Classical Period (1750–1820)
Clarity, balance, and form. Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven.
1744 products
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Carl Czerny: Piano Music, Vol. 2
$20.99CDToccata
Mar 13, 2026TOCC0791 -
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Beethoven: Sonatas Nos. 1, 18 & 30
$20.99CDRicercar
Nov 28, 2025RIC477 -
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C.P.E. Bach: Empfindsamkeit
$20.99CDChâteau de Versailles Spectacles
Apr 10, 2026CVS112
Mozart: Concertos & Fantasia in C Minor, K. 396
Vladimir Orloff, Vol. 2
Mozart, W.A.: Symphonies (Essential), Vol. 4 - Nos. 22, 33,
Mozart: Horn Concertos
Care Pupille / Marino, Hofstetter, Halle Handel Festival
Venezuelan born male soprano Samuel Mariño (*1993) presents his debut album with baroque arias by Christoph Willibald Gluck and Georg Friedrich Händel. Gluck and Händel met each other and played music together in London in 1746. For this release, the original program of that concert was expanded with arias tailor-made for male soprano. “This album is unique in every respect. It includes first recordings of works that are sensationally beautiful and that have never been heard before. And then there is a voice, a male soprano, singing for the first time in 250 years things that no man before him was able to sing. I think that this voice is suitable and has the ability to make us hear and feel the beauty of this sound and the very special art of the 18th century.” (Michael Hofstetter) “Gluck and Händel, these are my two masters. They are so important composers to me, and they have made a concert together in London. I’d say it is a wonderful idea to remake this program.” (Samuel Mariño)
Homilius: Siehe, der Herr kommt - Christmas & Advent Cantatas / Willens, Kolner Akademy
This album marks the recording premiere of four cantatas by Gottfried August Homilius for Advent and Christmas. Homilius was the number-one composer of Protestant church music during the second half of the eighteenth century and during his lifetime was regarded as »perhaps today’s very best church composer. “After his death the lexicographer Ernst Ludwig Gerber expressed the view that he was »without contradiction our greatest church composer.” Homilius’ music already displays elements of early Classicism and the sensibility of the empfindsamer Stil, his cantata choruses are frequently homophonic and songlike in design, and polyphonic sections are rather rare. His cantatas composed around 1776 prove to be works of individual design and conception and attest to his mastery as a composer. Arias of great tonal beauty, the naturalness of their expression, and the dramatic suspense of the numbers continue to fascinate listening audiences even today!
Czerny: 30 Études de Mécanisme, Op. 849 / Horvath
C.P.E. Bach: Cello Concerti / Fishman, Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra
Cellist Guy Fishman releases a follow up to his critically acclaimed Vivaldi Concertos on Olde Focus with this recording of the concerti of C.P.E. Bach. Along with his colleagues from the Handel and Haydn Society, Fishman's performance underscores the angularity, unpredictability, and most of all unique creativity of this music by J.S. Bach's unconventional son.
Guy Fishman is the principal cellist of the Handel and Haydn Society, with which he made his Symphony Hall solo debut in 2005. He is in demand as an early music specialist in the United States and in Europe, performing in recital with some of the biggest names on the early music and classical scenes. His playing has been praised as “plangent” by the Boston Globe, “electrifying” by the New York Times, and “beautiful… noble” by the Boston Herald. The Boston Musical Intelligencer related that in a performance of Haydn’s C major concerto “… I heard greater depth in this work than I have in quite some time.” He plays a rare cello made in Rome in 1704 by David Tecchler.
Koželuch: Complete Keyboard Sonatas, Vol. 6
Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 23 & 24 / Goldstein, Fine Arts Quartet
Mozart himself saw the advantages of creating more accessible versions of his concertos in reduced instrumentation. Ignaz Lachner followed common 19th-century practice by leaving the piano parts of these concertos intact and making splendid transcriptions of the orchestra parts using only a string quartet with added bass. K. 488 and K. 491 are two of Mozart’s greatest and most popular piano concertos. These chamber versions throw an intense and intimate new light on familiar music. Alon Goldstein is one of the most original and sensitive pianists of his generation, admired for his musical intelligence and dynamic personality. His career as a soloist has taken him all over the world, working with leading orchestras and conductors. The Fine Arts Quartet ranks among the most distinguished ensembles in chamber music today, with an illustrious history of performing success and an extensive legacy of over 200 recorded works.
