Soprano and composer Héloïse Werner speaks to Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford about her new album, ‘Close-ups’, which features composers Barbara Strozzi, Julie Pinel and Hildegard of Bingen as well as compositions by Werner herself. Her second album sees her collaborating with fellow musicians Colin Alexander, Julian Azkoul, Max Baillie, Kit D…

For their debut Harmonia Mundi release as a duo, pianists Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy have recorded two works by Schubert, the great Fantasy in F minor and the Divertissement à la Hongroise, and, in between, a work they commissioned, Trompe-l’oeil by the Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov (b1955), who has said of his piece, ‘You can envisage …

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená speaks to Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford about her new album, ‘Czech Songs’, which features composers Bohuslav Martinů, Antonín Dvořák, Hans Krása and Gideon Klein, and for which she's joined by the Czech Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle. ‘Czech Songs’ is out now on Pentatone.…

The American tenor Nicholas Phan has just released an album of protest songs, many from the 1960s by legendary singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Pete Seeger and Malvina Reynolds. It also contains a new work by Errollyn Wallen. ‘A Change in Gonna Come’, featuring Palaver Strings, and a couple of guest appearances by Farayi Malek, is …

Since winning BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2012, aged 15, Laura van der Heijden has enjoyed a career as a cellist to watch. She’s a Chandos artist, recording both as a soloist and also as part of Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective. This month she makes her concerto debut with an album of three British cello concertos, Frank Bridge’s Oration, Sir …

This week's Gramophone Podcast sees pianist Can Çakmur join Editor Martin Cullingford to talk about the latest album in his series for the BIS label in which he pairs works by Schubert with music by composers inspired by him - in this instance Ernst Krenek. As well as introducing Krenek's Second Sonata, he also talks about the composer's completion…

With Winterreise, Andrè Schuen and Daniel Heide complete their recordings for DG of Schubert’s three song cycles, and have understandably saved the most challenging to last. James Jolly spoke to Andrè to discover how he approaches this colossal work, the Everest of any singer’s repertoire. This Gramophone Podcast is produced in association with Wig…

To mark the 200th anniversary of the premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Vienna, which took place on May 7, 1824, Gramophone’s podcast this week focuses on the work. Antonello Manacorda has just completed a cycle of the nine symphonies with Akademie Potsdam for Sony Classical, including a brand-new Ninth. James Jolly went to visit him at the …

The British bass Brindley Sherratt has released his first solo album, ‘Fear No More’, a Delphian recording, with Julius Drake at the piano. One of the UK’s most distinguished singers, and with an international reputation on the great concert and operatic stages, Sherratt talks to James Jolly about this new, and belated, chapter in his musical caree…

Violinist James Ehnes talks about his new recording for Pentatone of Leonard Bernstein's Serenade and John Williams's Violin Concerto No 1.

Thomas Pitfield, born in Bolton in 1903 and whose life stretched to the very end of the 20th century – he died in 1999 – is one of those polymaths who embraced numerous different outlets: he was a composer, a poet, an illustrator, a calligrapher, a cabinet maker and a teacher. He is probably better known for the people he knew and taught – includin…

Kirill Gerstein’s new album, timed for release mid-way between the anniversary of the death of Claude Debussy (March 25) and Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day (April 24), pairs music by Debussy and the Armenian, Komitas. Both composers were profoundly affected by the death and destruction surrounding them during the First World War, and both respon…

Klaus Mäkelä has been named Riccardo Muti's successor at the helm of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a role he assumes in 2027 alongside the post of Chief Conductor of Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Meanwhile, he remains committed to his two European orchestras, the Orchestre de Paris and the Oslo Philharmonic. Following his Decca debut…

This month's Gramophone Podcast explores the life and music of Franz Schubert. Editor Martin Cullingford talks to Richard Wigmore about this most remarkable of composers, one whose finest works, notably in the song, piano and chamber music genres, are today held to be among music's most beloved creations.…

Paavo Järvi's latest recording project adds the five Mendelssohn symphonies to his substantial catalogue. Alpha Classics has released the new set which features the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. James Jolly caught up with Paavo Järvi recently by Zoom to talk about the cycle, but also to talk about the conductor's passion for recording the complete sym…

Hattie Butterworth is joined by composer Rebecca Dale for this week's Gramophone Podcast to explore her new album of works for cello and choir with cellists Steven Isserlis and Guy Johnston and the choir Tenebrae, out now on Signum Classics. More about Rebecca Dale

Dalia Stasevska, Chief Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, has launched a new project, ‘Dalia’s Mixtape’, for Platoon. Leading her BBC orchestra, she has recorded ten works by ten modern composers, each shedding a new and different light on the symphony orchestra and what it can do.…

This week on the Gramophone podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford is joined by the co-founders of the 12 Ensemble – cellist Max Ruisi and violinist Eloisa-Fleur Thom – to talk about their fascinating new album on the Platoon Label, Metamorphosis, featuring music by Edmund Finnis, Claude Vivier, Oliver Leith and Richard Strauss.…

For this week's Gramophone Podcast, Jonathan Cohen, conductor of Arcangelo, joins Editor Martin Cullingford to talk about his new recording on the Alpha label of Handel's powerful late oratorio, Theodora, a work Cohen describes as Handel at 'his very finest and most inspired'.

The tenor Alessandro Fisher is a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Artist and a former member of the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme, and on February 23 Rubicon releases a solo album, ‘A Gardener’s World’, a collection of songs about flowers and their symbolic significance. Joined by the pianist Anna Tilbrook, Alessandro explores the horticultural theme in …

Pianist Lara Downes joins Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford this week to talk about her fascinating new recording of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, as reimagined for today's world by composer Edmar Colón to mark the iconic work's centenary, and available from the Pentatone label.

Youth is an EP of solo piano music by Edmund Finnis and performed by Clare Hammond, and described as 'a set of brief pieces recalling an image, sensation of place, significant encounter or a moment of vivid perception'. Editor Martin Cullingford invited both Finnis and Hammond into the Gramophone Podcast studio to talk about this beautiful new reco…

Timothy Ridout won last year’s Concerto category at the Gramophone Awards for his Harmonia Mundi recording, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins, of Elgar’s Cello Concerto transcribed by Lionel Tertis for viola, alongside the Bloch Suite for Viola and Orchestra. His new HM release continues his exploration of the huge role that Terti…

The great Polish pianist and conductor Krystian Zimerman came to London last October to collect his Gramophone Award, his seventh, for his latest DG album of music by Karol Szymanowki. James Jolly caught up with him on the morning of the ceremony, and their conversation ranged widely.

For his tenth album of music for trumpet and piano in the ‘re-imagined’ series for Linn, Jonathan Freeman-Attwood has turned to a composer right at the centre of the period he’s most associated with, the Baroque – and George Frideric Handel. ‘Handel for Trumpet’ features transcriptions of arias as well as theoretical ‘sonatas’, created from concert…