Michelle Dulak Thomson

In his centenary year, Benjamin Britten’s string quartets are winning a lot of attention, and clearly aren’t only for Brits.

A new CD from Kevin Puts features extremely interesting and inventive choral writing, but save the liner notes for after your first listen.

The first volume of chamber pieces for strings from Saariaho offers a fine, if occasionally jarring, survey of nearly a quarter century of the composer's work.

Piazzolla, de Falla, even Paganini all sing out in a sweet violin-plus-guitar CD, Histoire du Tango, by the terrific Augustin Hadelich and Pablo Sáinz Villegas.

The arias on this CD, most never recorded before and music that is mostly unknown, are all tailored to particular singers, and they wind up showcasing what amounts to "first version" Handel compositions.

Music@Menlo's latest release is a luscious grab-bag of chamber music, much of it unfamiliar, nearly all of it performed as well as you're ever likely to hear it.

Even with orchestra coming to the fore in Brahms’ violin concerto, Lisa Batiashvili struts her magnificent stuff.

Cellist Steven Isserlis teams with composer/pianist Thomas Adès to record a recital they devised of rarely heard works, playing them superbly.

Dazzling pacing and sumptuous playing mark performances by the Tokyo Quartet’s two guest soloists.

The S.F. Symphony beats the band, showing its idiosyncratic side in a terrific new release of scores by Cowell, Harrison, and Varèse.