Contemporary (1970–present)
Living composers and the new music being written today.
759 products
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Saxophone Varie, Vol. 2
$19.99CDDUX
Jan 30, 2026DUX1374 -
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Aho: Symphony No. 17
$21.99SACDBIS
Feb 20, 2026BIS-2676 -
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Lyrique
$20.99CDAnalekta
Oct 31, 2025AN28840 -
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Visions and Mirages
$15.99CDCentaur Records
Nov 14, 2025CRC4166 -
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Aho: Moonlight Concerto; Alto Flute Concerto
$21.99SACDBIS
Nov 21, 2025BIS-2626 -
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Works for Piano Trio by Schubert & Rihm
$21.99CDSolo Musica
Nov 21, 2025SM498 -
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Arvo Part: Complete Symphonies
$21.99SACDChandos
Apr 17, 2026CHSA 5372
Lang: the writings / Reuss, Cappella Amsterdam
Cappella Amsterdam and its artistic leader Daniel Reuss return to PENTATONE with a world premiere recording of David Lang’s the writings. For this cycle, Lang has chosen five texts from the Old Testament tied to Jewish holidays. These writings share a universal appeal, a focus on what it means to be human. Lang’s austere and repetitive score makes a profound emotional impact, fully in line with the poetry of the subjects recited. This album comes with insightful program notes by the composer, as well as an evocative analysis by his esteemed colleague Nico Muhly.
Since its foundation in 1970, Cappella Amsterdam has shown an exceptional mastery of contemporary and early vocal music, with acclaimed excurses to Romantic repertoire as well. Daniel Reuss has been Artistic Leader of Cappella Amsterdam for over three decades now, and has worked with several renowned choirs and ensembles. Their PENTATONE debut album In Umbra Mortis (2021) won an Edison Klassiek Award. Multiple award-winning composer David Lang is one of America’s most performed composers, whose deceptively simple pieces can be fiendishly difficult to play, requiring incredible concentration by musicians and audiences alike.
REVIEWS:
Assembled over 14 years, the writings is a collection of settings of texts from the Hebrew Bible that are particularly associated with holidays; they are enchanted unaccompanied choral pieces, jewel-like in their crystalline beauty and performed with just the right degree of gentle detachment by Cappella Amsterdam under Daniel Reuss.
-- The Guardian
This stunning disc features the Cappella Amsterdam ensemble on a world-premiere recording of David Lang’s The Writings, a cycle of choral works based on selections from the Hebrew Bible. Each of the scriptural extracts is associated with a different Jewish holiday, the work as a whole creating a sort of map of the Jewish liturgical year from Sukkot (a weeklong holiday during which ancient Israelites were expected to travel to the temple in Jerusalem) to Tisha B’Av (which commemorates the destruction of both Solomon’s Temple and the Second Temple). The music is, as one might expect, solemn in tone and cyclical in structure; perhaps a bit more surprisingly, it is also consistently consonant and tonal — though the mood is often dark and brooding, there is always light peeking through, and the performances by Cappella Amsterdam are absolutely exquisite.
-- Baker & Taylor CD Hotlist
Saxophone Varie, Vol. 2
Łukaszewski: Sacred Choral Works / Sirmais, Latvia State Choir
Pawel Łukaszewski (b. 1968) is possibly the most-performed contemporary composer from Poland. His spiritual choral works are performed by both professional and amateur choirs around the world. Łukaszewski’s output has a significant position in Great Britain where his works are performed and premiered by renowned London and Cambridge choral ensembles. This new album by the award-winning State Choir LATVIJA under Maris Sirmais includes several world première recordings from the Polish master.
