Chicago figures prominently in 2009's top 10 classical CDs

Despite the ongoing retraction of the classical recording industry (longtime American independent label Telarc ceased producing CDs last spring after three decades), it's been an artistically fulfilling year, with Chicago-based Cedille Records celebrating its 20th anniversary with several notable recordings.

So, here's our annual top-10 list, with the usual reminder that these may not arbitrarily be the best of 2009's releases worldwide, but those (listed alphabetically) that provided this writer special satisfaction.

• Leonard Bernstein: "Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers." Marin Alsop conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Baritone Jubilant Sykes (Celebrant), with Morgan State University Choir and Peabody Children's Chorus. Naxos 8.559622-23 (two discs).

One of Bernstein's conducting protégés, Alsop has delivered a recording of this flawed multicultural and multireligious masterpiece that surpasses that made under the baton of its creator. "Mass" was commissioned for the 1971 opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington; it received mixed reviews at the time, but the work has since been seen and heard in a much kinder light.

• "Leonard Bernstein: Opening Night at Carnegie Hall 2008." Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Music from "West Side Story," "A Quiet Place," "Mass," "On the Town," "Trouble in Tahiti," Songfest" and "Fancy Free." Soloists include Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Dawn Upshaw, soprano, and Thomas Hampson, baritone. DVD, 16x9 format. At sfsymphony.org.

New York's Carnegie Hall celebrated the 90th anniversary of Bernstein's birth with a multiweek festival titled "The Best of All Possible Worlds." This DVD captures the high spirits of the historic opening concert on Sept. 24, 2008. Like Alsop, Michael Tilson Thomas was a conducting student under Bernstein.

• Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major. Benjamin Zander conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra of London. Telarc 60706 (SACD).

Zander offers an enlightening and very personal survey of one of Bruckner's finest symphonies, the set including the conductor's traditional discussion/analysis on a bonus disc.

• "Dichotomy: The Sonatas of Ernest Bloch." Vincent P. Skowronski, violin; Dana Brown, piano. Skowronski Plays! S: CR-09. Available from Skowronski Classical Recordings, 1726 Sherman Ave., No. 2, Evanston, IL 60201, or at skowronskiplays.com.

Skowronski, the renowned Chicago-area concert artist and violin pedagogue, has been issuing performances from his concert and broadcast archives on CD for many years, and this latest addition is devoted to the music of Ernest Bloch (1880-1959). Pianist Dana Brown proves an ideal collaborator in these performances taped at the WFMT studios as part of its "Live from Studio One" series.

• Lita Grier: "Songs from Spoon River: Reflections of a Peacemaker," and other vocal music. Michelle Areyzaga and Elizabeth Norman, sopranos; Robert Sims. Alexander Tall and Levi Hernandez, baritones; Scott Ramsay, tenor. Welz Kauffman and William Billingham, piano; Anne Bachm, oboe; Tina Laughlin, percussion; Chicago Children's Choir. Cedille 90000 112. Available at cedillerecords.org.

Chicago's Lita Grier has written a large body of vocal music, much of it receiving world-premiere recordings here. Included is the 10-part "Songs from Spoon River," based on Edgar Lee Masters' poetry and recorded at Ravinia's Bennett-Gordon Hall. The Chicago Children's Choir is featured in the six-part "Reflections of a Peacemaker."

• Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C Minor ("Resurrection"). Bernard Haitink conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. CSO Resound CSOR 901916 (two discs); sold in area stores and at CSO.org. (hybrid multichannel SACD; also available in regular CD format).

This fourth installment in Haitink's CSO Mahler series perfectly captures the atmosphere and drama of the composer's sprawling musical depiction of life, death and rebirth. Duain Wolfe's CSO Chorus scales the cosmic heights in the finale.

• Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 8 in E-flat Major ("Symphony of a Thousand"); Adagio from Symphony No. 10. Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with eight vocal soloists. SFS Media 821936-0021-2 (two discs; SACD).

A decade-long project to record all of Mahler's symphonies comes to a glorious conclusion by music director Michael Tilson Thomas on the San Francisco Symphony's in-house label. Thomas has recorded only the completed opening adagio from Mahler's unfinished 10th Symphony rather than any of the various performing versions of the five-movement score.

• "Oppens Plays Carter: The Complete Piano Music." Ursula Oppens, piano. Cedille CDR 90000 108. Available at cedillerecords.org.

Subtitled "Elliott Carter at 100," this is another of Cedille's important 2009 releases. Carter, who noted his 100th birthday in December 2008, is one of America's most celebrated composers, and former Northwestern University professor Ursula Oppens (now at Brooklyn College) brings to the CD the music she performed at a series of Carter centennial concerts in New York.

• "Recital at Ravinia." Music by Mozart, Brahms, Handel, Debussy, etc. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano; Drew Minter, countertenor; Peter Serkin, piano. Harmonia Mundi HMU 907500.

The legendary American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson gave this recital at Ravinia's Martin Theatre in 2004, two years before her death at age 52. Renowned concert pianist Peter Serkin provides perfect accompaniment. The production of this CD was headed by Elgin Symphony Orchestra engineer Hudson Fair.

• "Rhapsodic Musings: 21st Century Works for Solo Violin." Music by Elliott Carter, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Augusta Read Thomas and John Zorn. Jennifer Koh, violin. Cedille CDR 90000 113. Available at cedillerecords.org.

The latest Cedille recording from West suburban native Jennifer Koh includes Salonen's "Lachen Verlernt" ("Laughing Unlearnt") a work commissioned by Koh, along with Cedille and the Oberlin (Ohio) Conservatory. All the works performed on this program are the result of what Koh calls her "search for a sense of meaning" in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.