Classical Music

Bring on the big beasts

Music needs heavyweight champions to stand up for truth and excellence

Features
Gustav Mahler: 4th symphony (Pentatone)

A new recording of Mahler’s smallest symphony is “indispensable” to connoisseurs of his music

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
British piano concertos (Lyrita); British music for strings #3 (CPO)

A prawn cocktail of exceptionally competent music to enjoy on Easter Sunday

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Such sweet sorrow

Lent is an ideal time to take pleasure in a gentle, contemplative and very English strand of musical melancholia

Features
Rachmaninov: Piano Sonata No 1 / Moments Musicaux

A new release of Rachmaninov’s first piano sonata deserves more than five stars

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Mieczyslaw Weinberg: Cello Works and Piano Sonatas

If you want an entry point to Weinberg, this is it

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Metamorphosen (Chandos)

John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London reinterpret Metamorphosen chillingly as elegy

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Ligeti and Kodaly: Lux Aeterna (OUR Recordings)

The otherworldly and the down-to-earth

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Harrison Birtwistle: Chamber works (BIS)

The British composer — still writing at 87 years of age — is an acquired taste

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Interview: Semyon Bychkov on Ukraine and nationhood

He discusses exile, the horrors of totalitarianism and why Russophobia is not the answer

Artillery Row