‘An ear-opening recording … in all three works, Esfahani’s unfussy yet attention-grabbing playing strikes sparks off the musicians of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and their conductor, Alexander Liebreich’ (The Guardian)» More

‘Dutilleux’s nocturne seems to have a uniquely liberating effect on an ensemble’s imagination, and the Takács Quartet have also made it the heart of a programme designed to be heard at one sitting, opening with a specially commissioned new quartet by Stephen Hough … these six miniatures [Les Six rencontres] make full use of the group’s virtuosity (and the sweetness of leader Edward Dusinberre’s stratospheric top register in particular), revealing new surprises on each rehearing. And then we’re on into the Dutilleux and the Ravel: the first played almost as an extended prelude to the second and casting its moonlit shadows and restless atmosphere across the earlier work, to compelling effect. These are both powerful, brilliantly imagined interpretations, painted in bold, rich colours and shaped with flashing virtuosity … exactly what we’ve come to expect, in other words, from the Takács Quartet’ (Gramophone)

‘I may be genetically conditioned to adore this repertoire, but this new album from Mahan Esfahani is an unalloyed joy from first chord to last. Martinů, Krása and Kalabis all on one programme: what’s not to like? Of course, sometimes expectations run wild ahead of actuality, but not here. If I encounter an album as good as this one this year I will be overjoyed! … throughout, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra’s accompaniment is sensitive and ideal, and Esfahani plays like an angel’ (Gramophone)

‘For repertoire like this, a pianist with a delicate touch is essential, and Hough’s subtleties are never-ending. Through minute gradations of dynamics or the fragile sculpting of a phrase, the sparest and simplest of these pieces assume a rare beauty … do give it a listen’ (The Times)» More

‘These concertos are indeed a glorious surprise … Simon Callaghan despatches these works with passionate expressiveness … Modestas Pitrėnas and his Sinfonieorchester St Gallen forces offer enthusiastic support throughout … hopefully the third concerto is not far off. Sound and booklet notes are first-rate’ (Classical Music Daily)

‘This recording really is a joy from start to finish. In the Ravel, the very first bars are played not with emphasis but piano, as indicated: we feel at once that we’re being let in on an important secret, not fit for philistine ears, a secret enhanced by the modernist Ravel’s surprise bass line of a simple major scale. From here on the Takács Quartet are alive to every inflection in Ravel’s meticulously marked score, so that we live the journeys of each movement with them … the ‘surprise’ item is Stephen Hough’s First String Quartet … an unmistakably individual and convincing voice’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More

‘Here we have coruscating performances by Simon Callaghan and the Sinfonieorchester St Gallen of three of Reinecke’s four piano concertos. Written respectively in 1860, 1872 and 1900, they reflect big changes both in their musical hinterland and in his evolving art. The first is imbued with the influence of Mendelssohn in its graceful virtuosity, while the second finds a tone of elegiac grandeur in its Allegro, and a songfulness reminiscent of Tchaikovsky in its Andantino. The first two movements of the fourth—coming 28 years later—represent the fruits of maturity. With virtuosity now at the service of a noble structure, its opening Allegro has a Brahmsian authority, while its Adagio has a rapt beauty worthy of Chopin. We should now hear this live’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More

‘I was deeply moved. How would I describe it? Completely new … monumental in some ways in its outlook [and] hard to compare with anything else that I’ve listened to. I was quite blown away. It feels as though one opens a door to a new world going into this music, a three-dimensional new world … there is something just genuinely mesmerizing about this and the way Stephen Hough plays it. The combination of objective skill, intellectual clarity and his use of colours—it’s luminous, the way he can make the piano sing and sparkle; I think his gifts are endless’ (BBC Record Review)

‘Another new discovery for me this week is a piano concerto [No 1] from a composer born, as the notes tell us, the year Schubert wrote his string quartet Death and the Maiden (1824) and who died the year Alban Berg wrote his string quartet Op 3 (1910), and a beautiful, romantic slow movement where you can be forgiven for forgetting that this is a piano concerto at all … Simon Callaghan is a compelling soloist, sensitively accompanied by the St Gallen orchestra and Modestas Pitrėnas’ (BBC Record Review)

‘Hough’s creation is an immediate winner, and a perfect companion for the more serious thoughts of the genuine French music on display. This is a magical album’ (The Times)

‘The Takács Quartet began its recording career in Hungary in the early 1980s. Has it really taken almost forty years for them to get round to Maurice Ravel’s quartet? It has. It’s been worth the wait… they get the passionate urgency of the [second] movement [of the Ravel] as well as the pizzicato playfulness, and Ravel’s in intriguing company here—Stephen Hough’s first quartet (a recent work dedicated to the Takács), and it comes before the two French classics here, the Ravel and Dutilleux’s Ainsi la nuit. Hough wrote his quartet specially to work alongside them and it’s in the form of six ‘meetings’—imaginary encounters in 20s Paris with the composers known as Les Six, from boulevard and park to hotel and theatre—witty references to their styles; delicately sketched vignettes; it’s a treat. The whole album works beautifully—evocative, stylish playing from the Takács’ (BBC Record Review)

‘Cristo’s polyphony is unshowy but always graceful, and the church acoustic in which this selection of antiphons plus a Mass has been recorded perfectly sets off the unadorned freshness of the voices. When the music’s decorous emotional restraint relaxes, passion shines through: poignantly in the Stabat Mater, and with exquisite pain in the Cuius animam gementem (‘Whose groaning soul’) which follows. Cupertinos—and Hyperion—are to be congratulated on bringing this radiant music to light’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More