Year End CD Shopping Spree

Now that Tower Record has officially closed their stores, I don't have the luxury of browsing newly released classical music CDs in store any more. The year end's "Gramophone Award" becomes my shopping list. Here are some highlights of this year's winners:

Label of the Year
ECM
Not a surprise. I think I owned at least half of the CDs they produced. From Andras Schiff's Bach to Keith Jarrett's Vienna Concert, and numerous Arvo Pärt.

Editor's Choice
I didn't know Pianist Stephen Kovacevich had a stroke two years ago. Now he's back with a new recording of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. Like Murray Perahia, who suffered from some finger illness, he cherished the time he could play more. I still have Mr. Kovacevich's previous recording of Diabelli Variations. Maybe it's time to listen to it again.

Young Artist of the Year
A young lady named Yuja Wang. Will she be another "Lang Lang"?

Baraque Vocal
Apparently "The Sixteen" is the new hot choral group for Baraque vocal now (where are Opus111 and the Tallis school now, ok maybe I am old). Just listened to their sample tracks on Amazon, their CD (Handel's Coronation Anthems) is in the shopping cart now.

Concerto
I noticed pianist Steven Osborne because of his wonderful Rachmaninov Prelude CD (really reminds me Richter). Well, that CD didn't win the "Instrumental" category, but his Britten Piano Concerto CD did win this one. I have to admit I was not too interested in Britten's music, but after listening to the samples I added it to the shopping cart (since Britten's piano concerto is missing from my discography anyway).

Instrumental
Another wonderful pianist from France. Bavouzet's Debussy is fresh. Though I will still cast my vote to Osborne's Rachmaninov Prelude, his complete Debussy CDs are on my shopping list already.

Orchestra
Techaikovsky's Manfred Symphony by Royal Liverpool Philharmonic won the game (it's by Naxos, so the CD is low price too). However, I bought the Mahler No 4 (Ivan Fischer) instead, which was short-listed.

Solo Vocal
Another "Dichterliebe" (Gerald Finley, Hyperion). Will he be as good as Wunderlich? (Sample track tells me no.) Wait a minute. Where is my Wunderlich CD? Horror of horror, now I need to get it back. I also noticed the late Mezzo-Soprano Lorraine Hunt's Brahms and Schumann CD was short-listed. How come beautiful singers often died young?

Recording of the Year
Another Debussy/Faure/Ravel string quartets! (I forgot how many "Gramophone awarding winning" Debussy/Ravel string quartets I had bought.) Surprisingly, previous years' favorite Takacs quartet didn't win this time. (Look out, the new generation has arrived.) The Schuman violin CD (Carolin Widmann, ECM) on the short list also looks interesting.