BBC Music Magazine Awards 2007

"A thrilling performance of Luonnotar in which Isokoski’s sonorous soprano is matched by atmospheric playing from the Finnish orchestra. The rest of the disc makes you wonder why Sibelius’s orchestral songs occupy one of the most unjustly neglected corners of his output." Erik Levi BBC Music Magazine

“Soile Isokoski's voice has matured into a powerful instrument without losing its distinctively plangent expressiveness and intense way with words… Segerstam… provides spacious yet vividly dramatic support, with superb orchestral playing.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2006 *****

“Sibelius wrote his songs originally for voice and piano and in that form they are most often recorded. Some he later orchestrated, while others were arranged by Jussi Jalas (his son-in-law), Ernest Pingourd, Ivan Hellman and Nils-Eric Forgstadt. All produce good results and none of the songs appear over-dressed. On the contrary, they are, as it were, fulfilled: orchestral textures are so strongly implicit that the full range of instruments brings out their coloration and renders them complete.
Soile Isokoski has recorded a number of the songs previously with piano, part of a fine recital on Finlandia in 1989, which was about the time we first learned of the radiant Finnish soprano who five or six years later would receive the international acclaim she deserved…” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The voice… lovely, firm and ample in range. Above all, she has a rare command of the legato style which makes her singing a delight to the ears… the recital always gives pleasure, and the challenge of Luonnotar itself is joyfully met. The orchestra play with full appreciation of the richly coloured scores, and since Flagstad in the 1950s there have been few recordings which provide these genuinely enhancing accompaniments as an alternative to the piano.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2006

'A vital ingredient in the Smetana Trio’s success is the quality of their string sound, its variety of tone and the handling of vibrato. Certainly, there are many details to admire in these performances, but in the end it is the Trio’s unrivalled feeling of ensemble that generates results unmatched in the catalogue.' Jan Smaczny - BBC Music Magazine

“…the Smetana Trio, excellently recorded, deliver landmark performances of both trios. The developmental intensity of the F minor Trio's first movement has rarely seemed more incandescent or the slow movement more winningly lyrical… it is the Trio's unrivalled feeling of ensemble that generate results unmatched in the catalogue.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2006 *****

“Not surprisingly, the performance by the Smetana Trio is thoroughly idiomatic, with the many dumka speed-changes sounding totally natural and spontaneous. What instantly strikes the ear is the delicacy, the piano relatively light to bring out the filigree textures of much of the writing.
They also play with a hushed concentration, keeping the different sections tautly woven together. In the fifth of the six movements, there is a delightful pay-off at the end, and the finale is taken at a thrillingly fast tempo, though light textures bring complete clarity.
In No 3 there is an apt if subtle shift in the recording balance, with the piano weightier, reflecting the Brahmsian quality of much of the writing. Though in the conventional four movements instead of the six of No 4, it is a work on a bigger scale. Not surprisingly, the Czech flavours are brought out strikingly. The Supraphon sound is excellent.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Not surprisingly, the performance by the Smetana Trio - cellist Jan Páleníček is the son of the original Smetana Trio pianist, Josef - is thoroughly idiomatic, with the many dumka speed-changes sounding totally natural and spontaneous. In No. 3 there is an apt if subtle shift in the recording balance, with the piano weightier, reflecting the Brahmsian quality of much of the writing. Not surprisingly, the Czech flavours are brought out more strikingly than with the Florestan Trio. It is also a rather warmer, more passionate reading...” Gramophone Magazine, Awards 2006

“Sir Colin is a Sibelian of commanding stature and the LSO and Chorus give of their finest. Monica Groop… and Peter Mattei… are in fine voice here.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2006 *****

“If any performance is needed to convince anyone of the early mastery of Sibelius, it is this one … this is a great performance. I have no doubt that the LSO at present is the greatest orchestra in the world” International Record Review

“Sir Colin Davis has recorded Sibelius's early… choral symphony very successfully before with the LSO… but this version supersedes that. The adrenalin is free-running and the LSO choral contribution is gutsy in expansive tone and sharp Finnish articulation - especially in the spectacular finale.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2006

“A most valuable CD … One hopes that it might be the first instalment of a second Enescu piano music survey.” – The Gramophone

“…a set to place Enescu among the great piano composers, superbly played and recorded.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2006 *****

“…tone-painting that conjures the subtlest shades, expansive and exotic and, in the hands of a musician as dedicated as Luiza Borac, utterly absorbing. She obviously loves the music and to own these records is to own a standing invitation to a world where impressionism, musical folklore and emotional generosity all play a crucial role.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2006

