The 2012 Classical Music Lists: Monday’s Bow (December 10)

As we wrap up the year 2012, this isn’t just time for Christmas trees and decorations to go up. This is also the time of year when people post their “top ___ of 2012” lists. For classical music, that generally means the top albums of the year. And this year is no different.

Here are ten listening favorites of the year (and one reading favorite) from the New Yorker:

1. “Drama Queens”: Arias by Orlandini, Porta, Handel, Hasse, Cesti, Keiser, Monteverdi, Giacomelli, and Haydn; Joyce DiDonato, Alan Curtis leading Il Complesso Barocco (Virgin Classics).
2. Berg and Beethoven, Violin Concertos; Isabelle Faust, Claudio Abbado, Orchestra Mozart (Harmonia Mundi).
3. Schubert, “Winterreise”; Florian Boesch, Malcolm Martineau (Onyx Classics).
Bach, St. Matthew Passion; Mark Padmore, Christian Gerhaher, Magdalena Kozena, Topi Lehtipuu, Thomas Quasthoff, Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic and the Rundfunkchor Berlin, Peter Sellars directing (Berlin Philharmonic DVD).
4. Wagner, “Tristan und Isolde”; Nina Stemme, Stephen Gould, Kwangchul Youn, Michelle Breedt, Johan Reuter, Marek Janowski conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (PentaTone).
5. Vivaldi, Bassoon Concertos, Vol. 2; Sergio Azzolini, L’Aura Soave Cremona (Naïve).
6. “endBeginning”: Works by Brumel, Crecquillon, Clemens non Papa, Josquin, Jackson Hill; New York Polyphony (BIS).
7. Kristin Norderval, “Aural Histories” (Deep Listening)
8. Feldman, “Crippled Symmetry”; Eberhard Blum, Jan Williams, Nils Vigeland (frozen reeds).
9. Ligeti, Etudes Books I and II, Beethoven, Sonata Opus 111; Jeremy Denk (Nonesuch).
10. Music Book of the Year: Matthew Guerrieri’s “The First Four Notes: Beethoven’s Fifth and the Human Imagination” (Knopf).
11. Movie Score of the Year: Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score for Bill Morrison’s “The Miners’ Hymns.”

Read the original article – Ten Notable Classical Music Recordings of 2012

Other stories from the classical music world:

• If the above recordings didn’t spur you to fill your Christmas stockings, perhaps an alternate list will do! Here are seven more classical music albums that you can put under the Christmas tree.
• Meanwhile, the winter season is also bringing classical music to a new stage for the first time. The Johannesburg Market Theatre has taken on an unprecedented main event: dubbed “The Festival of Classical Music.”
• Gustavo Dudamel, who’s been appearing in our headlines as of late, makes yet another appearance… having recently collaborated once again with the Washington Performing Arts Society.
• The Guardian looks forward to 2013, which will mark two centuries since the birth of two titanic composers of the romantic and post-romantic eras.
• Finally, more and more classical music lists! That’s how one author posits classical music is “going mainstream” in a world of hip hop, rock, and alternative. “When it comes to lists, there’s music and there’s classical music.”