On the tenth day of Christmas—that would be January 3—we set a high bar for the year ahead (can eleven lords a-leaping be far behind?). Check out the playlist on Apple Music.

Top picks

Charles Ives: Complete Symphonies (Deutsche Grammophon 2020)

Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel

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Herewith my comments on our final show of the year. The playlist is available on Apple music.

Top picks

E pluribus unum (Navona 2020)

Liza Stepanova, piano

• Gabriela Lena Frank, Karnavalito No. 1
• Lera Auerbach, Images from Childhood, No. 5, An Old Photograph from the Grandparents' Childhood

A wide-ranging program of Americana with which we are insufficiently familiar. The Frank is dense, rumbling, anarchic; the Auerbach touches the misty chord of a music box or perhaps the Sugar Plum Fairy. Liza Stepanova enters both composers' worlds as if born to them.

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The Singing Guitar (Delos 2020)

Conspirare; Craig Hella Johnson, music director

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Heedless of the holidays, we cast a wide net in our final shows of the year and brought in a very mixed haul. This post covers our tracks for December 6; the playlist is available on Apple Music. Our selections for December 27 are the subject of my next post, which is imminent. Stay tuned!

A clean sweep--top picks all...

Voices in the Wilderness (Bright Shiny Things 2020)

Elizabeth Bates, Clifton Massey, Nils Neubert, Steven Hrycelak; Christon Dylan Herbert, music director

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He, a tenor, was a baker's son from a Polish mining town. She, a coloratura soprano, hailed from glittering Budapest. His stock-in-trade was grand opera. She specialized in the light variety. Box-office darlings both, Jan Kiepura and Marta Eggerth met on a German soundstage as co-stars in the musical My Heart Calls You (1934) and married two years later.

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Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you really get lucky. This was one of those days.

The playlist is archived at Apple Music https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/kmno-cod-20-1129/pl.u-EdAVVK3sNy0q1

Top picks

Rachmaninoff & Barber Cello Sonatas (Delos 2020)

Jonah Kim, cello; Sean Kennard, piano

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