Period: Romantic

Lauded cellist Emily Mantone is accompanied by Umi Garrett on BEETHOVEN: THE COMPLETE CELLO SONATAS, working in tandem to bring a new and distinctive tone to the five sonatas weaving through the lifetime of the great composer.

The cello-piano duo is justly hailed for its tremendous expressiveness. Cellist Juliana Soltis and pianist Ruoting Li remarkably demonstrate this setup's emotive power on AMERICAN WOMAN while championing a noble cause — highlighting underrepresented women composers. Featuring works by Mary Howe, Amy Beach, Margaret Bonds, Helen Crane, Dorothy Rudd Moore, and Florence Price, AMERICAN WOMAN sheds light on a treasure trove of rarely heard gems of cello-piano literature. The general tone is sweeping, romantic, expressive, at times fierce and energetic, then again tender and delicate. Soltis and Li show extraordinary ability not only in bringing out the unique style of each composer, but also in uniting them all in a great artistic effort.

Eric Schultz’s masterful clarinet playing speaks in new and known tongues on POLYGLOT, a concept album celebrating music as a language of cultural identity and the self. A strong advocate of living composers, Schultz opens with an engrossing performance of Iván Enrique Rodríguez’s Sonata Santera, exploring the development and evolution of three Caribbean Santeria rituals. Schultz captures the enchanting, mystical nature of the rituals between the rhythmic, driving movements, occasionally accompanied by percussive elements.  Schultz follows with Críptico no. 9: DAVЯTHAN, an interpretive piece that centralizes language and text-setting at the core of its composition. Shortly followed is Johnny Navarro’s romantic Danzón, a nostalgic work punctuated by fleeting moments of sensuality. The same intimacy is carried into Chiayu Hsu’s Summer Night in a Deep Valley, showcasing meditative episodes on the natural beauty expressed in Guo Xi’s Chinese landscape paintings. Likewise, Gabriel Bouche Caro’s Escenas explores a meditation on self-identity and its existence as a product of culture, the clarinet never languishing in melancholic passages, but always remaining reflective and curious. POLYGLOT culminates with the Brahms Trio, Op. 114, a composition inspired by the clarinet playing of friend Richard Mühlfeld, an inspiration so strong it served to pull the composer from retirement. To Schultz, a quarterfinalist for the 2025 GRAMMY® Music Educator of the Year, music is a hallmark of metamorphosis that drives cultural change across history, the performer and composer working in tandem to create something inspired and new — speaking each other’s language, you might say.

Fairy tales have deeply and consistently fascinated humanity throughout the centuries. Enter NEW ENCHANTMENTS, bassoonist Cornelia Sommer's exploration of magical archetypes that features music by living composers along with new arrangements by Sommer herself across six world premiere recordings. Sommer has also written a prize-winning dissertation on the subject of fairy tales in music, adding further depth to this performance that showcases her musical virtuosity, great feeling for nuance, lyrical storytelling, and profound expertise to illuminate every last detail. Enriching and engrossing, this album could not be more aptly titled.

WANDERINGS, the debut album from pianist Brian Woods, reflects the beauty that can emerge in dark times. Woods performs Chopin's Ballades alongside pioneering compositions from Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger, and Amy Beach. The album was born as an artistic response to the horror of the war in Ukraine; through these emotive and technically-demanding performances, Woods offers comfort and inspiration for people everywhere suffering displacement. Just as Chopin wrestled with what it meant to be Polish while living outside of Poland, Woods seeks identity and transformation through exile. In WANDERINGS, Woods leverages the power of music to bridge the gap between despair and hope.

Accomplished Brazilian pianist Eliane Rodrigues interprets Chopin with a highly combustible melange of precision, expressiveness and dynamism on her newest release, DREAMSCAPE. With her trademark crystal-clear tone and larger-than-life interpretation, Rodrigues brings Late-Romantic grandeur to the Romantic composer. The juxtaposition of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 with his famous Préludes op. 28 impressively highlights one of the greatest strengths of Rodrigues: her ability to coax orchestral colors from seemingly straightforward solo piano pieces. The shades and hues she manages to produce unveil an entirely new facet of the Polish composer's works: a sense of spatial vastness and exuberance.

