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The Gramophone classical music awards 2025 were announced last night at a ceremony in central London in which Sir Simon Rattle made history as the first musician ever to win artist of the year for a second time, having first been awarded the title in 1993.
The award recognises Rattle’s recent work with the London Symphony Orchestra (where he is conductor emeritus), the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Czech Philharmonic and a string of acclaimed recordings spanning the baroque to contemporary repertoire. In a video acceptance speech, the conductor said: “I was 10 years old when I started spending my pocket money on Gramophone magazine … this is an extraordinary honour.” Video tributes to Rattle from fellow musicians included Barbara Hannigan, Peter Hoare, Thomas Quasthoff, and composer John Adams, who said: “How can someone be one of the great conductors of our time and also just a plain wonderful mensch, a good guy who cares deeply … To have worked with him, to have heard him do my music with the intensity and passion that he’s given it – it’s been one of the great pleasures of my life.”
Hannigan said: “You are such an inspiration to me and to so many musicians and audiences with your boundless curiosity, your kindness and the energy you bring to everything you do.”
Widely regarded as the classical recording world’s ultimate accolade, the awards – presented with Presto Music – celebrate exceptional recordings and honour artists, ensembles and record labels. The recording of the year was awarded to the French conductor Raphaël Pichon and his choir and period-instrument orchestra Pygmalion for their recording of JS Bach’s Mass in B Minor on the Harmonia Mundi label. Gramophone hailed the performance as one “that gleams at the cellular level, radiating outwards with devotional warmth; in short, it is alive”.
Rising star María Dueñas, 22, was named young artist of the year. The Spanish violinist, who won first prize at the Menuhin competition in 2021 and records for Deutsche Grammophon, also took the instrumental category for her album of Paganini’s 24 Caprices.
Two world premiere recordings won awards. The first – not surprisingly – was in the contemporary category, with the award going to Sir George Benjamin’s live recording of his 2023 opera Picture a Day Like This, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. The second, remarkably, was for music dating back at least 600 years but that has only seen the light of day this past year.
The Krasiński Codex: Fifteenth-Century Music from Cracow was awarded the early music recording of the year prize. The extraordinary recording is of music from a mid-1420s manuscript that narrowly avoided destruction in 1944 when the library of the Polish nobleman Wincenty Krasiński fell victim to Nazi arson. This particular manuscript, the Krasiński Codex, was one of the only documents saved from the fire, possibly by a musicologist working for the Third Reich who recognised its importance and stole it, saving it from oblivion.
The codex was returned to Poland in 1948 and the music collected on it and now recorded for the first time – over 40 mostly polyphonic pieces – is a testament to the rich musical landscape of the late middle ages, and provides a unique picture of European musical culture at the time.
Baritone Sir Thomas Allen was presented with the lifetime achievement award by Gerald Finley (himself a winner, in the opera category for his recording, with Lise Davidsen, of Wagner’s Flying Dutchman). The celebrated British singer, who was born in County Durham in 1944, made his Covent Garden debut in 1971 and over the past five decades has performed in opera houses around the world in repertoire ranging from Mozart to Britten and Strauss to Sondheim. He made his final stage appearance last summer, in Glyndebourne’s The Merry Widow.
Accepting the award in person, Allen paid tribute to the many legendary singers he had worked with over his long career on stage: “I feel like a tiny, tiny prawn in a sea of greatness.” And he ended his acceptance speech with touching and heartfelt words of thanks to his longtime agent, Sue Spence, and his wife, Jeannie.
Full details of the winners and their recordings are on Gramophone’s website.
