Companies may no longer be rushing to record cycles of Beethoven or Brahms symphonies – with so many celebrated performances available of most of the standard repertoire, new versions have to be very special indeed to make an impression, but the continued exploration of neglected corners of the repertoire, increasingly works by women composers, has meant that there is always something fresh to discover. The Bru Zane label, for instance, which focuses on 18th- and 19th-century French music, continues to issue ear-opening recordings of composers who previously barely merited mention in the footnotes of music history, while the continuing efforts of specialists such as NMC, Kairos and Another Timbre, helps to ensure that a broad sample of the music being composed today reaches as wide an audience as possible.
And, if listening habits are changing – with downloads and streaming services increasingly dominating – the range of new discs this year has the same stylistic spread as it had before the pandemic. Some of the longer established labels, such as Deutsche Grammophon and Warner Classics, at one time the foundation of the whole classical industry, seem more intent today on releasing crossover albums than mainstream discs, but the smaller, more specialist labels still ensure that the range of what’s available is as wide as it’s ever been.
