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The shortlist for the Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2026 has now been announced. Six recordings have been selected in each of the eleven categories, ahead of the winners being revealed at the awards ceremony in London on 7 October. Early music enjoys a particularly strong presence this year, extending well beyond the category devoted specifically to it.
In the Early Music category, the six nominations offer a panorama stretching from the Renaissance to the early seventeenth century: Loyal Souvenir, devoted to Gilles Binchois, by Le Miroir de Musique and Baptiste Romain; Josquin’s Missa L’ami Baudichon and Milanese Motets by Cut Circle, directed by Jesse Rodin; Monteverdi’s Sesto Libro de Madrigali by RossoPorpora and Walter Testolin; William Mundy’s Vox Patris Caelestis by the Choir of New College Oxford and Robert Quinney; Stravagante pensiero – Gesualdo & Napoli by Concerto Italiano and Rinaldo Alessandrini; and finally Vox Feminae by the Kapsber’girls, a vividly coloured exploration of seventeenth-century female repertories.
But Baroque music also features prominently in the other categories. In Choral, four of the six selected recordings are devoted to Baroque repertoire: Johann Ludwig Bach’s Leipzig Cantatas, recorded by Capella Sollertia and Johanna Soller; J. S. Bach’s St John Passion with Pygmalion and Raphaël Pichon, featuring Julian Prégardien, Ying Fang, Lucile Richardot and Christian Immler; Orazio Benevoli’s masses by I Fagiolini and Robert Hollingworth; and Handel’s Messiah with the Irish Baroque Orchestra & Choir conducted by Peter Whelan.
The Instrumental category also gives pride of place to early repertoire. Jean Rondeau is nominated for his imposing eleven-CD complete edition of Louis Couperin’s works, while the young French harpsichordist Louise Acabo appears on the shortlist with Chambonnières Overseas, which shines a light on the composer Jacques Champion de Chambonnières (1602–1672). The Norwegian lutenist Rolf Lislevand is also nominated for Libro primo, devoted to seventeenth-century Baroque lute repertoire. Alongside them is the American Chris Thile with the second volume of his Bach Sonatas and Partitas, transcribed for mandolin.
In Chamber Music, Isabelle Faust, Kristin von der Goltz and Kristian Bezuidenhout champion J. S. Bach’s Sonatas for Violin and Continuo, the only Baroque representatives in this particularly competitive category. Baroque opera is not forgotten either: Purcell’s recent Dido and Aeneas, with Joyce DiDonato and Michael Spyres, Il Pomo d’Oro and Maxim Emelyanychev, is among the six finalists in the Opera category. Finally, in Song, Léa Desandre, Thomas Dunford and the ensemble Jupiter are nominated for Songs of Passion, a programme centred on John Dowland and his contemporaries, alongside Jess Dandy, Laurence Kilsby and Huw Montague Rendall, among others.
This 2026 shortlist thus confirms the exceptional vitality of early-music recording. We will find out on 7 October which nominees will go on to win a Gramophone Award.
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