New Piano Albums

Isabelle O'Connell:2026-03-19

Cocteau

This album is built around Rhona Clarke's piano suite "Cocteau", written for Isabelle O'Connell and inspired by Jean Cocteau’s drawings. For O'Connell, it seemed almost self-evident that the work should be performed alongside music by the artist’s contemporaries in Paris a century ago. Satie immediately came to mind, along with Le Groupe des Six for whom Cocteau was the figurehead, mentor, and cheerleader.
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Imogen Cooper:2026-03-15

Beethoven – The Last Three Sonatas

"It has taken many years for me to perceive the last three sonatas by Beethoven as the evolving journey I now feel them to be. A combination of wariness of Op. 109 and overawe of Op. 111 kept me solely concentrated on Op. 110... Now, in my final year of performing, it would be hard for me to play any of the last three sonatas alone, so potent is the journey from first to last."
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Christian Blackshaw:2026-03-12

Schubert – A Moment in Time

A Moment in Time explores Franz Schubert’s late masterworks – the Four Impromptus, D. 899, composed in 1827, and the Sonata No. 21 in B-Flat Major, D. 960, one of Schubert’s last major works for solo piano, from 1828. For Blackshaw, these performances are a personal reflection – a snapshot in time of both Schubert’s genius and his own lifelong engagement with these works.
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Georgijs Osokins:2026-03-08

Chopin & Rachmaninoff

Georgijs Osokins gained international recognition at age 19 after competing in the 17th International Chopin Piano Competition, where he became something of an audience favorite. Here, he focuses on Chopin's late works (Opp. 57-61), followed by Rachmaninoff's Chopin Variations. "I perceive this recording as one lonely path from the first enigmatic bars of Berceuse until the last significant chord of Polonaise-Fantasie."
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Konstantin Scherbakov:2026-03-04

Rachmaninoff – Complete Solo Piano Works, Vol. 2 Echoes of Tomorrow

Konstantin Scherbakov won the 1st Rachmaninoff Piano Competition in Moscow in 1983, and in 1990, he launched his career in Western Europe by performing the composer's complete Solo Piano Works in four recitals at the XXth International Chamber Music Festival in Asolo, Italy. He has continued playing Rachmaninoff’s music on all continents during his entire career, both in recitals and as a soloist with orchestras.
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Alexander Malofeev:2026-02-28

Forgotten Melodies

Alexander Malofeev left Moscow for Berlin in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and his debut album features works by composers who were also born in Russia but settled elsewhere: Glazunov, Glinka, Rachmaninoff and Medtner. “They all share a similar feeling of nostalgia…almost as if they are nostalgic for a very similar setting which never really existed in history. It’s like it is totally made up, almost a dream world."
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Shane van Neerden:2026-02-25

Each and All

Shane van Neerden's debut album is a real tour-de-force, comprising three of the biggest piano works of the 20th century: Ives’ Concord Sonata, Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, and Rachmaninoff’s Second Sonata. Van Neerden won the Dutch Classical Talent Award in 2024, a competition in which four laureates, selected by auditions, follow a coaching program and give 14 concerts in the most important Dutch concert halls before the winner is announced.
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Yunchan Lim:2026-02-19

J S Bach – Goldberg Variations

Youngest-ever winner of the Cliburn Competition, Yunchan Lim first heard the Goldberg Variations in Glenn Gould’s recording when he was 8 years old and was immediately impressed by the work’s grandeur and beauty. "To me, this piece is the journey of the human life told through music — Bach’s portrayal of existence itself…performing a piece like this is why I do music."
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Konrad Skolarski:2026-02-17

Chopin – Ballades, Mazurkas, Barcarolle, Polonaise-Fantasie

After graduating from the Warsaw Chopin Academy, Konrad Skolarski studied in Pavel Gililov's master class at Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. In 2012, his debut album was highly praised by international music critics, and his renditions of Prokofiev’s and Rachmaninov’s Sonatas were compared to those by Sviatoslav Richter or Emil Gilels. Skolarski now teaches at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.
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Claire Huangci:2026-02-13

Piano Heroines

This album grew from a first impression back in 2019, when Claire Huangci learned Clara Schumann’s piano concerto in celebration of her 200th birthday. "Her boldness and clarity as a young composer struck me immediately, and I was drawn to explore more of her piano oeuvre." The idea gradually expanded into a wider project around four remarkable women: Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, and Florence Price.
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Giorgi Gigashvili:2026-02-09

With All My Breath and All My Blood – Prokofiev Sonatas 6-8

Giorgi Gigashvili was selected as a BBC New Generation Artist 2023-2025 and an ECHO Rising Star for the season 2025/26. He was first told about the War Sonatas in 2015 by his teacher, Revaz Tavadze. "I remember the way he spoke about them, with a fire in his voice… I was too young to understand all of it, but something stirred in me… Since then, I always wanted to sacrifice myself for this music. And now, years later, I have."
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Olga Pashchenko:2026-02-04