'Spinosi’s intuitive and vital direction achieves rewarding results. His instrumentalists are firstrate and the choice of cast well nigh impeccable. Marie-Nicole Lemieux gives a fine account of the contralto title role and further outstanding contributions come from Veronica Cangemi as Costanza.' Nicholas Anderson - BBC Music Magazine

“…one of Vivaldi's strongest and most cohesive operas. Jean-Christophe Spinosi's intuitive and vital direction achieves rewarding results. His instrumentalists are first-rate and the choice of cast well nigh impeccable.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2006 *****

“ Griselda was first performed at Venice's Teatro di San Samuele during spring 1735. Apostolo Zeno's libretto, based on a tale from Boccacio's Decameron, was adapted for Vivaldi by Carlo Goldoni: Gualtiero is forced by political unrest and public criticism of his common-born wife Griselda to prove her noble worth by subjecting her to a torrent of cruel tests.
Marie-Nicole Lemieux's passionate performance of the title-role has vivid handling of text and emotive singing. Stefano Ferrari gets around Gualtiero's fiendish coloratura competently, and 'Tu vorresti col tuo pianto' is a rarity among Vivaldi's operas: a bona fide first-class tenor aria of real distinction, beauty and dramatic subtlety. Simone Kermes navigates Ottone's wide leaps in the slow aria 'Vede orgoglosia' with immaculate poise and tenderness, and in 'Dopo un'orrida' gleefully represents Ottone's premature exultation with some outstanding pyrotechnics. Veronica Cangemi provides some relaxed, attractive coloratura.
Philippe Jaroussky's arias are consistently gorgeous but he is also surprisingly strong at the tempestuous 'Che legge tiranna'. Iestyn Davies is impressive in the colourful hunting aria 'Alle minaccie'.
Spinosi's pacing of the arias suggests sensible interpretation of Vivaldi's instructions. In extrovert arias one occasionally hears some contrived clattering bows from the strings but there is a substantial problem throughout the performance caused by underwhelming, pale playing from the lower strings. Three cellists and two basses play quietly most of the time, making the hushed basso continuo far too thin and rarely giving enough depth and texture to the dynamic width of Vivaldi's harmonic writing. One imagines the stronger musical sense that Alessandrini, Dantone or Sardelli might have brought to Griselda. Despite reservations about the topheavy instrumental textures, this finely sung recording unveils another inventive opera.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

"This was a performance, played with the Concertgebouw's phenomenal spectrum of colouring, phrasing and dynamic subtlety, that asserted the symphony's organic structural credentials and spoke of deep-seated, human feelings throughout its ample 80-minute span. It was wonderful to have past reservations about the symphony swept aside with such authority." The Daily Telegraph

“…what is immediately striking about the present performance is its boldness and originality in terms of tempo contrasts, rhythmic emphasis and textural variety. Not only the playing beyond reproach on technical grounds, but also, more importantly, it conveys with almost graphic immediacy the searing passion the 74-year-old composer felt for Kamila Stösslová. The performers demonstrate a similarly convincing capacity to bring imagery to life in the remarkable Second Quartet by the Janácek pupil Pavel Haas.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2006 *****

“Yet these young players stamp their authority on the piece with a technical precision and a searing immediacy that’s rarely if ever been equalled...You’d be disappointed if the quartet that named itself after the composer couldn’t make it a special recording, and it has. Great performances, an imaginative programme, and a superb recording as well. This couldn’t be better.” Andrew McGregor, bbc.co.uk, 18th December 2006

