Performance *****          Recording *****

“… It is the tantalising duality between spontaneous excitement and ensuring a strong sense of musical continuity that is perhaps the greatest challenge for the Schumann interpreter, and which Jean-Efflam Bavouzet synthesizes so memorably in this outstanding recital. Bavouzet establishes his credentials immediately with a gripping account of Horowitz’s ‘edition’ of the Third Sonata … His [Bavouzet] masterly reading of Faschingsschwank aus Wien similarly fuses flair and fantasy with a poetic gravitas …”

Performance ****           Recording ****

“… highly recommendable.”

Chamber Choice

Performance *****      Recording ****

“…A very enjoyable disc.”

Performance ****      Recording ****

“… With luck, this collection will be an effective springboard for listeners to carry on exploring the music of these splendid composers.”

Performance ****         Recording ****

“… the music stylishly performed by Le Concert Spirituel is often magnificent. Campra provides an exquisite duet for the lovers, ‘Volez, jeune héros’ from Achille et Déidaime… Reinoud van Mechelen is just the kind of high tenor you want in this music …”

Performance ****      Recording ****

“… Die Loreley turns out to be very worthwhile. Bruch offers first-rate technical skills, and the idiom – misty Mendelssohnian Romanticism, with a few touches of early Wagner and a certain kinship with Brahms – suits the subject down to the ground. There’s a rich vein of lyricism, while the magic scenes possess an impressive power that recalls Weber. Here the rich orchestral textures are beautifully realised by the Munich orchestra under Stefan Blunier … Thomas Mohr is thoughtful and engaged as the fatally compromised, doomed Otto, and Benedikt Eder proves vital as his seneschal Leopald, while Sebastian Campione is full-toned and compassionate as Lenore’s father Hubert and Magdalena Hinterdobler impassioned as Lenore’s aristocratic rival Bertha.”

Performance ****      Recording ****

“… Françaix’s Impromptu for flute and strings (1983) is an unashamedly melodic romp stuffed full of spiralling motifs that Wilson performs with an enviable lightness …”

Concerto Choice

Performance ****        Recording ****

“This engaging disc offers beautifully-recorded performances of three substantial works from contemporary Danish composer Svend Hvidfelt Nielsen (b.1958). Hvidtfelt Nielsens’s scores are renowned for their mesmerising delicacy of sound amid highly complex textures, and his music is performed here with impeccable clarity by the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra and Aarhus Sinfonietta…”

Performance ****    Recording ****

“… he [Rouvali] steers the Gothenburg Symphony, of which he was appointed Chief Conductor in 2016, through vital and idiomatic live performances of Sibelius’s First Symphony and the revised version of his tone poem En Saga… this is a genuinely competitive release.”