Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco, Gianluca Capuano
Naive · OP9025 · 46 minutes
Vivaldi never gets tired of surprising you with instrument pairings you didn’t know you needed — bassoon and oboe trading lines like old friends bickering, or a mandolin popping up somewhere you least expect it. Capuano and Les Musiciens du Prince lean into that sense of play, letting each soloist stretch out and show off without ever losing the thread of the ensemble. At 46 minutes this one moves fast, but there’s real personality packed into every concerto, which is exactly why BBC Music Magazine singled it out as their Concerto Choice.
Awards:
- BBC Music Magazine — July 2026 — Concerto Choice
“The playing sparkles with contributions by an accomplished colloquium of woodwind and string soloists…All is directed with energy and artistic assurance by harpsichordist Gianluca Capuano.”
— BBC Music Magazine, July 2026,4 out of 5 stars
Sergio Azzolini (bassoon), L’Onda Armonica
Naive · OP7956 · 69 minutes
Vivaldi wrote nearly forty concertos for bassoon, which is a wild number when you consider how rarely the instrument gets to be a soloist anywhere else in the Baroque repertoire — clearly he heard something in it that most composers didn’t. Azzolini has spent years working through this whole cycle now, and what keeps it fresh is how he leans into the instrument’s odd, woody humor rather than smoothing it into something more conventionally elegant. Volume six digs up more of those lesser-played corners of the catalogue, and L’Onda Armonica gives him exactly the kind of springy, alert accompaniment that makes these pieces feel like conversations instead of showcases.
Simone Dinnerstein (piano), Baroklyn
Naive · V9238 · 56 minutes
Simone Dinnerstein has always had a way of stretching time until it feels almost elastic, and that instinct turns out to be exactly the right tool for Glass, whose repetitions can flatten into wallpaper in the wrong hands. Here the rubato breathes life into the patterns instead of smoothing them over, so phrases seem to lean forward and pull back like something genuinely felt rather than mechanically unspooled. Paired with Baroklyn’s warm, unfussy playing, Hourglass ends up sounding less like minimalism and more like memory.
“Dinnerstein at times applies more rubato to Glass than one might expect (or even wish) to hear. Nevertheless, her approach aids the music’s ebb and flow, while imparting greater expressive intensity…”
— Gramophone Magazine, July 2026
Francesco Tristano (piano)
Naive · V8833 · 71 minutes
Bach wrote these suites as domestic, almost intimate pieces, and yet Tristano treats them like they’ve got something to prove — the tempos in the gigues especially feel like he’s daring the music to keep up with him. What’s fun is that this restlessness never tips into showing off for its own sake; the sarabandes still get room to breathe, and the contrast between the two makes both extremes land harder. Seventy-one minutes that never settle into autopilot, which is rarer than it should be with Bach this familiar.
“Bach pulled some unexpected elements into the mix for these particular suites…And Tristano himself is full of surprises in terms of mood, colour, and tempo – often thrillingly fast, and sometimes…”
— BBC Music Magazine, August 2026,4 out of 5 stars
Paul Huang (violin), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jun Märkl
Naive · V8121 · 51 minutes
There’s something so satisfying about pairing these two concertos, since Korngold and Barber both wrote violin music that sounds like it’s aching to be sung rather than just played. Paul Huang leans into that lush, cinematic side of the Korngold without tipping into schmaltz, and then brings a leaner, more searching quality to the Barber that lets its melancholy breathe. Jun Märkl and the London Philharmonic give him plenty of room throughout, which matters enormously in repertoire this exposed — 51 minutes that go by in a flash.
Dmytro Choni (piano)
Naive · V9092 · 73 minutes
There’s something disarming about a title like Heartlands — it could easily tip into sentimentality — but Dmytro Choni has the pianistic instincts to make the concept land rather than wilt. What comes through most is how alive his phrasing feels, like he’s discovering each turn of melody in real time rather than polishing it into safety. Seventy-three minutes is a real commitment from a listener, but the BBC’s five-star nod suggests Choni earns every one of them.
“It’s a touching yet potentially nebulous concept for an album, but the Ukrainian pianist turns it into something truly special. His playing, too, brims with heart and life force: impassioned,…”
— BBC Music Magazine, August 2026,5 out of 5 stars
Trio Zadig (soloist)
Naive · 3618112628929 · 30 minutes
Piazzolla’s tangos have this way of sounding sultry and mournful in the same breath, and that duality is exactly where Trio Zadig seems most at home. There’s a scrappy, chamber-music intimacy to their playing that suits this repertoire better than the glossier orchestral treatments you sometimes get — you can hear the players breathing together, leaning into the bandoneon-less arrangements with real bite. At half an hour it’s a lean program, but that just means every phrase has to earn its place, and here it does.
Yaron Herman (musician, piano), Alexandra Grimal (musician, tenor saxophone), Ziv Ravitz (musician, drums), Maria Grand (musician, tenor saxophone), Haggai Cohen Milo (musician, double bass), Besco Studio (studio_producer)
Naive · 3618029881240 · 20 minutes
Twenty minutes is such a strange, generous length for a record — too short to be an album statement, too long to be a single, and Yaron Herman leans right into that ambiguity. With two tenor saxophones from Alexandra Grimal and Maria Grand weaving around each other instead of trading solos in the usual way, the whole thing feels less like a jazz session and more like an overheard conversation you’re not quite meant to follow. Haggai Cohen Milo and Ziv Ravitz keep everything loose enough that it never resolves into something tidy, which is exactly the point.
