to the list below with a free 30-day subscription! Visit www.idagio.com/cannopy to get this exclusive offer.
1) Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Works

2025 marks the tenth anniversary of Seong-Jin Cho’s first prize victory in the 2015 Warsaw Chopin Competition, a milestone event that brought international attention and critical accolades to the then 21-year-old pianist. The trajectory of his career over the past decade has been marked by steady artistic growth and achievement, with a focus and consistency that have proven both an inspiration and a role model for younger keyboard talents. These words apply in equal measure to his Deutsche Grammophon discography, from the power and transparency of his Liszt, Brahms and Chopin to the lyrical refinement of his stylish Mozart concertos and ravishingly nuanced Debussy. — Jed Distler, notes from the recording
2) New Year's Concert 2025

With its 2025 New Year’s Concert the Vienna Philharmonic is marking the start of a year that sees the bicentenary of the birth of Johann Strauß the Younger, while at the same time it seeks to shed new light on the compositional background of the Strauß family in general. The orchestra has invited Riccardo Muti to oversee proceedings. The most experienced of all living New Year’s Concert conductors, he is returning to us for the seventh time in his career. — Silvia Kargl / Friedemann Pestel, notes from the recording.
3) Vivaldi: Le quattro stagioni

The Four Seasons have always exerted a profound fascination on me. Listening to the work obsessively during my childhood aroused the desire to become a violinist and stimulated me to take up the Baroque instrument, carried away by the communicative energy of a score that is at once narrative, descriptive and empirical. This music exudes a visceral joy, with its dramatic interactions between the instruments in a whirlwind of sudden eruptions, impetuosity, sensuality and seduction, forming a rich and harmonious soundscape. I am well aware that a great deal has already been said about one of the most frequently performed and most recognisable compositions in western music; to tackle it in the tercentenary year of its publication invites us to re-examine our relationship with the work, to explore its many facets. — Théotime Langlois De Swarte, notes from the recording
4) Mahler: Symphony No. 7 with Simon Rattle & BRSO
L-R: Album cover, Gustav Mahler
Mahler took the so-called apotheosis, with which dramatic symphonies usually end happily, and as it were reversed it: dark, negative forces triumph over light, love and hope. How could things continue after this? During the same prolific summer holiday in 1904 in which Mahler completed his Sixth Symphony, he began work on his Seventh. He first sketched out the second and fourth movements, entitling them Nachtmusiken, and was planning to compose the remainder at the Wörthersee the following summer. But this time he found the process of composition unusually difficult: “For two weeks I plagued myself to desperation [...] – and finally set off for the Dolomites! But there it was the same story, and eventually I gave up and went home, convinced that the summer had been wasted.” — Jörg Handstein (Translation: David Ingram), notes from the recording
5) Khachaturian: Piano Concerto

Jean-Yves Thibaudet, one of today's leading pianists, shares his latest album featuring Khachaturian's Piano Concerto, along with solo piano works including a transcription of the Adagio from Spartacus. Known for his expansive repertoire, Thibaudet has recorded over fifty albums, effortlessly championing classical masterpieces, jazz and film scores with some of the world's leading orchestras. Aram Khachaturian, deeply influenced by the folk music of his Armenian heritage, composed just three concertos in his lifetime, with the sparkling Piano Concerto being his first major composition. — IDAGIO
6) Palestrina Revealed - Byrd, White, Mundy

A few years back I recorded a Palestrina Mass setting in a performing edition prepared by my friend and colleague Francis Bevan. I have him to thank for the genesis of this new album: in our conversations together it became clear to me quite how much of Palestrina’s oeuvre had still yet to be recorded. In marking the quincentenary of the composer’s birth with this album, it was a privilege to make these première recordings with my Choir of Clare College, with all Palestrina works presented here prepared in Francis’s excellent performing editions. — Graham Ross, notes from the recording
7) Beethoven: The Early Quartets
L-R: Album cover, Ludwig van Beethoven
We end our recorded cycle of Beethoven’s quartets with the set of six that began his journey with the genre, the op. 18. Though such an order deviates from the usual presentation of this cycle, it is in many ways fitting to end at the beginning. Journeying through the op. 18’s, one is aware of the musical revolution he is brewing in terms of style, development of ideas and extreme contrasts of emotion. Already from the beginning, Beethoven’s musical signature is clearly legible. These qualities would eventually lead to another beginning, the foundation of an entirely new artistic movement, which we refer to as Romanticism. — Calidore String Quartet, notes from the recording
8) Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins

Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. After the arson attack on the Reichstag on 27 February, the regime imposed a permanent suspension of civil rights. Kurt Weill, who was Jewish, and Bertolt Brecht, who was a Marxist, recognised the beginning of the end. Both fled the country. Weill went initially to Paris, while the playwright began a nomadic existence that took him in quick succession to Prague, Vienna, Zurich and Lugano, until Weill asked him to come to France to write the libretto for The Seven Deadly Sins. This ‘sung ballet’ was a commission from a wealthy Englishman, Edward James, who intended it for his wife, the dancer Tilly Losch, in whom he had noted a striking resemblance to Weill’s wife, Lotte Lenya. — Jessica Duchen, notes from the recording
9) Exile

This programme is a story told through the music of composers who were forced to leave their homeland. Flight, and the search for a new home, have always been a part of the history of humankind, and in our own time they are still the bitter reality for entire peoples. Impelled by global warming, wars and social injustice, millions of people are crossing our planet in the hope of a better life for themselves and their children. — Patricia Kopatchinskaja, notes from the recording
10) Wainwright: Dream Requiem
L-R: Album cover, Rufus Wainwright
Verdi will always be my favourite composer. This is mainly because many years ago in our family home in Saint-Sauveur-desMonts, Quebec, nestled between my mother, Kate, and Aunt Anna, my whole life suddenly changed while listening to his Requiem Mass for the first time (on cassette tape nonetheless!) at the tender age of 13. In many ways Verdi’s Requiem was the perfect introduction both compositionally and spiritually to the vast new territory that was to become the rest of my life. The experience both represented the death of my childhood innocence AND the birth and awakening of my artistic self, thus beginning my personal lifelong spiritual quest to seek out beauty no matter what the cost, for better or for worse, and I very much have Giuseppe Verdi and his Requiem to thank for this incredible journey. — Rufus Wainwright, notes from the recording.