REVIEW:
The performances presented here by the State Choir of Latvia under its conductor, Māris Sirmais, are simply outstanding. At what seems to be about 50 voices, the choir is larger than a chamber choir but smaller than a symphonic choir, and it manages to combine the virtues of both in this tremendously impressive recital. The choir has no faults to my ear. Intonation and ensemble are excellent, all parts exhibit outstanding internal blend with no individual voices sticking out, and excessive vibrato – the bane of choral excellence – is non-existent. The choir exhibits an extreme dynamic range, and yet at both ends of that spectrum its technical control never wavers, whether at fff – where it can produce an immense sound with no sign of hardness – or when reduced to more soloistic proportions. The recording is well up to the challenge that such an ensemble presents, and the sound is rich, deep, resonant, and detailed all at once.
-- Fanfare
Rautavaara: Lost Landscapes / Lamsma, Trevino, Malmö Symphony Orchestra
Conductor Robert Trevino’s fourth album release on Ondine is focused on the late works of composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016), one of Finland’s most celebrated composers after Sibelius and known worldwide for his Neo-Romantic, even mystic compositions. Together with violinist Simone Lamsma and the Malmö Symphony Orchestra the artists are presenting four final orchestral works by the celebrated composer.
Two of the works are world première recordings. In his late period, Rautavaara received several communications from the world’s leading violinists requesting him to write works for them. He was able to oblige them, creating several extensive works featuring solo violin. Fantasia (2015) for violin and orchestra is a work of soft Neo-Romantic harmonies and soaring melodic lines. In 2014, Rautavaara was asked to write a new Violin Concerto. This commission resulted in Deux Sérénades for violin and orchestra which remained unfinished at Rautavaara’s death: the second movement was sketched out, but only its beginning was orchestrated. Kalevi Aho, an accomplished composer of symphonies and concertos who studied composition with Rautavaara at the turn of the 1970s, fleshed out the orchestration in 2018. Lost Landscapes (2005/15) was originally written as a violin sonata, but Rautavaara began orchestrating the work in 2013. The first movement was premiered at the contemporary music festival at Tanglewood in July 2015, but the full premiere of the work took place in Malmö in March 2021, with Simone Lamsma as soloist. In the Beginning (2015) is a concise overture-type work commissioned for a concert opener. The titles of his works were important for the composer, forming part of the ‘aura’ of the work and often even constituting the initial impulse for writing the piece in the first place.
REVIEWS:
There is a transcendent intensity to Rautavaara’s music which is heightened by this writing for strings. All of the music here is relatively recent, the earliest from 2005, but here rearranged for these forces. Lost Landscapes, Fantasia, In the Beginning and Deux Serenades (completed by Kalevi Aho, after the composer’s death) are the four works here. Music to be immersed in and a fitting presentation of some of Rautavaara’s last work.
-- Lark Reviews
All these violin concertante works are attractive, but they are also all rather similar, and there is a preponderance of slow music. So they are best not listened to all at the same time. In the Beginning is different: it shows another side of the composer and perhaps has the best music on the disc.
We have a cosmopolitan team here. The soloist, Simone Lamsma is Dutch, has performed widely and already made a number of recordings. Robert Trevino is American and is a rising star. The Malmö Symphony Orchestra is one of Sweden’s leading orchestras. They all provide assured performances. The recording is sympathetic and the booklet informative. The Fantasia and Deux Sérénades have each been recorded by their commissioners but coupled with different composers, so the Rautavaara fan will find this the most convenient way to collect these works.
-- MusicWeb International
Cage: Choral Works / Kļava, Latvian Radio Choir
This new album release by the Latvian Radio Choir and conductor Sigvards Kļava on Ondine is devoted to choral works by the legendary American composer and music pioneer John Cage (1912–1992), one of the most leading figures in 20th Century music. John Cage is the dictionary definition of an avant-garde composer. Choral music and John Cage might seem like an odd pairing. And indeed, strictly speaking, Cage wrote only two compositions for chorus, both of which appear on this album: Hymns and Variations (1979) and Four2 (1990). The other works on the album are written for ensembles that are more or less open-ended and which have been interpreted here for choral forces. One reason Cage and choruses did not mix well may have been his notorious hostility to harmony in music. Arnold Schoenberg told Cage that he lacked any feeling for harmony, and that this would be a wall between him and his goal of being a composer. Given all this, it is no wonder that Cage and choruses didn’t tend to mingle together. And so it was not until Cage was 67 years old that he wrote his first work for choral forces: Hymns and Variations.
