27th August 2024

Awards, Gramophone Awards 2024 - The Shortlist

by Chris O'Reilly

Gramophone Awards 2024

We are delighted to announce an exciting new partnership between Presto Music and Gramophone Magazine. This collaboration brings together two of the most trusted names in classical music, as we join together to enhance your musical experience.

As part of this partnership, Presto Music will serve as the recommended retailer for streaming and purchasing Gramophone's featured recordings, offering you unparalleled access to the best in classical music. We are also thrilled to be partnering on the 2024 Gramophone Awards, celebrating the very finest recordings of the year: the shortlist (featuring six nominees in eleven categories) was announced this weekend.

This year's ceremony will take place on the evening of Wednesday 2nd October, when details of special prizes including Artist, Orchestra and Recording of the Year will also be unveiled...

You can read full reviews of all the shortlisted recordings via a special digimag.

Chamber

'What stands out most for me on this disc is the unstudied refinement of their playing as well as their appreciation of the music’s subtleties.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Le Magadure, Braley and the Agate have set a new benchmark, because whether viewed individually or as a package, these readings are showstoppers.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'We’re privileged with a fine tribute not only to Mendelssohn and those inspired by his example, but to two exceptional players on top form.'

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'They meld their ensemble seamlessly and attend to minute details of phrasing and dynamics without losing sight of the shape of each movement.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'All told, it’s a most rewarding programme that gathers together an unusual array of ear-catching pieces in performances that present the music in its best possible light.'

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'The Emersons come to [the Schoenberg] as if it were new, hot from the press, and in doing so they recreate the sense of inordinate extravagance that made early audiences so uneasy.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Choral

'Elder steers a commendably purposeful course through Delius’s giant canvas, elucidating both its frequently dense textures and its adventurous chromatic harmonies with penetrating skill.'

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Even if you are a dyed-in-the-wool Elgarian with special loyalties to a particular interpretation, this CD is brimful of edifying delights and surprises worthy of repeated listening.'

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'This has to be one of the most gripping and impactful recordings of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 available right now. It is bursting with energy and passion at every opportunity.'

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Worthy and welcome as earlier recordings are, they pale in energy, in precision and conviction beside the performances here.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Brabbins, who truly understands the language of this music, judges the tempos and balance of the ensemble with instinctive sensitivity...For anyone interested in British choral music of the period, it is a must!'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Its greatest glory is perhaps the powerfully galvanised singing of the well-focused BBC Symphony Chorus – a broad spectrum of visceral expression across a huge dynamic range with every word clearly audible.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Concerto

'Bacewicz’s music certainly thrives on its high metabolic rate, its impatience, even, for which this brilliantly executed new album makes no apology.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Clean textures and effortless fluency might have been expected from the present line-up but not a subtler magic, the stylistic contrast they make between scores to reflect their place in the composer’s timeline.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'The dedication on this album reads ‘In Memoriam Lars Vogt’ – and that gives it a special resonance...Terrific disc, then, and the best kind of tribute from three exceptional musicians to one of their own.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Faust digs deep and her tone has a visceral immediacy that goes straight to the heart of the music. She is unafraid and unflinching, and vividly unleashes the passion in these pages with mesmeric power, symbiotically partnered by Jakub Hrůša.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Put it this way: anyone drawing up a canon of the finest recordings of the Rachmaninov concertos would be thought odd if they did not include this latest bid.'

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Grossmann and his players get unerringly to the emotional heart of the matter...In short, this is a fabulous disc, which immediately joins my shortlist of most urgently recommendable Weinberg recordings.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Contemporary

'The quality of performances, as of performers, says much for the respect in which Bedford’s music is held. Aficionados and newcomers alike should investigate this release.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'All six works included here underline what a diligent, imaginative and consistently engaging composer Chin is. Hers is music that deserves the parallel qualities brought to it by this illustrious orchestra.'

