Cédric Tiberghien (piano)
Harmonia Mundi · HMM90243738 · 2 hours 16 minutes
Beethoven’s variation sets get treated as filler far too often, but Cédric Tiberghien clearly disagrees, and pairing them with Ligeti’s Musica ricercata is a genuinely sharp move — both composers obsessing over how far a tiny cell of material can be pushed before it snaps. Two hours in his company shows just how much wit and structural cunning Beethoven packed into a form people still underrate, and Tiberghien plays it like he’s letting you in on a secret rather than showing off.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 19th June 2026
“Ligeti’s Music ricercata makes a striking opening to the album – Tiberghien’s commitment to thoroughly exploring this structural element is unwavering, yet so is his beguiling way with Ligeti’s…”
— Matthew Ash, Presto Music, 19th June 2026
Sébastien Daucé, Ensemble Correspondance, Lauranne Oliva, Alex Rosen
Harmonia Mundi · HMM902801.03 · 2 hours 47 minutes
Cavalli wrote gods behaving badly with a lightness that later Baroque opera mostly forgot how to do, and La Calisto is the proof — nymphs, disguises, jealous immortals, all set to music that skips between heartbreak and comedy without ever losing its poise. Daucé takes that score and fills it out, thickening the string writing into something richer and more enveloping than Cavalli’s original spare textures, which some purists might raise an eyebrow at but which makes for a genuinely lush listen. Lauranne Oliva and Alex Rosen sound completely at home in this world of mistaken identities and celestial mischief, singing with the kind of dramatic instinct that makes three hours of 17th-century mythology fly by.
“Cavalli’s sparing use of strings is densified into fivepart textures that spread like wildfire – Daucé plasters fulsome orchestral accompaniments on to many arias and recitatives devised originally…”
— Gramophone Magazine, August 2026
Hanna Hipp (mezzo), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Chorus, Vasily Petrenko
Harmonia Mundi · HMM90542122 · 98 minutes
The first movement of Mahler’s Third is basically a twenty-five minute argument between chaos and marching-band triumph, and Petrenko seems to genuinely relish that fight rather than smoothing it over. Recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall, there’s a sense of space and occasion here that studio sessions rarely capture, especially once those offstage horns start creeping in. Hanna Hipp brings a real hush to the fourth movement’s Nietzsche setting, and by the time the final movement unfolds its long, unhurried string melody, you understand why this symphony is as much about scale as it is about sound.
“In the opening Mahler bars of Mahler’s Symphony vast Third Symphony, recorded live in the Royal Albert Hall, one of the main credentials of this release is instantly clear: the splendour of…”
— BBC Music Magazine, August 2026,4 out of 5 stars
Adam Laloum (piano)
Harmonia Mundi · HMM902748 · 81 minutes
Schumann at his most restless finds a natural home in Adam Laloum’s hands — the Novelletten swing between giddy exuberance and sudden shadow without ever feeling like a performer straining for effect. Kreisleriana asks a pianist to hold together eight movements of pure mood swing, basically Schumann channeling his own fractured psyche through Hoffmann’s mad conductor, and Laloum seems to understand that the piece works best when you let the contradictions sit uncomfortably next to each other rather than smoothing them out. Eighty-one minutes is a generous helping of this composer’s inner world, and Laloum sounds like he’s lived in it for a while.
Alexandra Preucil (violin), Antoine Tamestit (viola)
Harmonia Mundi · HMM902773 · 56 minutes
Bartók collected these folk tunes on wax cylinders decades before he turned them into the 44 Duos, and pairing the finished pieces with the original field recordings here is a genuinely brilliant idea — you hear the raw, scratchy source material right alongside the transformation. Preucil and Tamestit play with the kind of rustic bite these miniatures need, never smoothing over the modal quirks and open-string grit that make them feel unearthed rather than composed. It’s a short album at 56 minutes, but it says a lot about where Bartók’s musical language actually came from.
Les Arts Florissants, Benjamin Alard (harpischord), Paul Agnew
Harmonia Mundi · HAF8905414 · 71 minutes
The Köthen years get a bad rap sometimes — no church gig, no weekly cantata grind, just a Kapellmeister free to chase pure instrumental invention — and this third volume in Alard’s ongoing survey really leans into that sense of freedom. There’s an ease to how Les Arts Florissants and Paul Agnew move through this repertoire, like they’re rediscovering why these pieces feel so uncannily complete on their own terms. Seventy-one minutes in, you start to understand why Gramophone singled this one out: it’s not just competent Bach, it’s Bach that still has something to say to people who think they’ve heard it all.
“This instalment manages to say something engaging about music that sits at the core of the canon; no mean feat.”
— Gramophone Magazine, July 2026
Mélissa Petit (soprano), Beth Taylor (mezzo-soprano), Bastien Rimondi (tenor), Andreas Wolf (bass-baritone), Les Arts Florissants, William Christie
Harmonia Mundi · HAF8905413 · 53 minutes
Haydn wrote his last Mass knowing it was likely his final major statement, and yet there’s barely a trace of solemnity weighing it down — the winds chatter and gleam, the choral writing has real spring in its step. Christie and Les Arts Florissants seem to understand that this is Haydn at his most puckish even while looking backward, and the Gloria in particular bounces along with an energy that feels almost cheeky for a man in his seventies. Petit and Wolf both sound genuinely delighted to be there, which, frankly, is the whole point.
“What impresses in this recording is the restrained playfulness with which Haydn – and Christie – utilise these forces. The sprightly joy of the Gloria is especially infectious, set against the…”
— BBC Music Magazine, July 2026,3 out of 5 stars