REVIEWS:
John Cage was barely a choral composer. But by combining the couple of pieces he wrote for chorus with a creative interpretation of the flexible instrumentation of a few other scores, you can arrive at an hour or so of mysterious, wordless music for vocal ensemble. “Hymns and Variations” (1979) is the earliest work on this intimate and luminous new album from the Latvian Radio Choir. Cage subtracts some notes from two hymns by the early American composer William Billings, and extends the duration of some that remain, creating an eerily pure, serene suggestion of 18th-century harmonies.
--The New York Times
That Cage delighted in provoking audiences is undoubtable, but his mischief concealed his seriousness of purpose. He revealed and explored a vast New World of sound which had hitherto been a terra incognita of the mind. But above all, Cage was a tireless proselytizer of the gospel of beauty and created some of the 20th century’s most radically beautiful music. These strands are united here in this breathtaking collection from Ondine of some of the composer’s late choral music performed by the Latvian Radio Choir.
--MusicWeb International
John Cage and choral music might seem strange bedfellows, but there was no corner of the musical landscape that this dedicated breaker of composition rules didn’t want to deconstruct. With its drifting, otherworldly textures, Five, from 1988, could almost have come from the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey, while Four2, astonishingly written for a high school choir, includes a tonal tenor and bass pairing, oozing quite unexpected calm.
[One] can’t but be stunned by the fearless skill of Sigvards Kļava’s choir as they navigate the most jagged, fragmented notes and pitches—the musical equivalent of climbing Mount Everest just with your hands and feet.
--BBC Music Magazine
There are, I think, two possible approaches to this recording. One is simply to listen through it and let the effect of the (very different) pieces on it wash over one, reacting to each in turn. The other is to read the excellent booklet notes by James Pritchett and then listen to the music, following in more or less detail what he explains in them. Either process would work, because the music is intrinsically interesting and frequently very impressive. It must be said as well that the singers sound as though they are enjoying themselves enormously.
--Gramophone
Escape Rites
Bebop Riddle IV - Hummingbird Jamboree for reed quintet
Augusta Read Thomas: Upon Wings of Words for light lyric sop
Glass, Piazzolla, Richter & Vivaldi: 16 Seasons / Quarta, De Palma, Concerto Mediterraneo
After its rediscovery in the second half of the 20th century, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons has become so popular that it has become a model of inspiration for similar collections that have the same subject matter, use similar instrumental forces and, often, are commissioned to be played alongside the original. Issued in conjunction with the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Astor Piazzolla (4 July 1992), Sixteen Seasons brings together on album for the first time the four most famous Four Seasons: hence alongside Vivaldi’s Italian concertos, also the Argentinian Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas of Piazzolla (in the version by Leonid Desyatnikov, a composer of Ukrainian origin), The American Four Seasons of Philip Glass, and the “Vivaldi recompositions” of British Max Richter. To guide us through these seasons – which are spread over different continents, climates and musical styles – is Concerto Mediterraneo, an ensemble made up of musicians from all over Italy and directed by Gianna Fratta, while the eclectic Alessandro Quarta shares the solo violin role with Dino De Palma. The liner notes by historian Alessandro Vanoli and meteorologist Luca Mercalli complete a project that also stands as a reflection on the profound relationship between man and the alternation of the seasons and the role played by climate change from Vivaldi’s day to the present.
