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Pianist Lang Lang and violinist Joshua Bell, two of the 21st century’s princes of classical music, are both releasing new albums next week on Sony Classical, each devoted to a single composer.
Lang Lang’s The Mozart Album is his first recording devoted entirely to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It’s a double album recorded with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
The first disc features two piano concerti, K 453 in G major and K 491 in C, recorded in spring 2014 in the Goldener Saal of Vienna’s Musikverein.
The second was recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall last year and includes three early piano sonatas, which form part of his latest recital program, plus Rondo alla turca, the Allegro in F major K 1c, and the Konzertstück in F major, K 33b.
Joshua Bell’s even more simply-titled Bach is his first Bach recording with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the storied ensemble of which he has been music director for the past three seasons.
The album includes a never-done-before “violin and orchestra” arrangement of the famous Chaconne from the Partita No. 2, with an orchestration adapted from the piano accompaniment by Felix Mendelssohn. 
Along the same lines, the Gavotte from the third Partita, also included, uses piano accompaniment by Robert Schumann piano accompaniment as a basis for the orchestration by Julian Milone.
Rounding out the selections are Violin Concertos No. 1 and No. 2 and another of Bach’s most famous works, the “Air on the G string.”
Joshua Bell performs the Chaconne from Bach’s Partita No. 2 on solo violin
