Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev – musicophilesblog – From Keith Jarrett to Johannes Brahms

My Top 5 Classical Albums of 2017

It is starting to be a tradition now; this is a third time I´ll be writing about my top 5 classical albums of the year (see here for 2016, and here for 2015).

It´s been a busy year both professionally (completely unrelated to this blog) and musically, with a lot of excellent recordings being published, my blog being listed among Musicaroo´s Top 100 Independent Music Blogs, and me reaching 200 blog posts this summer.

It´s probably a bit late for Christmas shopping, but if you’re still looking for something to put under the tree (or whatever other holiday you’re celebrating right now, if any), or if you just would like to make yourself a nice present, here’s my selection for 2017. For download links to each album, please follow the link to the original review.

Bach: St. Matthew Passion – John Eliot Gardiner

Bach St Matthew Passion John Eliot Gardiner SDG 2017 24/96

I may be a bit biased here as I heard Gardiner perform this live as part of the same European tour as when this was recorded, but while I’ve been not always convinced by Gardiner´s recent recordings, I feel this is one that will stand the test of time as a reference.

See my original review here.

Brahms: The Symphonies – Andris Nelsons – Boston Symphony Orchestra

Brahms: The Symphonies - Andris Nelsons - Boston Symphony Orchestra 24/192

Brahms being in the subtitle of my album, he is obviously featured on a regular basis.

Note that this album may not be of universal appeal. This is really not the new lean style of “historically informed”, with lean orchestras, which I actually often really like. This is “old-style” Brahms, big, broad, and romantic. I feel it works especially well for the first symphony, in the big tradition of the Klemperers and Walters of this world (not yet Furtwängler and Toscanini).

In, any case if you answer yes to “Aimez-vous Brahms?”, you need to check this box out.

You’ll find the original review here.

Volodos Plays Brahms

Arcadi Volodos Plays Brahms (24/96) Sony Classical 2017

And yes, 2 out of 5 for the grandmaster from Hamburg. Another Brahms album.

And this time I can get rid of any disclaimer, this is just outstanding in any way. While playing with all his virtuosity power, these little (underrated) gems of Brahms here really get the treatment they deserve.

A must have for any Brahms fan.

See my original review here.

Mozart: Great Mass in C – Masaaki Suzuki – Bach Collegium Japan

Mozart: Great Mass in C Minor Exsultate Jubliate Bach Collegium Japan Masaaki Suzuki Carolyn Sampson Olivia Vermeulen Makoto Sakurada Christian Immler

This gets a special treatment by me, because it is probably one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.

Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium have never produced a bad album to my knowledge. The “worst” you get from this excellent Japanese ensemble is recordings that are a bit too polished and tame to my taste.

But here, none of that. Just beauty! This could well become a new reference recording for this work.

You’ll find my original review here.

Alexandre Kantorow: A La Russe

Alexandre Kantorow A La Russe BIS 2017 (24/96)

This album again may not be of universal appeal. A slightly more eclectic selection of music, a very young pianist, and a lot of extremes in one album.

I still preferred it to let’s say the extreme perfection of Zimerman´s new Schubert recording (another contender for this list), simply because of the piano performance of Stravinsky´s Firebird. I’m not even a particular fan of Stravinsky in general, but this recording is simply out of this world.

You can find my original review here.

What do you think?

So, this is my list, what would be yours? Please share! As always, I appreciate your feedback and ideas!

In the meantime, let me wish all of you Happy Holidays!

P.S.

One more album, which isn’t properly speaking a 2017 album, but “just a remaster” released this year, gets a special mention: The outstanding complete Beethoven string quartets by the Takács Quartet.

See my original review here.

Takacs Quartet Beethoven Complete String Quartets Decca 24 48 2017 remaster

Alexandre Kantorow – A La Russe – Outstanding!

A quick comment on classical reviews

I’ve mentioned this several times before, reviewing classical music is a very subjective business. See examples here and here of cases where professional reviewers disagree a lot about the quality of a recording.

Therefore, it is even more impressive if you find reviews where nearly everybody agrees. Those are the recordings you should truly check out, as these are actually rather rare.

One of these outstanding recordings is the recent Arkadi Volodos recording of Brahms. This album got a “Choc” (i.e. 5 stars) from Classica AND an Album of the Month by Gramophone.

What is even more impressive is that not only these two agree, but 5 other classical reviewers (not counting me) do as well. Classica publishes every month an overview of what the leading critics in the French media (France 3, Le Figaro, Radio Classique, France Musique, and Le Monde) think of a number of recent albums on a scale from “X” (didn’t like at all) to “three hearts” (liked passionately). I check this overview every month, and it is really extremely rare to find that all reviewers give three hearts.

Well, for the Volodos recording, three hearts from all of them. The only outlier I’m aware off is Andrew Clements from the Guardian.

In a nutshell, we have a strong contender here for the piano album of the year (a bit early after only 5 months, but mark my words, I’ll get back to this later).

Why am I writing all this in a review of a completely different album?

Well, a because I just read the overview in the latest Classica, but also because the album I’ll be writing about now is to me the only serious contender for best piano album of the year (again, so far).

Alexandre Kantorow – A La Russe (BIS 2017)

I first heard about Kantorow, son of the conductor Jean-Jacques Kantorow, from a recent email by Robert von Bahr, the owner of the Swedish independent classical label BIS.

I’m on his mailing list, and on a monthly basis, you’ll get a note about BIS’s most recent releases. Obviously, this being the owner, you have to take his promotional talk with a grain of salt, but actually he has a rather refreshing open style, and more often than not, he can even be sometimes being quite critical of his own releases.

So when I received an email with the following text “I have absolutely no qualms in saying, nay, screaming, that we in ALEXANDRE KANTOROW have a super talent, indeed someone destined for a world career that is now starting (….) Alexandre Kantorow is a genius, and we are going to record as much with him as he can give us“, I at least got curious.

Well, Robert wasn’t overpromising. This album is truly spectacular, and really is so far the only real challenger for Arkadi Volodos this year.

Alexandre Kantorow A La Russe BIS 2017 (24/96)

What do you get? Well, as the title indicates, Russian composers. A sonata by Rachmaninov, some lesser known pieces by Tchaikovsky, and Balakirev’s Islamey.

But to me the absolute highlight of this album is the piano transcriptions of parts of L’Oiseau du Feu (Firebird) by Igor Stravinsky. I’m not a big fan of Stravinsky in general, his music doesn’t speak to me that much.

But here, I cannot be but mesmerized by the mixture of extreme virtuosity and outstanding musicality.

This is a must have album.

My review: 5 stars

You can find it here (eclassical) and here (Qobuz)