February album recommendations

FEBRUARY 27, 2026
Calidore String Quartet | American Tapestry
Calidore String Quartet
Release day: February 13, 2026
On American Tapestry, the Calidore String Quartet brings together works by Samuel Barber, Wynton Marsalis, John Williams and Erich Wolfgang Korngold in a programme that traces multiple strands of American musical identity. Barber’s String Quartet Op. 11 anchors the album with its introspective Molto adagio, later transformed into the celebrated Adagio for Strings, while Marsalis’s At the Octoroon Balls draws on the layered cultural heritage of New Orleans in a suite that moves between lyricism and rhythmic vitality.
The album also includes the world premiere recording of John Williams’s With Malice Toward None, arranged by the composer for the ensemble from his score to Lincoln, and closes with Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3, written in Los Angeles in 1945. Together, these works sketch a portrait of American music as dialogue rather than uniform style — a tapestry of voices that extends from European émigré traditions to jazz-inflected idioms and cinematic expression.

FEBRUARY 24, 2026
Yunchan Lim | J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 – Live at Carnegie Hall
Yunchan Lim, piano
Release day: February 6, 2026
At just 21, Yunchan Lim turns to one of the pinnacles of the keyboard repertoire in this live recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations from Carnegie Hall. The South Korean pianist, who came to international prominence as the youngest winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, has quickly become one of the most closely followed artists of his generation. A sold-out Carnegie Hall recital on 25 April 2025, months in the making, now appears on Decca as his latest statement in a rapidly unfolding career.
The choice of venue inevitably invites historical associations: seventy years earlier, Glenn Gould recorded the Goldbergs just blocks away, shaping the work’s modern reception. Lim’s performance, captured in the immediacy of a live recital, places him within that lineage while asserting his own voice. The album documents not only the technical command required by Bach’s monumental cycle, but also the interpretative ambition of a young pianist stepping onto one of the grandest stages with music that demands both architectural clarity and inward concentration.
Listen here.

FEBRUARY 21, 2026
Johann Ludwig Bach | The 18 Leipzig cantatas
Capella Sollertia; Johanna Soller (direction)
Release day: January 23, 2026
Johann Ludwig Bach (1677–1731), Kapellmeister at the court of Meiningen, is a lesser-known member of the extended Bach family whose music was held in notably high regard within Johann Sebastian Bach’s circle. This release brings together the eighteen church cantatas that survive from a much larger annual cycle Johann Ludwig composed in 1718–19 — works that later entered Leipzig’s liturgical life when Johann Sebastian Bach prepared scores and parts and programmed them intensively in 1726. The booklet documents how carefully Bach handled these cantatas and how prominently they featured in his performance schedule, offering a vivid glimpse of a repertoire that sits close to the sound world many listeners associate with the Leipzig tradition.
Performed by Capella Sollertia under Johanna Soller’s direction, the album also stands out for its vocal casting: the soloists and ensemble deliver the music’s choruses, arias and recitatives with precision and stylistic focus. Recorded in Munich (Himmelfahrtskirche München-Sendling) across multiple sessions, the engineering supports the clarity of the textures — an essential quality in this repertoire — and helps underline the stylistic affinities that can make these cantatas a compelling discovery for listeners coming from Johann Sebastian Bach.
Listen here.

FEBRUARY 18, 2026
Kevin Puts | Emily: No Prisoner Be
Joyce DiDonato; Time for Three
Release day: January 30, 2026
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts draws on the poetry of Emily Dickinson in Emily: No Prisoner Be, a work commissioned by the Bregenzer Festspiele and conceived for Joyce DiDonato and the boundary-crossing trio Time for Three. The piece brings together voice and strings in a cycle that moves fluidly between operatic intensity, chamber writing and theatrical immediacy, shaped around Dickinson’s vivid and introspective texts.
DiDonato’s dramatic range meets the trio’s distinctive instrumentation of two violins and double bass, creating a sound world that resists easy categorisation. Developed through an extended collaborative process, the work explores themes of individuality, spiritual yearning and inner rebellion, placing Dickinson’s words at the centre of a contemporary musical language that privileges atmosphere, text and emotional nuance.
Listen here.

FEBRUARY 15, 2026
François-Xavier Roth | Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
Les Siècles; Lucile Richardot; Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Release day: January 2026
In this new recording of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles approach the score using instruments from Mahler’s own era. Known for performing repertoire on historically appropriate instruments, Les Siècles bring a distinctive early-20th-century sound world to one of the composer’s most personal and symphonically expansive works, allowing orchestral colour and inner detail to emerge with unusual clarity.
The vocal parts are taken by Lucile Richardot and Stanislas de Barbeyrac, whose contrasting timbres shape the work’s alternating movements of exuberance and introspection. The accompanying booklet situates the piece within Mahler’s final years, while Roth’s direction favours transparency and balance, placing voice and orchestra in close dialogue throughout.
Stream or buy here.

