2023 was pretty definitively my year of classical music. This year, I have learned about sonatas, concertos, symphonies, piano miniatures, and vespers. I have listened from Mahler’s First to Mahler’s Sixth. I know that some people are inexplicably very mad at Yuja Wang and Igor Levit. I have attended concerts by both my local orchestra (shout-out to the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra!) and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. I’ve had a great time with all of it. I didn’t just stick to classical, of course. I listened to other music, too. Classical music was, however, the defining musical force in my year, the music that kept me rolling through when things got tough. In the list below, I present to you the classical albums I most enjoyed this year. They’re not all (or even mostly!) from 2023. They’re just the records that captured my attention as I tried to learn about music I haven’t spent much time with in the past.

The obvious asterisk on everything above and below is that I am not by any means a classical music expert. If some of this is wrong or inexact, I hope you’ll take this in the enthusiastic spirit it is intended. Right or wrong, I planning to keep listening, keep learning, and keep enjoying.

Brahms: Piano Trios - Renaud Capuçon

To me, Brahms’s piano trios have a very autumnal sort of melancholy. They have been wonderful companions through our long fall, the fall that won’t quite turn into winter. Capuçon’s recordings feel intimate and vigorous in exactly the right way.

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations - Vikingur Ólafsson

Someone will undoubtedly ask me if I have any thoughts about Glenn Gould’s versions of the Goldberg Variations. I do not. I listened to them and I thought they were fine. I think Ólafsson’s recording benefits from a gorgeous crystalline sound, something that I prize when I’m listening to solo piano music. The quality of the recording is just perfect, Ólafsson’s performance is divine, and I don’t feel a particular need at this point in time to listen to others. I’ll come back to Glenn Gould in the future, though. The comparison will be fun to make!

Mahler: Symphony No. 1 - Bernard Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

The third movement of Mahler’s First Symphony, which blends klezmer and “Frère Jacques,” feels like the soundtrack to a lost world. I adore it. The bluster and bombast of the first and fourth movements of the symphony render the simplicity of the third all that much more effective. I’ve tried several recordings, but it’s Haitink’s that has stuck with me across the year. It haunts me more than any other piece of music I’ve heard in recent memory. Give it a few listens and see if it does the same for you.

Rachmaninov: Isle of the Dead; Symphonic Dances - Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

A performance of Isle of the Dead that matches the grim majesty of the title and a vigorous version of Symphonic Dances that evokes all the doom of Rachminov’s repeated use of the “Dies irae.” A great pairing and a great record.

Schubert: Winterreise - Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis

Early in the year, I read tenor Ian Bostridge’s Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession. It’s a really beautiful dive into Winterreise, which I found to be incredibly haunting. It wasn’t, though, Bostridge’s version of Winterreise that caught me when I went to pick a recording. I’ve always loved Mark Padmore’s voice. It isn’t strong, it isn’t powerful in the way that the voices of some of the great tenors are powerful. It is clear, aching, beautiful. Paul Lewis plays wonderfully, too, but it is Padmore who really makes the recording something special. That voice. I also like his recording with Kristian Bezuidenhout, but for my money the Lewis recording is the one to go for.

Beethoven: Diabelli Variations - Mitsuko Uchida

I listened to a lot of Mitsuko Uchida’s work this year, but it was her Diabelli Variations that stood out to me. A thought-provoking and frequently moving rendition of my favorite solo piano discovery this year.

Busoni: Piano Concerto (Live) - Kirill Gerstein, Sakari Oramo, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra

So, yes, Busoni’s concerto is a bit of a monster. It’s huge and long and ridiculous and concludes with a men’s chorus singing a prayer to Allah from a bad stage version of the story of Aladdin. It is and does all of those things. And I love every bit of it. The piano doesn’t take center stage. Instead, it responds to the orchestra or wanders around in the background. This recording with Kirill Gerstein performing as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra is tremendous. It captures the scale and grandeur of the work in an electric live performance. So, so good and so, so worth a listen.

Bruckner: Symphony No. 3, WAB 103 (1873 Version) - Simone Young and the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra

Bruckner’s awkward and unwieldy Third Symphony is not the best symphony I listened to this year. I loved all the time I spent with it, though. To me it feels like an ocean heaving or the soundtrack to a bank of clouds coming over a mountain range. Sometimes that is what I want to listen to, whether it’s perfect or not.

Mahler: Symphony No. 2, “Ressurection”; Debussy: La Mer - Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra

Two remarkable performances from late in Claudio Abbado’s conducting career. I haven’t spent enough time with this record yet, but I do love the juxtaposition of Debussy’s La Mer, which does such a wonderful job depicting water, with Mahler’s Second Symphony, which moves out and away from the world. I’ll come back to this one again in 2024.

A Symphony Celebration (Music from the Studio Ghibli Films of Hayao Miyazaki) - Joe Hisaishi and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Scoff all you want. Go ahead. I know that this isn’t classical music in the strictest sense. It is, however, orchestral and really lovely. Joe Hisaishi’s Studio Ghibli scores are frequently breathtakingly gorgeous and this performance of selections from them does not fall short of the mark. A great introduction to Hisaishi’s work.