“The catalogue is not short of recommendable versions of Janácek's IntimateLetters Quartet. But there are any number of ways of bringing its hyper-passionate declarations off the page, and this young Czech quartet have plenty of ideas of their own about that. Once or twice that leads them into an overcalculated delivery. But try the third movement at 2'58" where, having fined the texture down to a whisper, Janácek gives the first violin an electrifying outburst: it's hard to imagine if that contrast has been made more emotionally real on record.
But then there is the 1925 Second Quartet by the composer whose name the players have adopted. This is the kind of piece that may make you wonder why you haven't heard it before.
After a first movement that tellingly redeploys a number of patent Janácekisms, Haas slips into the grotesque humour of Stravinsky's ThreePieces for String Quartet and once again fashions a structure that transcends reliance on its model.
In the finale whackiness goes a step further, with a rollicking jazz-folk fusion, brilliantly caught here together with the original drum-kit accompaniment that Haas suppressed following adverse criticism at the premiere. The PHQ's streamlined but full-blooded playing is more than welcome, and if they are lining up the first Janácek and the first and third Haas for a followup CD, bravo! Superb recording quality too.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…try the third movement at 2'58" where, having fined the texture down to a whisper, Janáček gives the first violin an electrifying outburst; if that contrast has been made more emotionally real on record it is certainly not so on the half-dozen LPs and CDs I picked off my shelves. I would almost be inclined to recommend the new disc for this moment alone. But there is the 1925 Second Quartet by the composer whose name the players have adopted. After a first movement that tellingly redeploys a number of patent Janáčekisms, Haas slips into the grotesque humour of Stravinsky's Three Pieces for String Quartet and once again fashions a structure that transcends reliance on its model. In the finale whackiness goes a step further, with a rollicking jazz-folk fusion... the PHQ's streamlined but full-blooded playing more than welcome...” Gramophone Magazine, November 2006

“Zemlinsky’s music is so much more complex, gorgeous and painful than any verbal resume can convey. Yet Eshenbach makes it all come together beautifully… (he) is joined by two superb soloists, on finest form, both with as strong a feeling for the greater melody as the conductor…Strongly recommended.” BBC Music Magazine

“…Christoph Eschenbach has such an acute feeling for the musical line - whether it is carried by the voices or the orchestra - and such a fine ear for aural perspective, that it all comes together beautifully. Matthias Goerne is majestic and tender, and thrillingly true on every note. ...Christine Schäfer... sings with such character, passion and tender sensitivity that I feel faintly guilty for mentioning the odd tiny fault.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2006 *****

“There have been several memorable recordings of Zemlinsky's masterpiece and this one, the first for many years, can be placed in their company.
Christoph Eschenbach and his soloists clearly agree that the Lyric Symphony is not simply an orchestral song-cycle but a symphonic music-drama: the resulting performance has all the vividness and immediacy of a live event yet – equally importantly – excessive histrionics are avoided. This is music that needs no nudging or special pleading to exercise its power and poignancy.
Matthias Goerne has the combination of vocal heft and lyric mellifluousness necessary to sustain the demanding lines of the work's four oddnumbered episodes. Perhaps the third section, with its particularly sumptuous orchestral backcloth, could have taken a degree or two more of sheer vocal refinement, but overall Goerne does full justice to the heart-rending finale.
Christine Schäfer is especially convincing in the dramatic final stages of the second movement, and also in the expressionistic sixth. Ideally, the fourth movement's gentle lover's plea might be even more rapt, more other-worldly than it is here. But this reading fits well with the interpretation as a whole. The voices are forwardly placed without loss of orchestral detail, and only in the brief, turbulent fifth movement might one feel that the instrumental sound needs more edge. Even so, the orchestral playing throughout is superb.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Christoph Eschenbach and his soloists clearly agree that the Lyric Symphony is not simply an orchestral song-cycle but a symphonic music-drama: the resulting performance has all the vividness and immediacy of a live event… Matthias Goerne has the combination of vocal heft and lyric mellifluousness necessary to sustain the demanding lines of the work's four odd-numbered episodes. ...Goerne yields little in compelling characterisation to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau... Bryn Terfel... or Håkan Hagegård... Similarly, Christine Schäfer is a worthy successor to Julia Varady, Deborah Voigt and Alexandra Marc. She is especially convincing in the dramatic final stages of the second movement, and also in the expressionistic sixth. ...the orchestral playing throughout is superb.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2006

'Featuring two of Hungary’s finest quartets, this performance [of the Mendelssohn] captures all the youthful fervour of the opening Allegro moderato, the brilliant delicacy of the Scherzo and the driving perpetual motion of the Finale, while also finding an air of mystery and unexpected darkness in the slow movement.' Erik Levi - BBC Music Magazine

“Featuring two of Hungary's finest quartets, this performance captures all the youthful fervour of the opening Allegro moderato, the brilliant delicacy of the Scherzo and the driving perpetual motion of the Finale, whilst also finding an air of mystery and unexpected darkness in the slow movement.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2006 *****

“Unaccompanied, the Monteverdi Choir goes back to its roots in a programme which harnesses scholarship and singing of breathtaking beauty.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2008

“This is a staggeringly sung disc of some staggeringly beautiful music … an act of rapt devotion, be it religious or simply musical” Sunday Times