Mozart – Piano Concertos 6, 8 & 18

This is the third instalment of Olga Paschenko's historically-informed Mozart series, recorded with the small early music ensemble Il Gardellino. Pashchenko uses an Anton Walter fortepiano by Paul McNulty and a copy of a Spath & Schmahl tangent piano by Chris Maene, an extremely sensitive instrument with a sound somewhere between that of a harpsichord and a fortepiano.
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Piotr Anderszewski:2026-01-28

Brahms – Late Piano Works

Piotr Anderszewski has selected some of Brahms' last piano pieces, presenting them in a carefully curated sequence instead of performing complete collections in opus order, which is the standard procedure. "These late works by Brahms are like a testament. But what is this secretive man revealing to us here? Or rather, what is he still trying to hide?... Perhaps that is where the beauty of these scores lies."
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:2026-01-24

Schubert – Impromptus

This album was recorded before Eric Lu's great triumph at last year's Chopin Competition. "For me, the Impromptus are some of the greatest jewels in the piano literature. They are magnificent, deep pieces of music, and the very essence of Schubert.” The Financial Times' reviewer noted that Lu's Impromptus clock in significantly slower than in many other recordings, but also that "it would be hard to imagine the time better spent…"
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Nobuyuki Tsujii:2026-01-19

Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky

Together with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, "Nobu" performs Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. This is complemented by solo piano transcriptions of works by two of Rachmaninoff’s most important forerunners, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. “Piano transcriptions are fascinating because the arrangers are usually outstanding pianists. They know exactly what is needed to get the maximum out of the instrument.”
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Elliot Wuu:2026-01-15

Onward – Debussy, Bach, Schumann, Schubert

The four works on Wuu's debut album – Suite Bergamasque, Capriccio on the Departure of His Beloved Brother, Kinderszenen, and Wanderer Fantasy – trace a path of memory, departure, innocence, and ambition. Onward is both title and invitation, "a reminder to embrace change, to carry the past into the future with gratitude, and to keep moving forward with curiosity and hope."
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Aurelia Visovan:2026-01-10

Liszt – 12 Grandes Études

Liszt often reimagined his own works, leaving behind multiple versions that reveal his evolving artistry. This is exemplified by the 12 Grandes Etudes, originating from the earlier Étude en douze exercises and later transformed into the famous Transcendental Etudes. This is the first-ever recording of the Grandes Études on a historical instrument, the 1873 Steingraeber-Liszt piano.
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Leif Ove Andsnes & Bertrand Chamayou:2026-01-06

Schubert 4 Hands

Leif Ove Andsnes and Bertrand Chamayou first performed together at Andsnes’s Rosendal Chamber Music Festival in 2016. "Even before I met him, I already had a feeling that I was really at home with Bertrand’s way of making music", says Andsnes. “When we played the Fantasia together in Rosendal it felt very natural, and actually very emotional, because it was the last piece in the festival that year.”
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Aristo Sham:2025-12-31

Timeline

Following his victory at the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Aristo Sham has created an album tracing the evolution of Western music – a reflection on time and transformation. It begins with Bach's C minor Toccata and concludes with Grieg’s Holberg Suite, with Busoni’s transcriptions and original works serving as a bridge between eras.
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Yulianna Avdeeva:2025-12-26

Shostakovich – Preludes & Fugues Op. 87

On her third album in three years for the Pentatone label (Resilience 2023, Chopin: Voyage 2024), Yulianna Avdeeva tackles Shostakovich's monumental cycle of 24 Preludes and Fugues. She also presents the completion of an alternative Prelude and Fugue in C-Sharp Minor, completed by composer and Shostakovich biographer Krzysztof Meyer.
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Víkingur Ólafsson:2025-12-20

Opus 109 – Bach, Beethoven, Schubert

Víkingur Ólafsson’s new album forms a unified programme in E major and E minor, linked to his synaesthesia and his association of E with the colour green – reflected in the album cover. In his search for a post-Goldberg project, Ólafsson landed on Beethoven's Sonata op 109, examining it through the lens of Bach's influence.
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Pierre-Laurent Aimard:2025-12-16

Bach – Well-Tempered Clavier II

A decade on from his acclaimed interpretation of Book 1, Pierre-Laurent Aimard releases the remaining part of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Aimard is a renowned champion of 20th-century music but has an equal dedication to the music of earlier centuries, which has resulted in recordings of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart.
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Mikhail Pletnev:2025-12-12

Chopin & Scriabin – Preludes

This album presents legendary pianist Mikhail Pletnev’s first recording for Deutsche Grammophon in almost two decades, and the company's first pure analogue (AAA) frontline release since the 1980s. Chopin’s 24 preludes take us through a kaleidoscope of musical moods and sensations. Inspired by Chopin, Scriabin’s more rarely heard set offers a fascinating prospectus of the visionary Russian composer’s early musical language.
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Tiffany Poon:2025-12-06

Nature

Inspired by Rameau’s belief that music is rooted in nature, Poon’s new album translates her own love of nature into “vivid musical expressions” through works by French composers across the centuries. "I wanted to embrace that spontaneous feeling and the nuances of nature, as vivid as the French painters who have inspired composers and myself. Let’s celebrate nature.”
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