Hammerklavier Live / Beth Levin
Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 12-14 (The Chamber Version)
Beethoven: Complete Piano Concertos / Mustonen, Tapiola Sinfonietta
Ondine celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary of birth by re-issuing Olli Mustonen’s Beethoven cycle with the Tapiola Sinfonietta. The three volumes were originally released in three separate volumes from 2007-2009. Mustonen, described by The Sunday Times as “living dream of pianism”, is known for delivering fresh and visionary approach to standard works – this is evident in these masterful recordings of Beethoven’s concertos. Mustonen is a particularly fitting exponent for Beethoven’s music as the composer himself was also both visionary and revolutionary in his approach to tradition. The recording of Piano Concerto No. 1 includes Mustonen’s own cadenzas. Beethoven’s own Piano Concerto arrangement of his Violin Concerto is also featured – one of Mustonen’s signature pieces.
REVIEW:
Mustonen plays the five concertos of a piece, not starting out with Mozartean elegance in the first two and building up to mature Beethoven somewhere in Concerto No. 3. He attacks every bar vigorously and with decisive intent. In my experience, no one since Mikhail Pletnev’s highly original and at times eccentric cycle on DG has sounded so personal in music that too often trips off the fingers with glib sameness.
My overall defense of a cycle that will strike other listeners as totally arbitrary comes down to Mustonen being a composer, not a touring pianist playing subscription concerts. These are a composer’s responses to Beethoven, and Mustonen has the fingers to express them with confident assurance and at times with dazzling flourishes. In my corner this release is one of the most refreshing of the Beethoven year.
– Fanfare
Beethoven: Complete Works for Cello and Piano
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 / Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan
Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Tolstoy’s War and Peace – those works of art that are truly part of the canon of global culture are few and far apart. In music, one work that holds significance for people all over the world is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and especially its choral finale. Even today, as we are getting ready to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of its creator, the sheer size and complexity of the symphony is daunting. There are some eyewitness accounts from the first performance, at the Kärntner-Tor-Theater in Vienna on 7th May 1824: we know for instance that Beethoven was on stage himself throughout the performance, but that owing to his deafness he did not notice the audience’s overwhelming enthusiasm. What the Ninth sounded like that evening in Vienna is something we will never know, however – which is why hearing it in a historically informed performance on period instruments is all the more interesting. With impeccable credentials from their 65-album series of Bach’s complete cantatas, and acclaimed recent recordings of Mozart’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki now give us their rendering of Beethoven’s last and greatest symphony, joined by a fine quartet of vocal soloists.
Mozart: Arias
Hommage à Weber
With some unusual takes on the standard repertoire already in their catalogue, the Duo D'Accord (pianists Lucia Huang and Sebastian Euler) set out to do something very special: an "Hommage à Weber" - as the title says. It not only contains the complete works for piano duet but also arrangements of some opera overtures and a special adaptation of the 2nd piano concerto for piano four hands by Weber’s friend and biographer Friedrich Wilhelm Jähns: a first recording and a masterstroke of artistic curiosity. Two Weber tribute encores by Ignaz Moscheles and Leopold Godowsky also appear.
REVIEW:
Remarkable as it may seem, this is the only available at present CD of Weber’s complete music for piano 4-hands. Now I’m sure, having said this, that a dozen others will show up in short order. There were two rather poor discs kicking around for a bit at the dawn of the CD era, but they are long gone. The complete works consist of three collections: the Six Pieces Op. 3, Six Pieces Op. 10, and Eight Pieces Op. 60. Not only are they interesting and enjoyable in their own right, for modern listeners they are fascinating as the sources of three of the four movements in Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis. The amazing thing about Hindemith’s arrangements is just how little he had to do to make the music sound modern (sound clips). The concluding march (in the orchestral work) is particularly interesting, stern and strong in Hindemith’s realization, but slinky and rather creepy in Weber’s original. Two of Hindemith’s movements come from Op. 60, and one from Op. 10.
These performances by Duo d’Accord, are far better than any previously released, being fresh, rhythmically supple, and lyrical expressive by turns. They also provide a whole range of interesting couplings, from transcriptions by various parties–including themselves– of three overtures (Abu Hassan; Silvana; Der Freischütz), to a four-hand version of the Second Piano Concerto. Then there are two original compositions based on Weber that are just splendid: Godowsky’s characteristically insane Contrapuntal Paraphrase on Invitation to the Dance for two pianos, and Ignaz Moscheles’ Hommage à Weber, based on music from the operas and subtitled a “Grand Duo”–and so it is. The sonics are a little bit lacking in openness on top, but otherwise capture the players well. This is a great set, and a splendid opportunity to fill out your collection.
— ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz
Beethoven: Fidelio - 1805 Version / Nylund, Streit, de Billy, ORF Radio Symphony Vienna
REVIEWS:
"All Fidelio and Beethoven fans will need this."
As most opera lovers know, Beethoven toiled greatly over his sole opera which was premiered in 1805 and revised in 1806--and then finally again in 1814, in the version that is now famous and beloved. The recording under consideration here is of the first version; this is the third time it has been recorded commercially.
Listening to this version...is an ear-opener: much music was eventually used in the familiar 1814 version, but even within those many pages there are small alterations everywhere and they're great fun to spot.
The performance is excellent, indeed marginally better than [the recording by John Eliot] Gardiner. It's as tightly led in exciting passages but Bertrand de Billy also captures some rapturous stillness and warmth in "Mir ist so wunderbar" and elsewhere, while Gardiner seems a bit clinical. De Billy also has slightly better singers. Camilla Nyland's sound is grander than Hillevi Martinpelto, and her reading of the text is deeper; Kim Begley and Kurt Streit are vocally both fine, but Streit's sweetness and goodness make a better case for Florestan. Peter Rose's understated Rocco is never mugged, and while I prefer a heavier voice than Gerd Gochowski's as Pizarro, his ease with the vocal line is a pleasure to hear. Dietmar Kerschbaum's Jaquino never cloys and Brigitte Geller's Marzelline is beautifully sung. De Billy gets thrilling playing from the Vienna Radio Symphony--the scoring in this version of the opera is very horn-heavy and generally heftier than the 1814--and I have a preference for ORF's non-period instruments here. The Arnold Schoenberg Choir sings with accuracy and feeling. All Fidelio and Beethoven fans will need this.
-- ClassicsToday.com
Haydn: The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour (Version for Keyb
Haydn: Piano Trios, Vol. 4
Mozart - Dans un bois solitaire... / Pierlot, Allard, Devémy, et al
MOZART Symphonie concertante, K 297b. 1 Quintet for Piano and Winds, K 452. 2 Oboe Concerto, K 314. 3 Dans un bois solitaire. 4 An Chloe. 5 Die Verschweigung 6 • Fernand Oubradous, cond; 1 Arthur Goldschmidt, cond; 3 O des Concerts Lamoureux; 1,3 Pierre Pierlot (ob); 1,2,3 Pierre Lefebvre (cl); 1 Jean Devémy (hn); 1,2 Maurice Allard (bn); 1,2 Irène Joachim (sop); 4,5,6 Yvette Grimaud (pn); 2 Ludwig Bergmann (pn); 4,5 Jean Germain (pn) 6 • ALPHA 800 (75:23)
Behind this imposing stack of headnotes is a historic collection of Mozart performances, made between 1938 (the first two songs) and 1951, and taken from the archives of Radio France. As must be clear, those were difficult years for music, and for life itself, in France. In the notes, Yvette Grimaud remembers that the Quintet recording was made (in 1948) when she was eating one meal a day. No one quite knew how the music they were making was going to be issued, and no one spoke about money. No one in fact spoke; they communicated through music, and seemed otherwise dumfounded.
So this is a holy recording to her. It is also eloquent, though not perfect. One hears in the first movement of the Piano Quintet the elegance of the winds, the sensitivity of the pianist, but one also hears Grimaud rush through several phrases, perhaps to give the sense of lightness, but disconcerting nonetheless. And one hears a prominent fluff by the usually impeccable horn, Jean Devémy. (There was of course no possibility of fixing such minor gaffes.) I find those problems more than compensated for by the beauty of the slow movement, in which horns and piano play with what Grimaud calls “serene amplitude.”
The Oboe Concerto and Symphonie concertante, featuring many of the same musicians, are similarly satisfying, though the sound of the concerto seems unnecessarily distant for a recording made, even on 78s, in 1951. I am less taken with the tremulous singing of Irène Joachim: she sounds a bit like the oboists of old, wavering and Victorian.
This is a collection for wind enthusiasts, I conclude, and as such, historically interesting as well as musically satisfying.
FANFARE: Michael Ullman
Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 39 & 41 / Nikolic, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra
There is a new recording of Mozart opus KV 551 and KV 543! Some reviewers shake their heads. "Yet another one!". Fortunately, these two are so devilishly good that centuries after their creation they still knock people who have an antenna for it off their feet. Wait a minute, antennas, did they exist back then? Silly? Yeah, silly. Who would say that Mozart wasn't occasionally silly? And bold, cheeky! The way he throws down the last movement of the Jupiter symphony like a gauntlet at the feet of his contemporaries is inimitable. Unfortunately, you can't see it on this album when the bassoons and cellos laugh up their sleeves, but you can hear it all the better. What contrasts! After the bright beginning with timpani and trumpets, the second movement comes from a completely different world. "Con sordino", seductively and gently Gordan Nikolic and the girls and guys of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra caress the ears. And so it goes on and on. Same with the E flat major symphony. Yes, but aren't there already many wonderful recordings of these works? Yes there are. But as is the case with Mozart, the most famous interpreters can fail and the least known can hit the mark. Decide yourself.