“This is an anthology that has been compiled with scrupulous care. It’s beautifully varied and exquisitely sung” The Guardian

“...in Andreas Staier's own words, 'this programme is a declaration of love to Georg Philipp Telemann, perhaps the wittiest, most charming and most cheerful composer Germany has ever produced'. …a stimulating and at times extravagantly expressive recital.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2006 *****

Hamelin is a cult figure to pianophiles, his phenomenal technique matched by an intellectual musicality that’s second to none. Dukas’s gargantuan Sonata, light years away from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, could seem a white elephant, but Hamelin’s magic touch transforms it into a masterpiece. And the weird world of Decaux is a revelation. Jessica Duchen - BBC Music Magazine

“Dukas's E flat minor Sonata (1900) is a rare (the only?) French example of the form from this period. Lasting more than 45 minutes, each of its four movements is underpinned by almost unremitting motion. The chromaticism of the first owes an obvious debt to Franck; the second has prescient touches of Scriabin and Debussy; the outer sections of the third are an Alkanesque toccata with a haunting mystérieuse central section, while the equally virtuosic finale shows that while Dukas remains firmly his own man, he also knew his Schumann and Liszt.
Hamelin, one needs hardly say, makes light of any difficulty, clarifying complex textures and subtly highlighting different voices with myriad keyboard colours. It is this facility that sometimes leads to a certain coolness and lack of (audible) engagement. Not here: this performance has an expressive power and intense emotional involvement that make it one of his most successful recordings – and that is saying something.
For those who have never previously encountered Dukas's companion on this CD, Abel Decaux (1869-1943) – and you'd not be alone – was a French organist (pupil of Widor and Guilmant) who studied composition with Massenet. What the composer of Manon and Werther would have made of the four pieces that comprise Clairs de lune (note the plural), one can only guess. Written between 1900 and 1907, they were not published till a year after Massenet's death in 1912. Listen blindfold and you might think, as Roger Nichols points out in his informative notes, that you were listening to Schoenberg or Debussy – except that Decaux's pieces pre-date both of them. Not for everyday listening, but fascinating nevertheless and a further example of this great pianist's extraordinary musical savoir-faire and his invaluable, unflagging curiosity.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Dukas's E flat Sonata (1900) is a rare (the only?) French example of the form fro this period. Lasting more than 45 minutes, each of its four movements is underpinned by almost unremitting motion. Hamelin… makes light of any difficulty, clarifying complex textures and subtly highlighting different voices with myriad keyboard colours. ...this performance has an expressive power and intense emotional involvement that make it one of his most successful recordings - and that is saying something.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2006

“…the Tristan of John Treleaven… makes a great deal of the part, and rises to noble heights in Act III. Christine Brewer is quite stupendous, the finest Isolde I have heard for decades… There is no weak link in the cast, even such a small role as the traitor Melot being sung with distinction by Jared Holt. And Donald Runnicles provides a very detailed account of this inexhaustible score. Listening to these discs straight through is a shattering experience.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2006 *****

“You would certainly have to go far to hear it better sung in the opera house. Christine Brewer’s Isolde had gleaming power, amplitude and amazing technical security… John Treleaven’s Tristan sang with ringing, clarion tone yet was capable of scaling down the voice in the intimate moments” The Times, February 2003

“Orlando paladino is at the summit of Haydn's operatic art, and Harnoncourt's well-cast version is strongly recommended.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2009

“Nikolaus Harnoncourt boldly proclaims that Orlando Paladino 'is one of the best works in 18th-century music theatre'. Written to commemorate a visit by Russian royalty to Eszterháza that never materialised, Orlando Paladino was first performed in 1782, in celebration of Prince Nikolaus's name-day.
Sabine Gruber's conversational essay explains how Haydn's musical portraits show an astute affection for Ariosto's epic poem. Although Haydn's Orlando Paladino seems part-pantomime, part-fantasy, these characters are never conscious that they are not what they protest to be. Like Ariosto, Haydn lets the audience in on the joke but the characters remain blissfully oblivious to the hypocrisy or naivety of their richly ironic statements to themselves and each other.
Harnoncourt's exemplary team of singers deliver deadpan comedy. For instance, Werner Güra takes on an opera seria posture as the romantic 'hero' Medoro in 'Parto, Ma, oh Dio': the glorious musical language suggests he suffers from sincere passion, but his real motivation is cowardice. One imagines that Patricia Petibon's Angelica is merely emulating the heroic fidelity and courage of women like Mozart's Konstanze but during 'Non partir, mia bella face' one suspects that there is sincerity in her after all: Angelica is facing possible abandonment and her vulnerability shows through. Michael Schade's voice is smokier than it used to be but his powerful resonant high notes, expressive weight and authority suggest that Orlando is more victim than villain. Only the comic secondary roles sung by Markus Schäfer and Malin Hartelius get hammed up, but they each sing with élan.
There is a vivid sense of dramatic intensity in this live concert recording. It is historically absurd to employ a lute as part of the continuo team in a late-18th-century opera but Harnoncourt leads Concentus Musicus Wien through a fizzing theatrical performance. This is comfortably among the finest Haydn opera recordings, although the stingy omission of scene numbers and stage directions from the libretto is unhelpful.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Harnoncourt's exemplary team of singers deliver deadpan comedy. There is a vivid sense of dramatic intensity in this live concert recording. …Harnoncourt leads Concentus Musicus Wien through a fizzing theatrical performance. This is comfortably among the finest Haydn opera recordings...” Gramophone Magazine, October 2006

