“… The reason this recording of Britten’s early concertos is so good lies in the conducting of Edward Gardner. He makes such sense of the music ; on a moment-to-moment basis he understands the point of what Britten wrote, and conveys it to his sharply responsive orchestra … Adding to the disc’s quality is the sound: exceptionally clean and natural. This is one of the most distinguished releases yet in Britten’s centenary year.”     Phillip Scott  

“…This is definitely a keeper.”     Ronald E Grames 

IRR Outstanding

“ ...this is a simply magnificent recording which it would be impossible to improve upon.” 

Album of the Week

“These youthful concertos, written in Britten’s early to mid-thirties, have enjoyed a remarkable renaissance since the composer recorded revised versions with Mark Lubotsky (violin) and Sviatoslav Richter (piano) in 1970. These remain classics accounts. This coupling showcases two superb contemporary exponents. Shelley yields nothing in wit and pianistic flair to Richter, and gives us a bonus in the original third movements The Violin Concerto Little’s interpretation strikes me as one of the finest committed to disc Even though her partnership with Gardner is new in the work, their dramatic and emotional conception is unified, and particularly arresting in the sizzling central movement’s vivace, the timpani-accompanied cadenza and the closing passacaglia, dying into nothingness with devastating effect.” 

CD of the Week

“Perhaps the best new recording thus far of Benjamin Britten’s centenary year Tasmin Little is inspired throughout the Violin Concerto, and Howard Shelley virtuosic in the Piano Concerto Ed Gardner has long been a Britten specialist, and he and the BBC Philharmonic provide an eloquently idiomatic backcloth. Chandos’s recording is also, as ever, first-class”