This week sees the release of the first collaboration of two great Schubert interpreters – Mitsuko Uchida and Mark Padmore, as well as new albums from Les Siècles and François-Xavier Roth, Sir András Schiff, Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini, and the debut solo recording by viola player Rosalind Ventris. 

Recorded live at Wigmore Hall last year, this first meeting of two masterful Schubertians on record feature's the composer's Schwanengesang alongside Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte. Mark Padmore's previous recording of Schwanengesang (with pianist Paul Lewis) was an Editor's Choice in the 2011 Awards issue. Uchida won Gramophone's Piano Award for her account of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations for Decca last year. 

In an interview with Richard Wigmore in February 2000, Uchida explained the magic of Schubert's songs: 'There's a story told by Ferdinand Hiller, a pupil of Hummel, who in old age recalled a recital by Schubert and the singer Michael Vogl. Vogl didn't have much voice, and Schubert had little real technique. But, wrote Hiller, you didn't notice the playing or the singing – it was as if the music needed no material sound to make an overwhelming effect.'

David Patrick Stearns's review of this new album is included in the February issue and in Gramophone's Reviews Database.

Les Siècles and François-Xavier Roth have been a consistent presence in our monthly Editor's Choice selections and annual Awards shortlists for a few years now, in repertoire ranging from Mahler's Fourth Symphony to Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. On 'Les nuits de Paris' (read the review) they bring their period-instrument approach to popular dance music of the 19th century by Camille Saint-Saëns, Ambroise Thomas, Charles Gounod, Jules Massenet, Philippe Musard, Isaac Strauss, Émile Waldteufel and Hervé. 

This is Sir András Schiff's first clavichord recording and in many ways the instrument brings us closer to what Bach himself would have heard when he was composing this music. According the ECM, the record was made with an instrument 'built by Joris Potvlieghe in 2003 and is a replica of the unfretted Specken clavichord of 1743. Its gentle attack and quiet action in Schiff’s experienced hands render even the densest three-part counterpoint acoustically crystalline and flush with nuance.' This album includes Bach's Two-part Inventions Nos 1-15, BWV772-786 and Three-part Inventions (Sinfonias) Nos 1-15, BWV787-801.

Schiff was shortlisted for the Gramophone Concerto Award last year for his recording of Brahms's piano concertos (read the review), which he directed from the keyboard with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and for which he played another historic instrument: a Blüthner grand piano built in 1859. 

This is the solo debut album of viola player Rosalind Ventris but certainly not her first recording. Ventris has appeared in many chamber ensembles, most recently as part of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, who have released three recent outstanding albums for Chandos to date: 'American Quintets' and collections dedicated to the music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. 

This new album explores solo viola works from the 20th and 21st centuries by women composers including Thea Musgrave, Sally Beamish, Imogen Holst and Elizabeth Maconchy. Listen to Ventris discuss 'Sola' on this week's episode of the Gramophone Podcast:

Devotees of the 'Haydn 2032' series, and there are many, will need no encouragement to dive in to this new instalment from Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini, which features Haydn's Symphonies Nos 31, 48 and 59 alongside Telemann's Concerto for Recorder, Horn and Continuo, TWV42:F14.

Richard Wigmore best summarised their approach to Haydn when selecting Vol 10 as his favourite recording of 2021: 'In the Haydn, Antonini and his crack period band outgun all the competition in colour, operatic brio and a twinkling sense of fun. My feel-good recording of the year.'