“The musical adventurer par excellence,… the scholarly conductor with temperament, the thinking musician who makes music with rough edges” Gramophone Magazine

'This recording makes a splendid follow-up to Vernon Handley’s set of the complete Bax symphonies: here some of the composer’s most powerful orchestral writing receives committed, full-blooded performance, the complex textures ideally balanced and recorded.' Calum MacDonald - BBC Music Magazine

“…some of the composer's most powerful orchestral writing receives utterly committed, full-blooded performance, the complex textures ideally balanced and superbly recorded.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2006 *****

“In the Faery Hills and The Garden of Fand are among Bax's loveliest and most loveable creations, and though the windswept November Woods is far less tuneful, its emotional undercurrents run unfathomably deep. Bryden Thomson's shimmering, sensuous interpretations of these scores, recorded for Chandos some 20 years ago, laid bare the music's Impressionist roots; Vernon Handley (in an encore to his Gramophone Award-winning set of Bax's symphonies – see page 115) takes a tougher, more vigorous view. The only place he's notably slower than Thomson is in NovemberWoods, yet how much darker and more ominous are the leaden skies that Handley paints. Indeed, even in such sensitive hands as Boult's, some of the stormier passages sound rather like film music, while Handley's deliberate focus on motivic clarity brings out a Wagnerian grandeur and gravity that strengthen the work's narrative backbone.
In The Garden of Fand and In the Faery Hills Handley adopts brisk tempi, occasionally pushing the music into a kind of giddy ecstasy that makes Thomson's fragrant, graceful readings sound downright languorous. If only the BBC Philharmonic were as flatteringly recorded as Thomson's Ulster Orchestra or, for that matter, the RSNO in David Lloyd-Jones's superb Naxos cycle. Lloyd-Jones's dynamic direction is similar in spirit to Handley's, in fact, and almost as arrestingly characterised – but not quite. This restless, syncopated score may not be top-drawer Bax but the Manchester musicians play it with the fervour of true believers.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

'In the Left Hand Concerto, Claire Chevallier’s technique fully matches her musicianship. Whatever recordings you may have of these works, this disc is a must, balancing opulence against clarity in the orchestral sound and respecting the diamond-hard construction on which Ravel lavished so many sleepless nights.' Roger Nichols - BBC Music Magazine

“…the left Hand Concerto Claire Chevallier does not match Krystian Zimerman's brilliance and drive. The point is, she is not trying to. Her interpretation… is more lyrical and reflective and at times more sheerly beautiful - in fact much closer to that of Ravel's chosen interpreter Jacques Février. Whatever recordings you may have of these works, this disc is a must, balancing opulence against clarity in the orchestral sound and respecting the diamond-hard construction on which Ravel lavished so many sleepless nights.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2006 *****

“…the perfect showcase for period instruments from early in the 20th century. …the 1905 Erard piano used in the Left-Hand Concerto, with its rather clangy, clattering tone, gives extra clarity to the flourishes in the piano part. With Claire Chevallier a most sensitive soloist, very French in style, the piano is the more clearly defined over the highly original, generally low-lying orchestration, growling up from nowhere at the start.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2006

“As much as popular Latin American music, these songs burst with gorgeous, heartbreaking melodies… the music is a distinct development Spanish styles, almost larger than life as it responds to works that carry a powerful feeling for place as well as the tragic emotions of failed love. The singers, deftly accompanied by Carmen Piazzini and warmly recorded, delivery with refinement and passion.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2006 *****