‘Recommended with enthusiasm’ (International Record Review)

‘In Turina's Tres poemas, the soprano glides from sinuous habanera to a soaring paean to nature, moving from gentle breezes to fires and weeping willows’ (The New Zealand Herald)

‘Schwartz shows a wonderful voice, warm responsiveness to the texts and perfectly idiomatic Spanish. The programme is well-chosen, showing variety of mood, style and soundworld: Guridi's Six Catalan Songs have never been done more vibrantly, more movingly on record. Martineau is, as ever, the perfect collaborator’ (Classical Music)

‘Sylvia Schwartz is Spanish born, and these warmly seductive and rhythmically supple performances of a beguiling selection of songs by Granados, Turina, Montsalvatge and others are idiomatic and playful … Malcolm Martineau’s robust playing of the piano parts is a joy’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Soprano Sylvia Schwartz's reputation as a rising star is confirmed by her Hyperion debut album, a programme of songs from her native Spain, finely accompanied by Malcolm Martineau. There's a tangy, lived-in quality in Schwartz's tone that is immediately appealing … a wide emotional range that easily encompasses the wit of Granados's Tonadillas en Estilo Antiguo, the operatic scale of Turina's Tres poemas and the reined-in political fury of Montsalvatge's Cinco canciones negras. There are some exquisite songs in Catalan too’ (The Guardian)

‘This is a delightful programme of early twentieth-century Spanish song full of the atmosphere and seductive charms of Spain … Martineau proves to be an instinctive Spaniophile in his enchantingly nuanced accompaniments. He brings us as close as it is possible in a purely aural medium to the sights and scents of Spain … ever the ideal accompanist, he does not so much prod and pull as envelop the singer, leaving her all the space in the world to root into the very soul of these richly characterful songs … making her recital debut on Hyperion, Sylvia Schwartz delivers these songs with impressive precision and security … a voice so clearly focused that it seems to shine through the music like a bright guiding light. She has reserves of passion and emotion, which wisely she holds back for the very few occasions where it is musically warranted, but she mostly presents clear, confident and unaffected performances, revealing a total command over every aspect of the music. The vocal timbre has a pleasing combination of purity and rich maturity which makes for some arresting singing … strong and compelling performances’ (International Record Review)

‘Guridi's 'High up on that mountain' … is a significant discovery, capturing the dark mysticism of Spanish culture with surprising turns and unexpected splashes of thick harmonic colour. Turina's Tres poemas are marvellous instances of songs that use nature descriptions to reveal intense inner states of being … the rest of the disc suggests the presence of a major artist’ (Gramophone)

‘[Gerhardt] and the superb Cecile Licad are wholly successful in this endeavour from the outset … he has created a well-contrasted programme … each work is presented with stylish devotion … this is cello playing of exquisite sophistication and bold imagination’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Gerhardt's playing [is] less heart-on-sleeve than Casals's own, but wonderfully eloquent and noble: he can be extraordinarily moving in such once-familiar standards as the Berceuse from Godard's Jocelyn, or in Casals's arrangement of Chopin's Raindrop Prelude’ (The Guardian)

‘There is much more to an encore, as Alban Gerhardt will tell you, than casually capping a recital with an audience-pleaser … listen to Gerhardt in Benjamin Godard’s Berceuse de Jocelyn and there is a paradigm of the exceptional eloquence and discernment that distinguishes the entire disc’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Let me not turn tedious with a list of Gerhardt's superior skills, his seamless legato, his command of bowing skills, his generous tone even at the top of the A string, his glowing burnished double stops in the Popper/Chopin Nocturne … it goes without saying, though I better say it, that the playing is immaculate from both players, the sequence of pieces on the CD is nicely contrasted’ (International Record Review)

‘The performances are uniformly excellent, and as persuasive as can be. There's a passion and intensity here that clearly betokens a belief in this music; and the sheer beauty of sound evoked by Inoue and De Groote deserves to be heard for that alone’ (Fanfare, USA)