Favorites of 2025: Recordings

As with the other posts in this series, the recordings listed below are my favorites of those first experienced in 2025. I've listed them below by musical category in chronological order by period.

Renaissance polyphony

Two all-male choirs made my list for 2025. Although in this music we also very much enjoy mixed ensembles such as the Huelgas Ensemble, Stile Antico, and Tallis Scholars, during the Renaissance sacred polyphony was probably most often sung by single-sex choirs. (Although the repeated edicts barring women from church choirs does make one wonder why the ban had to be so often reissued.) I confess as well that I simply like the sound of all-male (and all-female) choirs. Both of these groups are exceptional, and their programs were of music mainly unfamiliar to me.

Queen of Hearts. The Gesualdo Six, Owain Park, director. Hyperion CDA68453; recorded 2023.

This album features songs of praise for the Virgin Mary and "regretz chansons" (songs of lamenting and despair) from the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Much of the music is associated with four queens: Anne of Brittany, Margaret of Austria, Anne Boleyn and Mary Tudor. Three of the queens died relatively young from ill health, sudden or chronic; one, Anne Boleyn, was executed by her husband, King Henry VIII, after unsubstantiated accusations of adultery, incest and treason. The music is exquisite, and includes two contemporary works (one by the group's leader Owain Park) that fit into the program almost seamlessly.

"Sub tuum praesidium" by Antoine Brumel, c. 1500:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAvNucEv1Qk

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, sancta Dei genetrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.

To thy protection we fly, O Holy Mother of God; Do not spurn our prayers in our time of need, but from all dangers deliver us always, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.

Jacobus Vaet: Missa Ego flos campi. Cinquecento. Hyperion CDA67733; recorded 2008.

Vaet, a composer new to me, died in 1567 at age 37. His music does not sound as dark or melancholy to my ears as that of the Franco-Flemish composers of the "regretz chansons" from a generation or two before him, although perhaps that is because most of the music on this disc is devotional and laudatory. It is beautifully performed by the voices of Cinquecento, with the floating countertenor of Terry Wey of particular note.

Vaet's "Miserere mei, Deus," c. 1562:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAEWIH4PgEI

Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam. Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum: et in peccatis concepit me mater mea. Miserere mei, Deus.

Have mercy upon me, O God: according to thy lovingkindness. and according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me. Have mercy upon me, O God.

Baroque opera and oratorio

Johann Adolf Hasse: Piramo e Tisbe. Barbara Schlick (Piramo), Ann Monoyios (Tisbe), Wilfred Jochens (Padre). La Stagione, Michael Schneider, conductor. Capriccio 60 043-2; recorded 1993.

In October 1763 the 64-year-old Johann Adolf Hasse, Kapellmeister of the Dresden court of the Elector of Saxony August II, lost his position when his patron died. It was the latest in a series of catastrophes: earlier that year on returning to Dresden after several years, Hasse had discovered that his house and all of his musical manuscripts had been destroyed during the Prussian bombardment of the city in 1760. After August's death, the new Elector instituted economies and ended large-scale musical activity at the court. Hasse and his wife Faustina Bordoni were given two years' salary, but no pension for their 30 years of service. They departed for Vienna early in 1764.

In Vienna Hasse found himself enmeshed in controversy. He was upheld as an exemplar of Metastasian opera seria against the reformers Christoph Willibald Gluck and his librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi. Gluck and Calzabigi meant to do away with what they considered the old-fashioned and static conventions of opera seria, such as the da capo exit aria intended to showcase virtuoso vocalism. Instead, they wanted to push the dramatic action forward more swiftly. Two years before they had produced an opera following these principles, Orfeo ed Euridice (1762).

Johann Adolf Hasse, engraved by Friedrich Johann Kauke after a painting by Pietro Rotari, ca. 1763. Image source: Museum-Digital Sachsen-Anhalt

Hasse must have seen the false position in which he'd been placed as something of a challenge. When an opera was privately commissioned from him in 1768, he responded by producing a Gluck-like work with just three characters, featuring short arias with few repeats that emerged out of accompanied recitative and flowed back into recitative without a break, and that reaches its conclusion in a swift two hours—very much like Orfeo ed Euridice.