Aho: Symphony No. 17
Thomas: Dream Catcher for solo violoncello
Thomas: Sun Dance Study Score
Lyrique
Piazzolla: Album for Astor / Bjarke Mogensen
All my life I have admired, studied and performed the music of the extraordinary Argentinian composer, Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992). So, when I was offered the chance to publish a whole instrumental Piazzolla album of my own for the centenary of his birth, I decided to base my tribute solely on Piazzolla titles but… with a little something extra. I decided to design a varied and comprehensive listening experience - an hour of accordion solos, instrumental duos, and pieces that I arranged for accordion and a small ensemble as a tribute to the Master of Tango! The music is all Astor but with a touch of Bjarke here and there and maybe everywhere, in fact. There are no singers involved, but Piazzolla’s music sings, and our instruments sing, and at every corner there is melancholy, tripping feet, fast figures, and an atmosphere of Buenos Aires.” (Bjarke Mortense) All of Piazzolla’s more than 750 works are inextricably bound to an essential and unmistakable Argentinian identity. His output includes an opera, music for the theatre, film scores, concertos, chamber music and songs. He loved to startle the listener by spicing up his music with chromaticism, dissonance and abrupt surprises: yet Piazzolla paid homage to Johann Sebastian Bach on almost every page he ever wrote. In commemoration of the genius of Nuevo Tango the young Danish master of the modern accordion, Bjarke Mortensen and his friends serve up a true musical banquet that will satisfy all tastes.
Visions and Mirages
Pärt: Lamentate / Piquero, Albiach, Orquesta de Extremadura
Death and suffering are the themes that concern every person born into this world. The way in which the individual comes to terms with these issues (or fails to do so) determines his attitude towards life, whether consciously or unconsciously … This is the subject matter underlying my composition Lamentate. Accordingly, I have written a lament – not for the dead, but for the living, who have to deal with these issues for themselves. This was how composer Arvo Pärt referred to his largest instrumental work to date and these are precisely the questions – death and suffering – which run through this recording.
Pärt, born in 1935 in Paide (Estonia), knows what he is talking about: harassed by the Soviet authorities who branded his art as over-modern and excessively religious, he underwent a profound personal crisis that led him to unfathomable suffering, reclusion and an end to his first phase of composition. As part of his subsequent artistic resurrection in the mid-nineteen seventies, he began to produce music which he defined as «tintinnabuli», inspired by the pealing of bells and based on sacred texts, mostly in Latin or in the Slavic language used in Orthodox church liturgy. Pärt himself described his style as follows: " … I must search for unity … everything that is unimportant falls away. Tintinnabulation is like this. Here I am alone with silence. I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me".
REVIEW:
The pianist Pedro Piquero studied in his home country of Spain and then the US. He has pursued a dual career of pianist and translator, producing definitive editions of foundational texts of Zen Buddhism and in 2017 becoming a Buddhist monk. This search for spiritual wisdom and transcendence makes him a performer of rare insight when addressing the music of Pärt.
-- Classical Music Daily
Perspectives / Third Coast Percussion
All World Premiere Recordings
Grammy Award-winning Third Coast Percussion, whose artistry blends “creative fearlessness with reverent precision” (BBC Music Magazine), offers an album of enterprising collaborations and world-premiere recordings of works written or arranged expressly for the Chicago-based percussion quartet, representing four different approaches to composing concert music.
Danny Elfman’s Percussion Quartet, structured like a four-movement symphony, shares distinctive traits heard in his Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated films scores, as well as hints of African balofon, Indonesian gamelan, and Shostakovich. Great admirers of composer Philip Glass, Third Coast arranged Glass’s solo piano Metamorphosis No. 1 for marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, and melodica. Rubix emerged from Third Coast Percussion’s improvisational collaboration with virtuosic, cutting-edge flute duo Flutronix, who also perform on the recording. Critically acclaimed electronic musician and composer Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton) composed her seven-movement Perspective as electronic tracks, without music notation. Third Coast transformed this work of “beautiful complexity” into a version they could perform live as a quartet.
