21 October 2022
The Irish Times, Michael Dervan
Telemann: Fantasias for solo violin‘Alina Ibragimova’s new recording of the set’s 41 movements runs to 65 minutes, and she is always judicious in choosing not to probe the music for Bachian profundities that it doesn’t have to offer. Her 'less is more' approach is highly appealing, bringing an attractive dancing lilt to many of the faster movements in a set where actual dance designations are rare indeed. Her eschewal of vibrato even in the slow movements, and her light-fingered dexterity in the fast ones, make the most of the music’s contrasts. So forget Bach: think instead of a sequence of delectable morsels, exquisitely presented’ (The Irish Times)
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9 October 2022
colinscolumn.com, Colin Anderson
Debussy: Early and late piano pieces‘Osborne [is] not only a sympathetic and insightful interpreter but one who looks beyond the impressionistic tag that Debussy was less than chuffed with. So, while there is plenty of tenderness, painterly descriptions, and intimacies, fine-line sketches, luminosity, enchantment, there can also be louder and harder touches, or less sentiment, than expected, all in the name of extending the music’s possibilities, and a listener’s rethink, Osborne being very persuasive with his decision’ (colinscolumn.com)
» More8 October 2022
BBC Record Review, Andrew McGregor
Debussy: Early and late piano pieces‘Steven Osborne find[s] such limpid but perfectly focused tone and range of colours. This isn’t ‘impressionistic’ Debussy in that mistake sense that there’s a wash of sound or smears of paint—detail, delicacy, refinement, full dynamic range in early and late Debussy, from the Bohemian dance that’s his first piano piece in 1880 through to the relatively recently rediscovered thank-you for a coal delivery during the First World War. I was transfixed by the beauty and clarity of this recital’ (BBC Record Review)
7 October 2022

Crescendo, Germany, Jean Lacroix
Haydn: String Quartets Opp 42, 77 & 103‘A year ago we hailed the first album on Hyperion of the ‘altered’ make up of the Takács Quartet … we eagerly awaited their second, announced as being dedicated to Haydn. Here it is, and the result is everything we had wished for … in [Op 77 No 1], from the very opening rhythm one is carried away by the atmosphere of tonal diversity, as well as by the sharp-edged, almost hard-hitting force with which the Takács imbue the music. They profile the melodies with a knowing ease that culminates in the third movement and its fugue, with the first violin making light of its extreme heights, filling every moment with creative tension. Op 77 No 2, dominated by its contrapuntal aspect, is given harmonic warmth and expressive density, and in its superb Andante—a true masterpiece—they achieve a dramatic capacity that is truly breathtaking … the Takács have enriched the recorded legacy of Haydn quartets with these finely-wrought jewels’ (Crescendo, Germany)
7 October 2022

Presto Classical, David Smith
Telemann: Fantasias for solo violin‘The first thing that struck me, in the very first track, was an unexpected sense of lonely vulnerability. The fact that Telemann starts many of these fantasias off with a slow movement is hardly unique in and of itself, since Bach’s solo violin works often do the same as do innumerable other
sonate da chiesa, but somehow it lends the Fantasia No 1 in B flat, and indeed the album as a whole, a profundity that I simply wasn’t anticipating. Throughout the set of twelve fantasias, Ibragimova reproduces that sense of delicacy numerous times, particularly in slow movements such as the opening Piacevolmente of No 8 in E major … in such capable hands as Ibragimova’s the shaky boundary between music ‘for professionals’ and ‘for amateurs’ breaks down altogether. Telemann’s craft in keeping the music playable is obvious, but Ibragimova shows us the art that he put into these twelve fantasias—each one an assembly of perfectly-formed one- or two-minute miniatures, forming an album of bite-size delights’ (Presto Classical)
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