‘Mäkelä and his players instill every bar with an undeniable balletic grace’ (The Classic Review)

‘Welcome back to town Piers for a second visit (is it really ten years since the first???), your suitcase once again packed with piano pieces—thirty-four this time—that don’t get out much but deserve to the way you play them—with style and sensitivity, brilliance and brio, affection and artistry. Splendid selections, too, and considered contrasts to sustain eighty-two mercurial minutes … Ben Connellan has done a great job with his microphones. Medals all round for so many delights’ (colinscolumn.com)» More

‘This delectable collection offers three more of the best: the two Op 77 quartets plus the D minor Op 42, which contrasts excellently with the serenity and poise of the late works. There’s a wonderful immediacy about the London Haydn Quartet’s playing here, complemented by superb recorded sound. The ensemble’s period instruments, gut strings and considered stylistic approach offer plenty of colour and contrast: for instance, there’s a raw edge to the intensity of the D minor Quartet, and a twilit delicacy to the carefully voiced building of textures in the ever-developing Andante of the Op 77 No 2’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More

‘Appropriately, the sessions for this vibrant new recording by the Utah Symphony were punctuated by an extraordinary outdoor performance amidst the canyons and stars, a long-held ambition of outgoing music director Thierry Fischer. From the sparse skittering and chittering of the opening depiction of the desert to the kookily verdant Eden of the concluding ‘Zion Park et la cité céleste’, the orchestra sparkles with colour … and pianist Jason Hardink is outstanding. His long association with Messiaen’s music is brought to bear with incisive virtuosity allied to living in the transcendent moment and a sense of joy that extends to the whole ensemble’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More

‘The bare, bleak sounds [of the ‘Introduction' to The Seven Last Words]—those pauses as punctuation—and the carefully controlled vibrato make the start of the piece stark and startling just as Haydn obviously intended, and the final ‘Earthquake' doesn’t go for shock and awe exactly, rather inescapable fatalistic power. The usual London Haydn Quartet hallmarks are present and correct: gut strings, historically informed mindset, uncompromising accuracy and some lyrically lovely slow movements in the Op 77 and 42 quartets, and sparkling swift witty finales’ (BBC Record Review)

‘Canyons/Stars passes the time engagingly with music that is evocative, powerful, poignantly expressive, quirky, and scenically awestruck, and always colourful. In this Utah account, the twelve-movement Canyons lasts ninety-two minutes (at the quicker end of this opus’s scale) and comes across as well-paced, presciently prepared and committedly performed. Good sound, too; vivid and transparent’ (colinscolumn.com)» More

‘Jason Hardink, the Utah Symphony’s principal keyboard player, projects Messiaen’s piano writing as vividly and idiomatically as anyone could want, while the horn soloist is no less than Stefan Dohr, the principal of the Berlin Philharmonic. Fischer ensures that their superb contributions fit perfectly into what he projects as a vast musical canvas, and that the orchestral playing is fabulously precise too, so that the performance is easily a match for the fine recordings of Des canyons aux étoiles  …, particularly those conducted by Myung-whun Chung and Reinbert de Leeuw, already available’ (The Guardian)

‘My Easter listening has been buoyed no end by one of [Hyperion's] newest releases, Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles … A colourful epic at the best of times, the sprawling work from the early 1970s emerges triply awesome in this bracingly vivid recording from Thierry Fischer and the excellent Utah Symphony—ideal performers for a work directly inspired by the American state’s rugged landscapes and birdsong …every note dazzles from the soloists who really matter: the pianist Jason Hardink and the wonderful horn player Stefan Dohr’ (The Times)» More

‘This is quite an inspired pairing, even if it risks giving you the mother of all earworms after hearing one of Schubert’s catchiest themes in two versions: the return of the whimsical melody of the second movement of the early(ish) A minor Sonata in its superior, Beethovenian guise as the Rondo finale of the late A major shows how extraordinary was the creative journey Schubert had undertaken in the space of just a decade. Garrick Ohlsson approaches both sonatas with a high sense of drama. This is big-boned pianism that rarely lacks immediacy or drive’ (Gramophone)

‘Martyn Brabbins rounds off his Vaughan Williams symphony cycle for Hyperion with a most impressive account of the Ninth. His is a memorably lucid conception: textures are sifted with judicious skill (how gratifying to hear the flugelhorn registering so naturally), RVW’s bass lines (always worth paying close attention to) tread with reassuring solidity, and there’s an enviable sureness of purpose from first bar to last. Magnificently recorded by Simon Eadon and Dave Rowell in Watford Colosseum, the BBC Symphony Orchestra are at the top of their game throughout, responding with all the freshness of new discovery … there’s an exploratory zeal and infectiously questing spirit about this powerful performance that I feel confident will stand the test of time … a reading of genuine stature’ (Gramophone)

‘In these richly detailed and technically demanding scores, his orchestra sounds both glamorous and immaculate, complemented by a detailed yet well-balanced recording’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘It would be hard to deny Mäkelä his place in the top tier [Firebird]. He creates a vibrant mood in every episode, even the ones that fill in while pantomime takes place onstage in Fokine’s fairy-tale choreography. Not a note feels like filler here, because an astute musical intelligence is paying attention without letup. As in Le Sacre, there’s a lovely natural flow to the performance’ (Fanfare, USA)