Tune in to WRTI on Sept. 6 from 3-6 p.m. to hear this month's edition of Sunday Classical: New Releases. Host Mark Pinto will play highlights from a number of recent albums, including a rhythmic release from PUBLIQuartet; an album for two saxophones featuring Otis Murphy and Masaki Tadenuma; and solo piano releases from Bruce Liu, Jimin Oh-Havenith, and Peter Donohoe.
Rhythm Nation
PUBLIQuartet
This NYC-based ensemble is celebrated for their performances of genre-blending repertoire highlighting the diversity of American culture. Their wide-ranging, toe-tapping latest album explores new commissions as well as reimaginings of works written for the equally forward-looking Kronos Quartet. It’s got a good beat and you could dance to it!
Lunaris
Bruce Liu (piano)
The 2021 International Chopin Competition winner hailed for his virtuosity and “elegance and lightness of touch” (The Guardian), Bruce Liu takes the moon as his inspiration in a release devoted to luminous nocturnal pieces by Chopin, Debussy, Bach, Schoenberg, Ligeti, and Hahn, including renditions of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” and “Waldstein” Sonatas and Scriabin’s Sonata No. 4.
Scenes From Finland
Oulu Sinfonia, Rumon Gamba (conductor)
Theatrical orchestral suites by four Finnish composers, largely from the first half of the 20th century, occupy this new outing by Finland’s Oulu Sinfonia and chief conductor Rumon Gamba. Alongside enchanting and colorful works for stage and screen by Selim Palmgren, Einar Englund, and Kalervo Tuukkanen, a highlight here is Jean Sibelius’ rarely-heard suite from Scaramouche, a 1912 ballet-pantomime inspired by the commedia dell’arte and focusing on erotic desire, death, and the macabre.
The Leipzig Collegium Musicum Vol. 1: Music before Bach
Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum Leipzig, Reinhard Goebel (conductor)
The Collegium Musicum became a cornerstone of Leipzig’s musical life during the leadership of Johann Sebastian Bach. Formed in 1979, the New Bach Collegium Musicum presents an album of historically informed performances on modern instruments offering a glimpse into Leipzig’s rich musical life at the beginning of the 18th century, the time before Bach. Suites and concertos by leading figures Telemann, Fasch, Graupner, and Heinichen join world premiere recordings of pieces by lesser-known lights.
Mozart: Don Giovanni
Andrè Schuen (Don Giovanni, baritone), Luca Pisaroni (Leporello, bass-baritone), Miah Persson (Donna Elvira, soprano), Maria Bengtsson (Donna Anna, soprano), Bernard Richter (Don Ottavio, tenor), Samantha Gaul (Zerlina, soprano), Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer (conductor)
Leading Mozart interpreters Andrè Schuen and Luca Pisaroni head a first-rate cast in Mozart’s operatic masterpiece uniquely blending comedy, melodrama, and the supernatural. Recorded live in 2025 at the magnificent Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy, this is the first volume in a planned trilogy of Mozart opera recordings (to include The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro).
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4, 'Romantic'
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Nathalie Stutzmann (conductor)
With this landmark release, Nathalie Stutzmann becomes the first woman conductor to record Bruckner’s popular symphony with a major U.S. orchestra. Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony since 2022, the contralto-turned-conductor brings her acclaimed Wagnerian insight to this cornerstone work by one of her favorite composers to whose music she has acknowledged a deep connection. One not to miss!
CHANGES
Jimin Oh-Havenith (piano)
German-South Korean pianist Jimin Oh-Havenith has been honored for her deeply emotional, intellectually rigorous, and faithful interpretations of the Romantic repertoire. This fourth volume in her widely acclaimed series of Schumann recordings focuses on the composer’s works in the theme-and-variations form, beginning with his first published composition, the Abegg Variations, continuing with the technically formidable Symphonic Variations, and ending with his last completed piece, the agitated and shadowy Ghost Variations.
Simple Gifts
Otis Murphy (saxophone), Masaki Tadenuma (saxophone), Haruko Murphy (piano), Renée Murphy (harp), Ethan Murphy (cello)
It’s a family affair in this album of music for two saxophones. Internationally in-demand American saxophonist Otis Murphy, his pianist wife and other members of his family, perform alongside Japanese saxophonist Masaki Tadenuma in original creations by contemporary composers Ryota Ishikawa and Steven Galante, arrangements of movie and TV themes by James Horner and Jay Ungar, and an arrangement of Jean-Marie Leclair’s conversational Sonata for Two Violins, Op. 3, No. 3.
Franz von Suppé: Fantasia Symphonica & Spanish Dances
Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, Ernst Theis (conductor)
The 19th century Austrian composer Franz von Suppé is known today almost exclusively — and unfairly — for the lively and tuneful overtures he wrote for his own light operas which themselves have all but been forgotten. This recording gives listeners a chance to enjoy some of his other orchestral output showing off his brilliant use of color and mastery of counterpoint. The substantial Fantasia Symphonica is paired with twelve spirited Spanish Dances. Worth seeking out.
The American Concerto, Volume One
Jennifer Koh (violin), Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, Timothy Weiss (conductor)
Curtis Institute alum and award-winning violinist Jennifer Koh has launched the first volume of recordings of concertos by composers she’s commissioned to write compositions that reflect American experiences, stories, and identities. Vijay Iyer’s energetic Trouble takes as its themes racial violence and anti-Asian prejudice, while Courtney Bryan’s Syzygy honors the work of three women artists: Alma Thomas, Frida Kahlo, and Maya Ying Lin.
Edvard Grieg: Lyric Pieces, Volume 2
Peter Donohoe (piano)
Highly esteemed British pianist Peter Donohoe concludes his survey of Edvard Grieg’s autobiographical Lyric Pieces, 66 pieces written and published over the course of his lifetime, often influenced by the folk music of his native Norway. These are presented with one of Grieg’s most substantial and significant piano works, the Ballade, Op. 24, a melancholic theme-and-variations written in the wake of the deaths of Grieg’s parents within weeks of each other in 1875.