Internationally renowned and award-winning pianist Hyewon Chang makes her Navona Records debut on FANTASIE REFLECTIONS, a carefully crafted collection of fantasias from Mozart and Schumann effortlessly brought to peak form. Chang’s fluent attention to temperance in Mozart’s Fantasia in C Minor (K. 396) captures improvisational elements and collaborative effect in Maximilian Stadler’s completion of the 1782 composition. So to does Chang treat the wide range of captivating themes nestled in the folds of Fantasia in D Minor (K. 397) with equal musicality and assurance; the same for Fantasia in C Minor (K. 475), a pinnacle of Mozart’s repertoire given new breath in an unwaveringly grand iteration. Rounded out with Schumann’s Fantasie in C Major, a staggering journey into the innermost impassions, dedications, and toils of the composer himself, FANTASIE REFLECTIONS comes as a masterful recording to be long-lauded by dedicatees of Mozart and Schumann alike.

Piano visionary Sandrine Erdely-Sayo pays a dignified tribute to Maestro Franz Liszt in MAJESTIC LISZT, an intimate recording of some of his finest works. Having a deep respect and admiration since childhood, Erdely-Sayo pours every ounce of her being into capturing the contemplative and song-like quality that pervades Liszt’s middle-to-late repertoire. A rich and elegant session, it’s impossible not to be enraptured by her sensitive and languishing treatment in Consolations, nor her delicate attention to poetics in the melody lines of Ständchen and Romance in E Minor. Erdely-Sayo shines in the beloved Liebesträume, delivering an electrifying interpretation while still maintaining a dream-like musicality at its core. MAJESTIC LISZT is a perfect introduction to the Maestro’s oeuvre, catering to both devoted Liszt enthusiasts and those just starting to explore his music.

Embracing the same spirit of innovation and artistic exploration that captivated audiences in its previous installments, SYMPHONIC CHRONICLES VOL III unites a diverse assembly of today’s leading composers and performers. This edition offers listeners a variety of themes and moods to explore, from perspectives of an ancient civilization to Croatian folklore, remembrance of those we’ve lost, odes to the tranquility and vastness of our natural world, and more. Performed by several celebrated ensembles, each piece in this Navona Records release lends a fresh perspective and unique voice to the celebrated tradition of classical orchestral music.

The singing quality of string instruments ties together SONGS FOR A NEW CENTURY, a program featuring both world premiere recordings of new music commissioned for the artists and world premiere recordings of masterpieces by Mendelssohn. The program opens with a set of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words, beginning with the Opus 109 written by the composer for cello and piano. It continues with a set of arrangements for cello and piano, some recorded for the first time, by the 19th century cellist Alfredo Piatti, a personal friend of Mendelssohn’s upon whose cello Jonathan Miller plays. Gabriela Lena Frank’s Operetta for violin and cello, the composer writes, expands upon Mendelssohn’s concept of the “song without words,” creating opera without words that evokes scenes and characters through singing music for the duo of violin (Lucia Lin) and cello. Scott Wheeler’s second cello sonata, Songs Without Words, was inspired by Miller’s singing cello tone. Finally, Judith Weir’s Three Chorales for cello and piano meditate on religious poetry, departing from hymn texts –– and in the third Chorale, a melody from Hildegard of Bingen –– in a triptych that evokes the human condition.

American concert pianist Steven Masi explores the depths of Romantic and Impressionist piano literature on BALLADES & OTHER MUSINGS. Emotive, evocative, and deeply stirring, Masi uncovers previously unheard nuances in both Chopin and Debussy, as well as in their contemporary colleague, Sarah Kirkland Snider, whose musical language seamlessly blends with that of her predecessors. The precision in Masi's performance is breathtaking. It lends an extraordinary clarity to works that are, by their inherent nature, wayward and exalted. Still, generous rubato and creativity in pedaling shine in this program, as does Masi's crystal-clear tone.

Virtuoso Linda Wiley performs four flute sonatas from 19th and 20th century composers on FOUR SONATAS FOR FLUTE AND PIANO. The album fulfills her aspiration to record pieces that are both challenging and also personally meaningful to her. These include Sonata For Flute And Piano by Francis Poulenc, Sonate Pour Flûte Et Piano by Jindřich Feld, Sonata In A Major by César Franck, and Recuerdos De Mexico, Sonata for Flute and Piano by Arthur Gottschalk. Many of the works share a connection to legendary French flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal; Wiley’s flute mentor Jan Cole studied under Rampal for five years, and Wiley is proud to carry on her musical lineage in this Navona Records release.

Henley Heyn’s self-titled HENLEY HEYN VOL. 1 was born from two important aspirations of her early career: to be seen and to be heard. Raw authenticity and artistic freedom drive this operatic multimedia release, performed by Heyn herself and the Slovak National Opera Orchestra. Heyn has roared onto the operatic stage in recent seasons, making her Straussian and Wagnerian debuts as Salome & Brünnhilde, followed closely by a harrowing portrayal of Magda Sorel in Gian Carlo Menotti’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, The Consul. Now, she has collaborated with an 85-member orchestra to bring the impassioned vision of HENLEY HEYN VOL. 1 to life.

