“… these are rich, vibrant and exciting works performed with sensitivity by Rumon Gamba and recorded in pristine 24-bit brilliance by the Chandos team. A significant recording and a must for lovers of English music.” ****

“… Hers [Gipps] is celebratory, happy music. It aims to up;ift. It isn’t too cool for its own good. .. The slow section of her Second Symphony (in one movement) are gorgeous and reverential… Rumon Gamba and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales are perfect for this gambit. The conductor specializes in ignored Romantic music, and the sound is Chandos at its best. Ruth Gipp’s hopeful England appeals to me…” Steven Kruger

Choc de Classica

“This, the first all-Gipps CD, is to be welcomed warmly … I hope that this disc it will be the first of an orchestral series. Perhaps Gipps' time has come at last…”   Rob Barnett – October 2018

“… It’s sad that this music is so little known and I hope this excellent disc will go some way towards rectifying that. Certainly, Gamba and the BBCNOW’s splendid advocacy presents these works to the best possible advantage. The orchestra’s excellent playing is enhanced by a fine, detailed Chandos recording. Lewis Foreman’s notes offer a first-class introduction both to Ruth Gipps and to the works in question. Ruth Gipps wrote three more symphonies and this CD has whetted my appetite to hear them. Perhaps the Gamba/Chandos partnership might swing into action again?”

John Quinn – December 2018

****

“In and of itself, the symphonic music of Ruth Gipps is quite impressive: melodically rich, formally economical and orchestrated with a nuanced sense of texture and color… Gamba and his Cardiff-based orchestra deliver vibrant performances of the two symphonies — especially the more bombastic Second, which was written to celebrate the Allied victory in WWII — but for the purest distillation of Gipps’s style, look to the six-minute Song for Orchestra, Op. 33, a bucolic masterpiece-in-miniature that features the composer’s own instrument, the English horn."

“… All their [BBC National Orchestra of Wales] accounts here are wonderfully sensitive, the solo playing beautifully articulated, the structures perfectly bought out by Rumon Gamba…”

Performance ****      Recording ****

“… The BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Rumon Gamba give warm-hearted, energetic, well-paced accounts, and their oboist deserves a special accolade.”

“…the music is notable for its personal voice, confident conception, and vivid writing for the orchestra. Gipps herself actually felt her best works were those for orchestra. In a programme of contrasting impressions and emotions, Symphonies Nos 2 and 4, the former inspired by the Second World War, offer an approachable tuneful idiom…”