Piramo e Tisbe is based on Book IV of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Prefiguring Romeo and Juliet, Pyramus and Thisbe have fallen in love, but their families are at odds. In the face of a parental ban on their union, they plan to elope. But their plan goes awry, and disaster ensues. Hasse and his librettist Marco Coltellini went further even than the reformers: their intermezzo tragico is a true tragedy. Unlike in Orfeo ed Euridice, no gods intervene to ensure a happy ending and reunite the couple. Instead, this is the very rarest and darkest of 18th-century operas: at the end, all the characters in the opera—the two lovers along with Tisbe's father, who had forbidden their union—are dead, and all have died by suicide.

Pyrame et Thisbé. Line engraving by Vicenzo Vangelisti after Guido Reni, 18th century. Wellcome Collection 42992i

This recording was one of the first ever made of this work, and has stood the test of time. As Tisbe, Ann Monoyios displays a pretty soprano with an appropriate touch of plaintiveness. The opera was commissioned by the singer who played the original Tisbe, and Hasse lavished his gift for beautiful melodies on the character. Barbara Schlick's Piramo offers a slightly harder-edged voice, not as appealing but well-suited to her male role. Tisbe's father was written for the librettist Coltellini himself, a tenor. Wilfred Jochens' voice is sufficiently ringing to provide a sense of authority, even if to my ears his music doesn't sound particularly threatening. 

Piramo e Tisbe has received a new recording this year on Harmonia Mundi featuring Roberta Mameli as Tisbe, Anett Frisch as Piramo, and Jeremy Ovenden as the father, accompanied by Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin conducted by Bernhard Forck. The two leads on the Harmonia Mundi recording are perhaps stronger than those on the Capriccio recording, although I prefer Jochens to Ovenden as the father. On Harmonia Mundi, Forck employs somewhat swifter tempi and has the singers emphasize the drama, while on the earlier recording Schneider takes a more measured and stately approach. Forck also cuts the ballet music that concludes each act, and which may not have been composed by Hasse. If you don't already own a copy of this work, the new recording might be the preferred one. But this earlier recording is a very satisfying discovery, and I'm not rushing out to replace it.

Tisbe's Act I aria "Perduto l'amato bene," in which she begs her father not to force her to marry another man against her will:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w92tQqXCxjM

Perdero l'amato bene rompero quel dolce laccio; ma que ad altro amate in braccio per tua man mi guidi amor! Ah non posso, ah non sia vero adorato genitor. Tanta forza al cor non sento. Mi sgomento il sol pensiero. Basterebbe in quel momento ad uccidermi il dolor.

Should I renounce my love and sever that sweet bond? Should my love for you guide me into the arms of another lover? Oh, I couldn't! It could not be true my dearest father. It is not in my heart's power. I am dismayed by the thought alone. It would be enough at that moment to kill me with pain.

Hasse: Serpentes ignei in deserto. Philippe Jaroussky (Moses), Julia Lezhneva (The Angel), Bruno de Sá (Josue), Carlo Vistoli (Eleazar), Jakub Józef Orliński (Nathanael), David Hansen (Eliab). Les Accents, Thibault Noally, conductor. Erato 2173239904; recorded 2023.

There are fireworks aplenty in Hasse's oratorio Fiery Serpents in the Desert. The work depicts an Old Testament incident during the 40 years Moses and the Israelites wandered in the desert after Exodus: God sends venomous snakes to punish the restive Israelites, who can only be saved by reaffirming their faith. The oratorio was written around 1735 for the all-female instrumentalists and vocalists of the Ospedale degli Incurabili orphanage in Venice. Judging from the music in Serpentes ignei in deserto, they must have been extraordinary virtuosi.

In this recording five of the six roles originally sung by women are taken by an all-star lineup of countertenors. Although the presence of perennial favorite Philippe Jaroussky is the reason I bought this for my partner, it is the male sopranist Bruno de Sá who provides the most astonishment.

There is another, older recording on Harmonia Mundi that features a gender-reversed group of soloists in the male roles, including the wonderful mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d'Oustrac along with contralto Annette Markert and sopranos Isabelle Poulenard and Valérie Gabail; countertenor Robert Expert is the Angel. In this live recording the singers are accompanied by Les Paladins conducted by Jérôme Correas. I'm very curious, as the Harmonia Mundi recording matches more closely the historical forces that first performed this work. However, if you are a fan of countertenor singing there is every reason to experience this new recording.