Shostakovich & Beethoven: String Quartets
Carl Czerny: Piano Music, Vol. 2
Beethoven, Brahms & Mozart: Variations / Trpčeski
Mozart's Bassoon - Works for Solo Bassoon / Whelan, Bezuidenhout, Ensemble Marsyas
Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 39, 40 & 41 / Blomstedt, BRSO
For today’s musicologists, performers and concert-going audiences, Mozart’s final symphonies are still a veritable miracle. Why they were written remains a mystery, and no-one knows whether Mozart ever heard them performed during his lifetime. One thing is certain: Mozart created three individual, distinctive and unique works here, which complement each other despite their extreme diversity. The symphonies in E Major, K 543 (no. 39), G minor, K. 550 (no. 40), and C Major, K. 551 (no. 41, also known as “The Jupiter”) are the ones that most represent Mozart’s symphonic legacy to later generations of musicians. With its slow introduction, the Symphony in E flat major also opens the entire cycle, already giving the listener a sense of its highs and lows. As early as 1800, the popular "Great" G minor Symphony was praised as the “painting of a passion-stricken soul”. Like its big sister, the "Jupiter" Symphony in C Major, it numbers among the most-played works in classical music and has been immortalized in countless recordings. Nevertheless, these symphonies - probably the most profound ones before Beethoven - reveal themselves as something quite new in every interpretation.
"Mozart placed all the dark sides of human existence into his G minor Symphony", says Herbert Blomstedt, adding that its “passion” continues to fascinate him. The eminent Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt, a close associate and regular guest conductor of the BRSO, conducted the E Major Symphony on December 18 and 19, 2019 in the Philharmonie at the Munich Gasteig, the G minor Symphony in concerts on January 31 and February 1, 2013 and the "Jupiter" Symphony on December 21 and 22, 2017 in the Herkulessaal of Munich’s Residenz. The new 2-CD set from BR-KLASSIK now presents these great cornerstones of Mozart's symphonic oeuvre –in the very best sound quality.
Beethoven: Sonatas Nos. 1, 18 & 30
Variations / Sarah Beth Briggs
Beethoven wrote in his diary that he wanted “to show the British what a treasure they have in God Save the King”, a reference to his set of variations on the national anthem, composed in 1803. Sarah Beth Briggs recorded the virtuoso set precisely one month before the passing of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, and the recording heralds the coronation of King Charles III in May 2023. The lesser-known Variations on an Original Theme in F major (1802) represent Beethoven the revolutionary. Uniquely, each variation was written in a different key which would have jarred the ears of the composer’s contemporaries. Sarah Beth Briggs’ collection of Variations underlines a lineage of the genre through the classical and Romantic eras. Opening the program is 9 Variations on a Minuet by Duport by Mozart, whom Beethoven greatly admired. The work takes a theme by cellist Jean-Pierre Duport, chamber music director of the court of the Prussian King, Friedrich Wilhelm II, from whom the composer hoped to gain favor. Mendelssohn’s Variations Serieuses was written as a tribute to Beethoven, and was included in an album of works that raised funds for the now famous bronze statue of Beethoven in Bonn. Mendelssohn’s near contemporary Brahms paid tribute to his troubled friend Robert Schumann, using a melody from Bunte Blätter (“Colorful Leaves”) in his poignant Variations on a Theme by Schumann.
REVIEWS:
Briggs’ execution is fluidly graceful and well-modulated. She approaches this repertoire with a studied care that betrays a love for the period and composers.
-- Wild Mercury Rhythm
All nine of Mozart’s Variations on a Theme by Jean-Pierre Duport, K 573 are quite delicate, sounding here almost as if they were played on a toy piano. Only the finale includes authoritative sounds. Beethoven’s 7 Variations on `God Save the King’ is sturdier; I especially enjoy the lively, witty, chordal IV. Also included is Beethoven’s 6 Variations on an Original Theme. In Variations Serieuses, Mendelssohn managed to write 17 imaginative ones. That number only slightly outdoes Brahms, who came up with 16 Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann. Lovely music, elegant playing.
-- American Record Guide
