2024 has been a flat 12 months for main labels and an unsettled one for minors. 4 impartial outfits offered out — Hyperion to Common, Bis to Apple, Chandos to Klaus Heymann, Divine Artwork to Rosebrook — the largest shakeout in a long time, leaving us questioning how a lot of their cussed individuality may survive within the decade forward.
In selecting the album of the 12 months, I search for initiatives that outline the period and can go the take a look at of time. Janine Jansens’ recording of the Sibelius and first Prokofiev concertos on Decca is one which bears comparability with the legends. Yundi Li’s Mozart piano music on Warner is one other — a singular and unrepeatable set of interpretations.
The Klaus Tennstedt off-air live shows from Doremi are indispensable to conductor groupies. Semyon Bychkov’s Dvorak seventh and eighth symphonies with the Czech Philharmonic are natural and under no circumstances vegetarian. Mark Elder’s farewell accounts in Manchester of each Elgar symphonies on the Halle’s personal label is likewise epochal.
However, the discharge that stands out for me as album of the 12 months is the violinist Gidon Kremer performing the music of his lifetime on an ECM album known as Songs of Destiny. Kremer, 76, mixes Baltic composers with the Polish-Soviet Mieczyslaw Weinberg, bridging recollections of Soviet thought-control and rustlings of independence beside a frozen sea.
I wrote of Songs of Destiny in February 2024: Kremer’s dedication to taking part in the violin at an age when most colleagues have lengthy turned to conducting reveals how carefully he regards the instrument as his private voice. Down the a long time, his tone has mellowed from Moscow-tooled precisionism to a spherical, all-embracing heat. This austere and uplifting file is imbued with humanity and idealism. I don’t assume I’ve ever suggest a brand new file as important. This one is.
Oh sure, it’s.
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Norman Lebrecht is without doubt one of the most widely-read commentators on music, tradition and cultural politics. He’s a daily presenter on BBC Radio 3 and a contributor to the Wall Road Journal, Bloomberg, Standpoint, Sinfini and different publications. His weblog, Slipped Disc, is among the many most generally learn cultural websites on-line, breaking unique tales and campaigning towards human abuse and acts of injustice within the cultural industries.