Twelve of my favourite new recordings of 2023

Here is some music released this year that I’ve enjoyed (and hope you might too), in no particular order. I have provided Spotify links to make the music easy to sample, but if you enjoy it please consider buying the albums.

1. Mark-Anthony Turnage: Winter’s Edge (2016-17). I wouldn’t have guessed the compelling, intense first movement was by one of my favourite composers. The fast, gritty middle is more archetypal. The finale has a sad, Beethovenian depth.

The Piatti Quartet, who commissioned the piece and perform on this recording, tweeted in response: “We’ve often joked no one has played as much Turnage as us over the last 10 years. Spot on analysis of our Winter’s Edge commission, the change of style really surprised us in comparison to first 3 Qtets!”

2. Errollyn Wallen: Piano Concerto (2022). I find this intriguing and compelling - I couldn’t take my ears off it. First movement is like mid-career Stravinsky, acerbic with hints of jazz. Second is slower and reflective, third tenderly thoughtful. Finale seems to me to return to Stravinsky, fragmented and caustic.

The composer tweeted in response: “Spot on Jeremy - also 1930s Paris vibe.”

3. Sergei Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto no 2 (Gerstein, Petrenko). Fast, with the piano always in control and the orchestra dramatic: the tune’s return two-thirds of the way through the first movement is spine-tingling. Second movement not over-sentimental. Finale sharp as a knife. Thrilling!

4. Philip Sawyers: Viola Concerto (2020). Shows off the rich depths of the instrument right from its first entry. Lots of intriguing, melancholy orchestral colour, with hints of Walton. Second movement slow and reflective, finale dances delightfully. Would make a great introduction to Sawyers’ music.

5. Grażyna Bacewicz: Piano Concerto (1949). Another piano concerto (and not the last). First movement has a nice combination of grit and lyricism, with echoes of Bartók. Second mysteriously atmospheric and mostly quiet. Third finishes with a kind of spiky joviality, like a slightly drunk Dvořák.

6. JS Bach: Goldberg Variations Reimagined. I love the austere beauty of the original keyboard version, and this arrangement works as a brilliant complement - it is intimate and idiomatic, revealing intriguingly different textures in different variations, with a quiet, determined profundity.

7. Anna Thorvaldsdottir: AIŌN (2018). Thorvaldsdottir is a sound sculptor, using the orchestra as a palette to make often intense blocks of sound. Teeming, restrained, elemental energy, long, meaningful notes and menacing percussion clatters create mystery and anticipation, mapping out an intriguing journey.

8. Pietro Locatelli: Violin Concerto in C minor (Faust). I love exploring baroque byways, and there’s some glorious music on this recording. This long concerto starts and ends with a grand, assertive formality, like a choral masterpiece. Faust plays expressively, often with an attractive fragility & uncertainty.

9. Roberto Sierra: Alegria (1996). This whole disc is brilliantly enjoyable, but I was particularly taken with Alegria, which sweeps through a world of different fun and percussion in its all-too-brief five minutes: lively, colourful, rhythmic and raucous dancing, reminding me a bit of Revueltas.

10. WA Mozart: Piano Concerto no 23 (Emelyanychev). This is Mozart as I like it, urgent and intense. In the first movement, the orchestra plays with delightful grace and delicacy, and the tinkly fortepiano adds a wonderful range of colour. The second movement is yearningly beautiful - I love the contrast between the slightly archaic colours and the romantic style. The finale dances delightfully, powering through the moments of repose with abandon while still letting those intense Mozartian corners peep through.

11. Maurice Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé (Wilson). This recording is as astonishingly well played as we’ve come to expect from John Wilson. The opening crescendo is stunningly beautiful and dramatic, and some of the choral singing has an almost renaissance purity to it. I find myself just luxuriating in the sheer gorgeousness of it all.

12. Kaija Saariaho: Reconnaissance (2020). Sadly Saariaho died in June. This piece, for chorus with percussion and double bass, is ritualistic and strange, like echoes of an ancient time. Even having read the programme notes I don’t really understand what it is about, but I find it utterly compelling and (as intended I think) slightly disturbing.

Finally, I observe that four of my twelve choices are by women composers (see also my previous recommendations here - there is inevitably some overlap of composers with the previous list), six are by composers alive in the 21st century, and none are from the 19th century. That says something about where my ears are at at the moment…!