Available Format: 2 CDs + Blu-ray

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'All three orchestras, all three conductors and all three recordings fit well with the overriding need for lucidity as well as resolution – there’s a sense of confidence that the means are always precisely suited to the expressive ends.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'This is a marvellous collection, featuring impeccable production values and sound of flawless realism in the best BIS tradition. Not to be missed!'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Seppo Pohjola (b1965) is one of the most undeservedly underexposed composers alive and one whose music, never incidental, is always striving both technically and spiritually.'

Available Format: CD

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'There’s music on this valuable disc that I’ll return to while it reminds me, again, how the organ, her own instrument, could unlock such remarkable thoughts in her.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Early Music

'There is much to praise in these poised, polished performances, hieratic in the Mass and more intimate where the music permits it (the beginning of the ‘Qui tollis’ is lovely in a way that recalls Lassus).'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Cut Circle have plenty of revolutionary zeal. But don’t let that put you off: rather than being generalised early-music defamiliarisation, it is joyfully nuanced.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'These are all very experienced musicians with marvellous voices and a deep understanding of the repertory; and Philip Cave guides them with a thoroughly experienced and musically thoughtful hand.'

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'This is clearly a well-honed performance, strongest in delicate moments....This new release is a happy marriage of musicality and musicology.'

Available Format: SACD

'Les Arts Florissants’ elasticity of expression brings out a particularly lucid evocation of rolling waves and ‘sweet harmony’ in the concluding eight-voice ‘Vasto mar, nel cui seno fan soave armonia’.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Resurgam demonstrate the power and confidence of their ensemble, with bold lower voices and an attractive treble sheen from the sopranos.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Instrumental

'If, as is often said, Bach saw fugue as simply the most natural medium for composing beautiful music, Suzuki demonstrates that it is also good for the exciting, the playful, the sombre, and perhaps any other feeling that might come up.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Congratulations on such a stimulating enterprise. I wonder how many other players will be brave enough or inspired to tackle such a task.'

Available Format: DVD Video + 2 CDs

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'The probity of Alard’s interpretations is bolstered by the intelligence of his programming...It’s the sort of music-making that, its intellectual grasp notwithstanding, clearly emanates from the heart.'

Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'It’s an extraordinary account [of the Villa-Lobos Estudos], bursting with nuance and personality and easily rivalling Julian Bream’s classic from 1978.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Hahn’s unique qualities – her rich, pulsing tone, her technical mastery, her unabashed confidence, her imagination and her ability to present the music as freshminted.... – inclines me towards her recording as the finest currently available.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Wait until the neighbours are out, turn up the volume, give your speakers a thorough workout and yourself a tingle up the spine. Full organ. Blazing magnificence. No one plays this sort of repertoire better than Trotter.'

Available Format: CD

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Piano

'The level of detail is apt to leave you speechless. For most pianists, attaining that kind of exactitude requires a Faustian bargain in which the soul of the music (if not of the performer) is sacrificed. Not so here.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'His Chopin is as flexible and feather-light as it is fluent and fiery, as compelling in its sense of structure as in its relishing of detail. The whole experience radiates joyful, youthful exuberance.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Time and again there were details that tickled the ear with their freshness, revealing as if for the first time the anarchic brilliance of Debussy’s vision.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'This is certainly one of the finest and most compelling performances of the Transcendental Études I have ever heard. Gold Medal, yes, and other awards to follow, I suspect and hope.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Many of us will have in our collections recordings of certain live piano recitals that have achieved legendary status...Yuja Wang’s Verbier debut should be placed alongside them.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'One consistently gets caught up in Abduraimov’s gorgeous and focused sonority, his rock-solid rhythm, his boundless portfolio of shadings and nuances, plus a specificity of articulation that conveys a sense of air between the notes and the utmost in characterisation.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Opera

'The performance is a knockout. Rousset conducts with blazing conviction, admirably sustaining the high emotional pitch without once tipping towards melodrama... It’s a terrific set and a major rediscovery.'

Available Formats: 2 CDs + Book, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Winters is utterly remarkable throughout, words and gestures always telling...Despite Kosky’s occasional idiosyncrasies, this is musically overwhelming. You really do need to hear it.'

Also available on DVD.

Available Format: Blu-ray

'The LSO are on tremendous form throughout, and what follows is an unflinching journey into both beauty and darkness, as sensuousness repeatedly collides with incipient violence.'

Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'The work’s remarkable melodic beauty, luminous scoring and emotional intensity are vintage Schreker...This is the first recording of Der Schatzgräber to receive a commercial release in video format and I cannot recommend it too highly.'

Also available on DVD.

Available Format: Blu-ray

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'In short, this is a magnificent piece of advocacy for an inspired and wonderfully enjoyable opera. The finest British opera between Sullivan and Smyth? Let’s just say that in future, no one gets to answer that question without listening to this recording.'

Available Format: 2 CDs

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'This is not conducting that draws attention to itself by means of extremes of tempo or hyper-refined textures. For a Parsifal to be led so vividly by the personalities on stage makes a welcome change.'

Available Formats: 4 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Orchestral

'It’s Bernstein’s vividly characterised and impassioned interpretation that I’m most reminded of when listening to this new recording...Very highly recommended.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'It feels lived-in, inhabited, and like the recent Ninth blessed by playing from an orchestra which not only shares his vision but brings it off the page with extraordinary artistry.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Wilson aims to unite the Apollonian and Dionysian, as perspicacious about matters of sonority and articulation as Roth while operating at higher emotional voltage...No coupling but for my money this is the finest recorded Daphnis for a generation.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'I think it’s Bychkov’s ability to relate phrasing to sound that is at the heart of his success here. He plainly relishes the orchestra’s natural blend while celebrating the beauty of its soloists.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'This is one of the best new Tchaikovsky Fifths I’ve heard for ages...even if this Fifth came with no coupling, I’d still recommend it.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Scrupulously prepared and boasting some superbly coordinated, infectiously dedicated playing from the RLPO, it’s a thoroughly absorbing interpretation [of Job]...Overall, this is unquestionably a very fine achievement.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Voice & Ensemble

'An intriguing concept and a thought-provoking addition to this fearless artist’s catalogue, but one that ultimately also shows her limitations.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'An original and beautifully balanced cycle that, frankly, would grace any recital or recording. It receives a marvellous rendition from Fisher, and the accompaniments by The Navarra Quartet and William Vann are near ideal.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'The folk element is never far away. It’s an approach that naturally lends itself to Hughes’s flowing lines and subtle, sparing use of vibrato.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'There’s plenty of vocal heroics from Spyres, as one would expect...this is another fine, fascinating album from an unusually interesting and intelligent artist, handsomely recorded.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Her soprano is in remarkably good shape, supple and elegant, her diction exemplary and her phrasing exquisite, deftly capturing the mood of each song.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'What a sound! Tetelman’s tenor possesses gleaming brightness, and his open vowels and excellent Italian diction make him the sunniestsounding tenor since Luciano Pavarotti.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Song

'Another superb disc, in short, from a singer and pianist who always seem to think and feel as one. Its rediscoveries may prove significant, too.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Long a natural Mozart singer, Devieilhe has acquired a more Straussian depth of tone while maintaining her trademark clarity that also reveals her great comprehension of the music.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'There’s certainly no shortage of outstanding recordings of this cycle but this new one – considered, refined and beautifully sung, played and recorded – is among the most satisfying and quietly moving to come my way for a long time.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'The result really is something special, a performance of growing intensity and concentration, which gradually exerted an iron grip on me as listener – right up until a deeply moving ‘Der Leiermann’.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'It’s a portrait of an artist who has shown us many faces on those 100 discs but whose voice remains a constant: sweet, flexible, alive to the text. And always intelligent.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

'Sherratt’s interpretations have an imposing power all their own, the deep, oaky patina of the voice carrying with it a special emotional weight.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive

Chris grew up in London and studied cello from the age of 5. He never did enough practice to get really good at it, but caught a passion for Classical music which would stick with him forever. He has wide ranging musical tastes, still plays Chamber music and particularly loves Mahler.

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Awards, Gramophone Awards 2024 - The Shortlist

Chamber

Choral

Concerto

Contemporary

Early Music

Instrumental

Piano

Opera

Orchestral

Voice & Ensemble

Song

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