REVIEW:
Unlike a lot of academic music for percussion ensembles, Danny Elfman makes his quartet sing sweetly, leaning heavily on the warm sounds of the marimba interlocking with tinkling tubular chimes and pitched metal pipes.
The flute duo Flutronix's piece, Rubix, features punchy flutes dancing over a chilled out vibraphone, and foggy episodes where marimba, whirly tube and bowed flexatone provide an evocative backdrop of light and shadow.
Footwork is the hyper-beat music born in Chicago's underground dance competitions and house parties in the late 1990s. On Third Coast Percussion's album, the style undergoes a mesmerizing transformation in a seven-movement suite called Perspective, by Jerrilynn Patton, who goes by Jlin.
Third Coast Percussion, with albums like Perspectives, continues to push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners.
-- NPR. org (Tom Huizenga)
Aho: Moonlight Concerto; Alto Flute Concerto
American Century
Minimalist
Aho: String Quartets Nos. 1 - 3
Loeb: An Asian Sounds Journey
Shankar, Takemitsu, Piazzolla: Music for Flute and Guitar / Mattick, Etschmann
Piazzolla: Accordion Concerto & 4 Seasons of Buenos Aires / Levickis, Pitrėnas, Mikroorkéstra, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra
Cowie: 24 Preludes for Piano / Mead
Edward Cowie is considered by many to be the greatest living composer directly inspired by the Natural World. His post-impressionist works, from the gigantic orchestral Leviathan (his first Proms commission) to his cycles of Bird Portraits and other chamber and instrumental pieces are drawing gasps of admiration from critics and audiences alike. Originally recorded for the University of Hertfordshire’s UHR label, this recording has been restored to the catalogue as part of the quickly-growing Cowie collection on Métier Records. The composer feels strongly that the individual works in the Bach ‘48’ and Debussy’s Préludes(for example) were a series of linked parts creating a greater whole. In his own ‘24’ Cowie has taken that principle but expressed it in his unique way – music that is impressionist, pictorial, descriptive and above all evocative… of place, time, flora and fauna” experiences of both natural and man-made phenomena. The Preludes follow the ‘Bach cycle of keys’ but at the same time are grouped into four books representing the ancient ‘Four Elements’.
Philip Mead studied at the Royal Academy of Music and has had a widely successful career, performing and broadcasting internationally. He had his own series on BBC Radio 3 exploring hidden pathways in piano music. A champion of contemporary composers, he founded the British Contemporary Piano Competition in 1988. He has been awarded honorary doctorates at the London College of Music and the Royal Academy and is a visiting professor of the University of Hertfordshire.
Cowie: Streams & Particles / Miyabi Duo, Spectrum Quartet
Edward Cowie is considered by many to be the greatest living composer directly inspired by the Natural World. His post-impressionist works, from the gigantic orchestral Leviathan (his first Proms commission) to his cycles of Bird Portraits and other chamber and instrumental pieces are drawing gasps of admiration from critics and audiences alike. This album focuses on Nature in the smallest sense - the subatomic building blocks of the Universe, and the conceptual realization of mathematical structures in art by the great symbolic abstract artist Kandinsky. Three works for guitar(s) - solo, duo and quartet - are bookended by a violin duo and an oboe solo in a collection which once again demonstrates Cowie’s genius and his place as one of today’s most inspired and inventive composers – a place which is being confirmed by critics more and more with each new album.
The performers are all leaders in their fields: Skærved and Trandafilovski are the two violinists with the Kreutzer Quartet as well as having varied successful careers as soloists, composers/arrangers and educators – with many Metier and Athene recordings to their names. Christopher Redgate is recognized as one of the world’s foremost oboists specializing in new music (and the inventor of the Howarth-Redgate oboe) while Saki Kato and Hugh Millington are creating a fine reputation for their championing of contemporary guitar music. They are also recording music by Trandafilovsky for a new Métier release in November. Overall this recording reinforces the brilliance of Cowie’s writing and shows his ability to create fine works for instruments he was not previously familiar with!
