‘He homes in on the Hungarian melodies and evocations and locates the love and pride that Liszt lavished on them’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘This splendid set represents a high artistic peak within Leslie Howard's distinguished survey’ (The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs)

‘Outstanding’ (CDReview)

«Leslie Howard domine avec beaucoup de chic le barrage technique des difficultés pianistiques» (EcouterVoir, France)

‘Howard, catching the authentic tinge of hysteria, mounts swiftly upwards in an ecstasy that burns away awareness of mere notes’ (Classic CD)

‘This pianist seems absolutely in key with Liszt's own musicianship’ (Musical Opinion)

‘This CD was a revelation—this is great music played with impeccable artistry and flawlessly recorded, one of the best solo piano records I've heard in the past ten years’ (CDReview)

‘Enthusiastically recommended’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘Polenzani remains an extraordinarily communicative Lieder singer, possessed of an agile and flexible voice of tremendous versatility. In the most intimate of these settings, as well as in the quasi-operatic ones, Polenzani and Drake create performances that are at once thoughtful, richly atmospheric and never less than compelling … this auspicious inauguration of the series whets the appetite for more’ (International Record Review)

‘This stupendous disc, issued ahead of the Liszt bicentenary next year, marks the start of Hyperion's survey of his complete songs, still a grey area for many despite past attempts by major artists such as Brigitte Fassbaender and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to rehabilitate them … as with so much of his music, their difficulty in performance is to be found in their emotional and expressive extremes. The challenges are more than met here, with Polenzani doing things in songs such as Der Fischerknabe or Pace Non Trovo that you never thought were possible for a human voice, while Drake's intensity is total and unswerving’ (The Guardian)

‘Polenzani is evidently a tenor of the finest quality: a lyric voice, sweet and ingratiating, with the capacity to ring out excitingly, gloriously easy on high but with a perfectly adequate body to the tone in its middle and lower registers. He is firm and even, pleasingly expressive … he sings with warmth, intelligence and conviction, matching the superb playing of his pianist Julius Drake’ (Gramophone)

‘This is a fascinating and rewarding recital, which explores Liszt’s oeuvre from the 1840s to 1870s … the grainy and distinctive timbre of Kirchschlager’s vivid mezzo-soprano is well suited to this highly charged emotional world, and Drake’s playing is eloquently impassioned without sinking to fortissimo ham’ (The Daily Telegraph)