[Nick Zwar]

The film score album of the year for me was the new recording of Jerry Goldsmith’s music for “THE CHAIRMAN” (Intrada), conducted by William Stromberg.

The classical music release of the year for me was the Berlin Philharmonic Set of Arnold Schoenberg‘s music conducted by Kirill Petrenko.

So those may be my “winners”.

But there are some other 2025 albums I very much enjoyed:

Greg Bernall & Chris Upton: NEW WAVE and Daniel Lopatin: MARTY SUPREME
Both of these were cool modern explorations and applications of a type of film music seemingly from another era. Synthpop grooves and dreamy ambient textures in NEW WAVE, and a totally unexpected Tangerine Dream/John Carpenter-esque approach in MARTY SUPREME. I have not seen either movie, but I already enjoy the scores.

Jerry Goldsmith: Pursuit / Crawlspace / The People Next Door
It’s great to have these little-known, wonderful chamber scores for mostly forgotten TV movies in such meticulous and beautifully produced recordings.

Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men

And wow, Daniel Harding’s new recording of Puccini’s TOSCA answers the question of whether we needed another recording of it with an enthusiastic “yes”.

There are some albums I got in 2025 that may not technically be 2025 releases, and surely some others I have overlooked or just forgotten about right now. I’m sure I will remember them the moment I hit “sent”.

I have not yet heard F1, though I have the score in my collection.