Hailed by critics as a “descriptive and evocative” collection of contemporary classical music, the SYMPHONIC CHRONICLES series returns with a brand new roster of celebrated composers from a wide variety of backgrounds and influences. Anthony Wilson’s Númenor examines the sudden shifts in society that can bring us from peace to turmoil, while Octavian Nemescu’s The Inner Staircase courageously confronts forces of tyranny. In contrast, Stearns Wharf by Michael Roush follows the journey of two lovers in an impassioned pas de deux, while Margaret Brandman’s Gentle Summer Rain comments on the ethereal beauty found in juxtaposing aspects of nature. With performances by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, Brno Contemporary Orchestra, and Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, SYMPHONIC CHRONICLES VOL II offers listeners a variegated palette of new music.

Pianist Ian Gindes presents a captivating elucidation of Sergei Rachmaninoff's solo piano works on RACHMANINOFF, a new album of discerning artistry. With meticulous care and interpretive insight, Gindes navigates the rich tapestry of Rachmaninoff's compositions, peeling back the layers on their emotional depth and their technical intricacies. The Russian-American composer's signature confluence of opulent chromatic harmonies and classically informed structures is imbued with zest under Gindes' adept touch. Gindes finds an astute balance of lyricism and virtuosity, while his intuitive phrasing enhances the inherent narrative of each of the Preludes and Études-Tableaux. The album is rounded off by a fitting tribute, composed by Jerry Goldsmith and arranged by Jed Distler, honoring Rachmaninoff's influence on Hollywood and jazz.

The Slavic conception of time in music is notoriously generous, exuberant even, often expressed by endless heartfelt melodies, which allude to a “broad yearning Russian soul.” RUSSIAN PIANO GEMS introduces listeners to the rich tapestry of Russian classical piano music with all the emotional grandeur it entails. Renowned Russian-born, American pianist Elena Dorozhkina brings to life a selection of works by Mosolov, Glinka, Scriabin, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff with unwavering passion and technical virtuosity. Torrential cascades of thunderous chords alternate with lightning-fast runs, breathless silences intermingle with sweet vulnerability, exaltation and loss are but a hair’s breadth apart. The playing time of these individual pieces might not seem very Russian, but their emotional depth certainly is.

Pianist Fanya Lin's RHAPSODIC is a masterful exploration of two of the most iconic pieces in piano repertoire. With her deft touch and nuanced interpretation, Lin lends an entirely new dimension to George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Rachmaninoff's Paganini Variations. From the opening notes of Gershwin's masterpiece, Lin's playing proves both powerful and sensitive, capturing the complex emotions of the iconic American composer with great vividness. Some musicians might be hard-pressed to switch seamlessly into the mind and heart of the great Russian, but Lin's virtuosity is on full display as she navigates the intricate variations with vigor and precision, effortlessly enticing the listener into their bittersweet, heady romance.

Tenor Brian Smith Walters is a force to be reckoned with — endowed with a dark, thundering timbre and magnificent, towering style, he is the embodiment of a Heldentenor. His first Navona Records release is a challenging cross-section of chansons and Lieder spanning five centuries, and Walters navigates them with stunning bravado. It doesn't matter whether he sings Purcell or Copland, Schubert or Saint Saens, Tchaikovsky or Barber, Wagner or Szymanowski – the energetic grip Walters has on every single piece is awe-inducing, every rendition buzzing with vibrance and profundity. Accompanied here by only the piano, there is only one word to describe the tenor and A PHOENIX RISING: intense.

Véronique Mathieu and Stephanie Chua present INVOCATION, a collection of works for violin and piano written by female-identifying composers of unique heritages, backgrounds, and cultures. With a wide range of aesthetics and a variety of compositional eras, INVOCATION presents a collection of wonderfully animated performances that provide a fantastic model for the exploration of these composers’ works. Mathieu and Chua carry on the ever-growing tradition of bringing female-identifying composers from all musical eras out of the shadows. Their delicate, tender, and thoughtful iterations of these compositions solidify INVOCATION as a function of its title; a message to the women of this collection to step forward and shine.

Bulgarian-born pianist Kristina Marinova harnesses the healing powers of emotional melodies on LOVES ME NOT, a curated selection of soulful classical piano pieces spanning three centuries, from Bach to Rachmaninoff. Within the album’s tracklist lies an impressive range of works and composers: Gluck, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Scriabin, Tarrega and Satie, to name a few. The compositions are united by their melancholic themes (often sparked by biographical calamity), but like an acorn that falls from the crown of a tree, they bear within themselves a seed of hope, a new beginning.