Piazzolla 100 on Vinyl / Turku, Württemberg Chamber Orchestra of Heilbronn
There is one phrase that Rudens Turku uses repeatedly whenever he is discussing his work: “to sink into the note.” The German-Albanian violinist employs it to underscore his principal concern, which is to feel his way into the deeper layers of a composition and at the same time to be aware of the story of its composer’s life and of the way in which that life is embedded in a particular period and its political background. He finds an almost ideal opportunity to do this in the music of Astor Piazzolla - concert music by a cosmopolitan Argentine musician of Italian ancestry who grew up in the United States.
Works for Piano Trio by Schubert & Rihm
Piazzolla: Variations on Buenos Aires / dkn, Isabelle van Keulen Ensemble
The Isabelle van Keulen Ensemble was initiated in 2011 by the internationally well established violinist and violist Isabelle van Keulen, following her Carte Blanche concert series in the Concertgebouw Haarlem, the Netherlands, with the purpose to perform Astor Piazzolla’s Tango Nuevo masterworks to the highest technical and musical standards.
Together with bandoneonist Christian Gerber, he himself one of the leading performers of his generation, and winner of several prizes such as the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, pianist Ulrike Payer, well known for her versatility and sensibility in all musical genres and double bass player Rüdiger Ludwig, a charismatic musician and Co-Principal of the NDR Orchestra Hanover, they overwhelmed their audience on their first appearance. The present release features Piazzolla’s Variations on Buenos Aires, in collaboration with dkn, the Deutsches Kammerakademie Neuss, van Keulen's string orchestra.
REVIEWS:
For the Dutch violinist Isabelle van Keulen, this recording, released by Berlin Classics, is a matter of the heart: in 2011, together with the bandoneonist Christian Gerber, the double bassist Rüdiger Ludwig and the pianist Ulrike Payer, she founded the Isabelle van Keulen Ensemble, with which she focused on tango nuevo and, above all, music by Astor Piazzolla. The classically trained violinist had always enjoyed crossing supposed genre boundaries, thus leaving the comfort zone of a classically trained and renowned violinist, at home on the concert stages of the world. Since 2019, she has also been artistic director of the German Chamber Academy Neuss, where she combines solo playing and direction from the concertmaster's podium.
So now a little homage to Astor Piazzolla. On the CD, “Piazzolla: Variations on Buenos Aires” she brings her two ensembles together. It is easy to imagine that this is not easy to implement - especially for classical musicians - since tango is not exactly part of the repertoire of orchestral musicians in training and everyday practice. But here the musicians of the German Chamber Academy Neuss surprise, or are simply strongly influenced by their artistic director. With the combination of a typical tango ensemble and a classical string orchestra, van Keulen shows through the line-up what was also typical of Astor Piazzolla and his music: although influenced by the tango from birth, the composer felt deeply attracted by so-called Western classical music. These references can also be heard in the pieces recorded here: Tres minutos con la realidad reveals echoes of Stravinsky, and his suite Silfo y Ondina shows his admiration for Bach.
The arrangements that can be heard here were created by bandoneonist Christian Gerber, taking into account the special requirements of the larger line-up. So he sometimes distributes the music only to the extended voices, or to added opposing voices; he even precedes the very well-known Oblivion with a bandoneon introduction. With this type of editing, Gerber and thus this recording are entirely in the tradition of Piazzolla, who in turn repeatedly adapted his own works to suit possible changing needs.
The selection of Piazzolla's pieces ranges from relatively unknown ones such as the above-mentioned Bach-like suite, but also such catchy tunes as Oblivion or the touching Adiós Nonino can be found on the CD. The successful collaboration of Isabelle van Keulen's two ensembles creates a successful combination between classical music and tango - something that Piazzolla always strived for. Thanks to the brilliant playing of the typical tango ensemble, this slightly different version of the works loses nothing of the typical tango sound.
-- Klassik Heute
