1. Elgar: Symphony No 2 | Staatskapelle Berlin/Barenboim
“The surging, unquenchable energy of this account is obvious from the opening bars, which are borne on an irresistible flood of sound from the Berlin Staatskapelle, yet it’s an energy that never threatens to overwhelm the symphony’s lyrical core.” Read the review
2. Birtwistle: The Moth Requiem | BBC Singers/Nash Ensemble/Kok
“An outstanding disc of Birtwistle’s choral works, all recorded for the first time... It’s an important, scrupulously presented collection.” Read the review
3. Schumann: Symphonies 1-4 | Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Ticciati
“Perhaps the most impressive thing that Ticciati has done on disc so far. Every bar in these urgent performances with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra seems alive and full of interest.” Read the review
4. Andriessen: La Commedia | McFadden/Zavalloni/Willems/Beckman/Asko/Schönberg Ensembles/De Leeuw
“The tone is wonderfully varied – sometimes profoundly serious, sometimes wildly exuberant or irreverent – matched to a score that is equally diverse and eclectic. The performance with Reinbert de Leeuw conducting the combined Asko and Schönberg ensembles is superb... [and] leave no doubt that La Commedia is a rich, important achievement by one of Europe’s greatest living composers.” Read the review
5. Messiaen: La Fauvette Passerinette, etc | Peter Hill
Peter Hill’s recording of this previously unknown piano work is fascinating – the piece “represents a path Messiaen never followed further… As Hill’s performance shows, it’s an utterly convincing and thrilling piece of piano writing. Hill surrounds this first recording of his exciting discovery with thoughtfully grouped sequences of 20th-century piano works. Altogether, it is a hugely rewarding and important disc.” Read the review
6. Ferneyhough: Complete String Quartets | Arditti Quartet
“The performances are wonderfully authoritative. They never forget that beneath all the complexity there is a layer of intense expressiveness that drives Ferneyhough’s music. Every one of these works repays repeated listening; it’s not always easy going, but it’s certainly never dull.” Read the review
7. Nielsen: Symphonies 4 and 5 | Royal Stockholm PO/Oramo
“The performances have an irresistible momentum. The opening movement of the Fourth is thrillingly urgent without ever sounding forced or rushed, and its slow movement grows naturally and inevitably to its apotheosis. The Fifth seems equally coherent; every facet of its tumultuous opening movement is carefully controlled and precisely paced, the second movement is joyously affirmative.” Read the review
8. Bruckner: Symphony No 9 | Lucerne Festival Orchestra/Abbado
“The Bruckner symphonies Abbado conducted with the fabulous Lucerne Festival Orchestra in the last decade of his life... had a transparency to them, which is beautifully captured again on this disc, especially in the great transfiguring adagio with which the torso of the ninth ends; it’s a soundworld that belies all the cliches about Bruckner’s scoring and the ponderousness of his symphonic thinking.” Read the review
9. Zemlinsky: String Quartets Nos 1 and 2 | Escher Quartet
“An impressive disc... with a superb performance of the Second Quartet, one of Zemlinsky’s greatest and most radical achievements.” Read the review
10. Mozart: Desperate Heroines | Sandrine Piau
Showcases Sandrine Piau’s “wonderful musicality and refinement... She’s a very fine, intelligent artist, and Ivor Bolton and the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra accompany her most sympathetically.” Read the review