Josue's "Spera, o cor" sung  by Bruno de Sá, accompanied by Les Accents conducted by Thibault Noally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THeA4aWbld0

Spera, o cor, spera, laetare, consolare, veniet lux, veniet laetitia; in moestitia sic afflictum non plorabis. Surge laeta aura splendoris, aura amoris, infelici sede optata cor tranquillum habitatis.

Hope, my heart, hope and rejoice, be comforted: your light will come, your joy will come; you will not weep thus amid affliction and sadness. Arise, joyful breath of splendor, breath of love; though in a place of unhappiness you will live with a peaceful heart.

Invocazioni Mariane. Andreas Scholl (countertenor), Accademia Bizantina, Alessandro Tampieri, conductor. Naïve V5474; recorded 2022.

Andreas Scholl turned 58 this year, and so it's unclear how many more recordings we can expect from him. However, his voice on this album of Marian music of the early and mid-18th century still retains much of its fullness and purity; on this evidence he could continue to perform and record for years to come.

Most of the composers represented are Neapolitan, including Nicola Porpora, Leonardo Vinci, Giovanni Pergolesi, and Pasquale Anfossi, and most of the pieces included are vocal or instrumental excerpts from Easter oratorios. All of the works on the disc by these composers were unfamiliar to me, which just emphasizes how much high-quality music of this era remains to be discovered.

The one work that seems out of place is Antonio Vivaldi's Stabat Mater. It's a curious choice for this album because Vivaldi was from Naples (he was born in Venice and spent most of his professional life in Northern Italy) and Stabat Mater is not an oratorio (although neither is Anfossi's Salve Regina). Also, Scholl has recorded it at least twice before, in 1995 with Ensemble 415 conducted by Chiara Banchini, and in 2017 with Bach Consort Wien conducted by Rubén Dubrovsky. Beautiful as Vivaldi's work is, I wish that Scholl had sought out more under-performed Marian music by other Naples-based composers such as Leonardo Leo or Francesco Durante. 

Finally, a word about the cover showing a furtive-looking and unshaven Scholl in a hoodie and overcoat, looking like he's about to do a smash-and-grab at a jewelry store: not sure what the thought was there, but perhaps there should have been a second one. A curious cover for an otherwise lovely album.

From Anfossi's Salve Regina, "Ad te suspiram":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmKqjf3d60s

Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle.

To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

Music after 1800

Schubert: Lieder. Elly Ameling, soprano, with Rudolf Jansen, piano. Philips 416 294-2; recorded 1984.

This is the second year in a row the Dutch soprano Elly Ameling has appeared on my favorites list (see Favorites of 2024: Recorded music). She had a four-decade-long career, primarily as an exponent of art song; in a different era for the dissemination and reception of classical music, she recorded over a hundred albums. I'm still in the process of discovering her many recordings, which reveal her lovely soprano and her thoughtful approach to each song.

Although over the course of her career she sang music by many 18th- and 19th-century composers, she is known especially as a supreme interpreter of Schubert. This was her second album of Schubert songs with accompanist Rudolf Jansen, her third long-time partner after Jörg Demus and Dalton Baldwin. I look forward to many more years of exploring her extensive discography.

Schubert's "Am Bach im Frühling" (By the brook in springtime), D. 361; the poem is by Franz von Schober:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d9PNtx_FX0

Du brachst sie nun, die kalte Rinde, Und rieselst froh und frei dahin, Die Lüfte wehen wieder linde, Und Moos und Gras wird neu und grün. Allein, mit traurigem Gemüte Tret ich wie sonst zu deiner Flut. Der Erde allgemeine Blüte Kommt meinem Herzen nicht zu gut. Hier treiben immer gleiche Winde, Kein Hoffen kommt in meinen Sinn, Als dass ich hier ein Blümchen finde, Blau, wie sie der Erinnrung blühn.

You have broken now the frozen crust, and ripple along, joyful and free; the breezes blow mild again, moss and grass are fresh and green. Alone, with sorrowful thoughts, I come as before to your waters; the blossoming of the whole earth does not gladden my heart. Here the same winds forever blow, no hope cheers my spirit, save that I find a flower here, blue, like the blossoms of remembrance.

Other favorites of 2025:

• Books
• Live and streamed performances
• Movies and television (coming soon)