FEBRUARY 12, 2026
Piotr Anderszewski | Brahms: Late piano works
Release day: January 2026
In this new recording, Piotr Anderszewski turns to the late piano cycles of Johannes Brahms — Opp. 116 to 119 — works often regarded as the composer’s final and most introspective statements for the instrument. Written in the final years of Brahms’s life, these collections of intermezzi, fantasies and rhapsodies distil a lifetime of compositional thought into music of concentrated expression and structural refinement.
Anderszewski approaches these pieces as a cohesive narrative rather than isolated miniatures, emphasising their intimate character and inward lyricism. Recorded in Warsaw’s National Philharmonic Hall, the album presents Brahms’s late style with clarity and measured restraint, highlighting the subtle interplay between harmonic depth and understated emotional intensity that defines these final works.

FEBRUARY 9, 2026
Riccardo Frizza | Italian perspectives
Bamberger Symphoniker
Release day: January 2026
This album explores a strand of Italian music history often overshadowed by the country’s operatic tradition, turning instead to orchestral works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Conducted by Riccardo Frizza, the programme brings together music by Ottorino Respighi and Giuseppe Martucci, highlighting Italian composers who engaged directly with the symphonic language of their European contemporaries.
Alongside lesser-known orchestral pages by Respighi, the album places particular emphasis on Martucci, a key figure in the revival of instrumental music in Italy whose symphonic output remains relatively unfamiliar today. The Bamberger Symphoniker bring clarity and balance to this repertoire, supported by a finely detailed recording that allows the orchestral writing to emerge with transparency. A thoughtfully prepared booklet provides useful historical context and helps frame the programme as part of a broader European symphonic tradition.
Listen here.

FEBRUARY 6, 2026
 Márton Illés, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Nicolas Altstaedt, Münchener Kammerorchester, Clemens Schuldt, Bas Wiegers
Release day: January 2026
The Budapest-born, Germany-based composer Márton Illés is one of the most prominent voices of his generation in contemporary music, known for a highly physical and exploratory approach to sound. His works have been commissioned by leading ensembles and orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, and he has collaborated closely with institutions such as the SWR Experimentalstudio and IRCAM. Bowed Spaces brings together a group of recent works that explore the interaction between solo instruments, chamber orchestra, and live electronics, reflecting Illés’s interest in spatial perception and instrumental gesture.
The album features long-standing collaborators Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Nicolas Altstaedt, for whom Illés has written major concertante works. Their performances, alongside the Münchener Kammerorchester, place the focus on the intense dialogue between soloist and ensemble that lies at the centre of Illés’s musical language, combining technical precision with a strong sense of immediacy and experimentation.
Listen here .

FEBRUARY 3, 2026
Renaud Capuçon | Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonatas & Partitas
Release day: January 23, 2026
In this new album, Renaud Capuçon records Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, a cornerstone of the instrument’s repertoire and a lifelong point of reference for the French violinist. Capuçon first encountered these works through recordings owned by his parents and began studying them early on, inspired by figures such as Yehudi Menuhin. Although he had considered recording the cycle several times, he chose to wait, approaching the project as a personal milestone linked to his 50th birthday.
Rather than presenting the album as a definitive statement, Capuçon frames it as a snapshot of his current relationship with the music, shaped by decades of performance experience. The recording highlights the full range of technical and expressive demands posed by these works — from architectural clarity in the fugues to lyrical concentration in the slow movements — combining virtuosity with an introspective, carefully measured approach to Bach’s solo writing.
Listen here .

FEBRUARY 1, 2026
Claire Huangci I Piano Heroines (Fanny Mendelssohn, Amy Beach, Clara Schumann, Florence Price) Alpha Classics. Release day: January 30, 2026
In Piano Heroines, Claire Huangci brings together piano works by Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, and Florence Price, four composers associated with the Romantic tradition whose music reflects distinct aesthetic and cultural backgrounds. The programme combines character pieces, excerpts from larger piano cycles, and the Romanze from Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, offering a varied overview rather than a complete survey.

Huangci, who has collaborated with Alpha Classics since the 2024–25 season, frames the album as a personal and artistic exploration, linking the German and American composers featured here to her own transatlantic background. Recorded in July 2025 in Hannover, Piano Heroines presents these works in a curated sequence that highlights their individuality while situating them within a shared historical context.
Listen here.