Bill's top CDs of the year ... in random order

Despite a growing trend toward digital downloads and rumors that the major labels will eventually leave the classical music business altogether, 2008 was another good year for recordings. The Elgin Symphony Orchestra released its first international commercial recording, and the Chicago Symphony added several notable releases on its in-house label, CSO Resound.

The following recordings, if not found in walk-in stores, are all available through the labels' Web sites, or at such online retailers as amazon.com and arkivmusic.com. The latter site also will sell selected out-of-print CDs as downloads.

Here's our annual top 10 list (in random order), with the usual reminder that the choices are arbitrary, simply CDs of admirable quality which provided this reviewer special pleasure throughout 2008:

Aaron Copland: Piano Concerto (Benjamin Pasternack, soloist); Suite from "The Tender Land," "Old American Songs" sets 1 and 2. St. Charles Singers (Jeffrey Hunt, artistic director), Robert Hanson conducting the Elgin Symphony Orchestra. Naxos 8.559297.

In May, the ESO triumphantly offered its virtuosity to the world with this release on the best-selling Naxos label as part of its American Classics Series. Pasternack's playing of the piano concerto is exquisite, and the St. Charles Singers prove ideal collaborators with Hanson and the CSO in the seldom-heard choral arrangements of Copland's "Old American Songs."

Franz Clement: Violin Concerto in D Major (1805). Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D Major (1806). Rachel Barton Pine, violin; Jose Serebrier conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Cedille CDR 90000 106.

This CD combines the ever-popular Beethoven Concerto with the world-premiere recording of the concerto composed a year earlier by Beethoven's contemporary, Franz Clement. This project was specially created by Rachel Barton Pine to show the musical and stylistic relationships between the two concertos. Pine's interpretations are up to her usual high standards, and her collaboration with Maestro Serebrier is faultless.

W.A. Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 21 (K. 467) and 22 (K. 482). Jonathan Biss, piano, with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. EMI Classics 2 17270 2.

Biss, the brilliant young American pianist who demonstrated his affinity for Mozart's concertos at the 2007 Ravinia Festival, brings his interpretations of the great composer to disc for the first time. The so-called "Elvira Madigan" concerto (No. 21) and the K. 482 concerto contain some of Mozart's most sublime music.

Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4. Bernard Haitink conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Includes bonus DVD of the CSO's "Beyond the Score" concert program featuring Shostakovich and the Fourth Symphony. CSO Resound CSOR 901 814.

Haitink is one of the world's leading Shostakovich interpreters, the Dutch maestro having previously recorded all 15 symphonies. The CSO's principal conductor brings special insight and virtuosity to one of the composer's most complex and intense symphonies, a product of a very turbulent time in his artistic existence under the oppressive Soviet regime.

Franz Schmidt: "The Book of Seven Seals." Kristjian Järvi conducting six vocal soloists, the Vienna Singverein and the Austrian Tonkünstler Orchestra. Chandos CHSA 5061 (two hybrid SACDs).

The apocalyptic chapters of the Book of Revelation come to dramatic life in this seldom-performed oratorio for soloists, organ and orchestra. The Austrian composer Franz Schmidt (1874-1939) remains one of the less appreciated figures of the late romantic period, and Chandos' engineers have captured this vast score in state-of-the-art sound.

Antonin Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 in E Minor ("From the New World"); Symphonic Variations. Marin Alsop conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Naxos 8.570714.

Alsop makes an impressive recording debut with her new orchestra, launching a Dvorak series with a dramatic interpretation of one of the most popular symphonies in the repertoire. She also conducts a well-thought-out performance of the Symphonic Variations. After a controversial appointment in 2007 as the first female music director of the Baltimore Symphony, Alsop appears to have settled comfortably into her new post.

J.S. Bach: Partitas for Keyboard, Nos. 2, 3 and 4. Murray Perahia, piano. Sony Classical 88697-22697-2.

New York native Perahia, back in top form after recovering from a thumb injury that temporarily interrupted his career, continues his acclaimed series of Bach recordings for Sony that already includes the "Goldberg" Variations and English Suites.

Chicago Symphony Chorus: A Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration. Conductors include Sir Georg Solti, James Levine, Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Jean Martinon, Raymond Leppard, CSO chorus founder Margaret Hillis and current director Duain Wolfe. CSO CD08-2 (two discs).

Most of the music on this set was not recorded commercially by the CSO and its acclaimed chorus, thus is of special interest. Highlights are complete performances of Sir William Walton's oratorio "Belshazzar's Feast," conducted by Solti; and Igor Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms," conducted by Boulez. One in a series produced for the annual CSO Symphonython fundraiser, the recording is available online at cso.org or at Symphony Store, 220 S. Michigan Ave.

John Adams: "Doctor Atomic." Lawrence Renes conducting the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and chorus of the Netherlands Opera. Peter Sellars, stage director and librettist. Starring Gerald Finley, Jessica Rivera, Eric Owens and others. Opus Arte (two widescreen DVDs, including bonus features).

The rapid growth of classical music and opera DVDs continues, in this case the John Adams-Peter Sellars dramatization of the birth of the atomic age at Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1945. A co-production of Lyric Opera of Chicago and San Francisco Opera and seen at the Lyric in the 2007-08 season, this DVD was recorded at Netherlands Opera in June 2007. It includes the Lyric production's Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Jessica Rivera as Kitty Oppenheimer.

"Fiesta!" Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. Music by Antonio Estevez, Alberto Ginastera, Aldemaro Romero, Evencio Castellanos and others. Deutsche Grammophon 477 7457.

The 26-year-old Dudamel leads a program of music by composers from his native Venezuela and other Latin American countries, demonstrating why the Los Angeles Philharmonic was so eager to snap him up as its new music director. This is a wonderful calling card for the most charismatic and talented conductor of his generation.