Welcome to our guide to the best new classical releases this week. We’ve provided links to the albums on Apple Music, so you can dive straight in and enjoy the best new classical albums in great sound, and links to the Gramophone reviews where possible.

Gramophone's Reviews Database: Gramophone has brought together every review published in the magazine since 1983 into this dedicated searchable database making it easy for you to find your favourite recordings or discover the best new releases. If you would like to have unlimited access to our archive of more than 45,000 reviews from our panel of experts, please subscribe today. Subscribe to Gramophone

Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia have won, and been shortlisted for, several Gramophone Awards in recent years, particular highlights have been the recordings of Verdi's Aida (Gramophone Opera Award in 2016) and Requiem (Gramophone Choral Award in 2010). Here they are joined by pianist Bertrand Chamayou, who himself won Gramophone's Recording of the Year in 2019 for Saint-Saëns's Piano Concertos Nos 2 & 5 with the Orchestre National de France and Emmanuel Krivine, for Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben and Burleske. You can read the review of this album in the June issue of Gramophone, and in our Reviews Database.

Also in the June issue of Gramophone, David Vickers talks to The English Concert’s Harry Bicket about the challenges of Handel’s Rodelinda, the opera he has just recorded for Linn, which is released today. Find out more about the June issue here: Gramophone magazine.

Damien Guillon, the countertenor and director of Le Banquet Céleste, is renowned in particular for his singing of JS Bach's music and has featured on many Gramophone Award-shortlisted Bach albums (interestingly, he featured on both the winner of last year's Gramophone Choral Award – St Matthew Passion conducted by Masaaki Suzuki – and another album shortlisted for the same Award – St John Passion with Philippe Herreweghe). This new album features Lieder by Erlebach (1657-1714), a contemporary of JS Bach, who was himself a prolific composer, though a great deal of his music was lost in a fire in 1735.

The Mozartists and Ian Page have been on superb form over the past couple of years with their two 'Sturm und Drang' albums, 'Mozart in London' and Mozart's Il sogno di Scipione, which was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award. Their new album features Arne's Artaxerxes, an opera that Mozart almost certainly attended in London when he visited in the mid-1760s.

Cappella Amsterdam and Daniel Reuss have recorded an exceptionally diverse range of music over the past decade, from Pärt's Kanon pokajanen to Sweelinck's French Psalms and Ligeti's Lux Aeterna. This new album, their debut for the Pentatone label, continues in that same spirit and juxtaposes choral music by Wolfgang Rihm (b1952) and Giaches de Wert (1535-96).

The Listening Room

Gramophone’s The Listening Room is an Apple Music playlist featuring hand-picked selection of the most interesting new classical releases chosen by Editor-in-Chief James Jolly. It’s the essential classical playlist:

Specialist Classical Chart

The Official Specialist Classical Chart Top 20 appears on the Gramophone website and is updated every Friday at 6pm (UK time). It’s a great way of exploring the new classical releases: 

Join the Gramophone Club to receive: 13 new print and digital editions every year, digital access to every Gramophone issue since 1923 and access to our searchable Reviews Database of more than 45,000 reviews: Subscribe to Gramophone