‘The partnership of Lewis and Osborne has already produced one exceptional disc: Schubert’s music for four hands, including the Fantasie in F minor, one of the genre’s masterpieces. They renew their collaboration in a programme of French duets—plus Stravinsky of his Parisian years—framed by two of the most popular pieces in the repertoire, Fauré’s Dolly Suite and the original version of Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye. The two pianists lavish an almost orchestral palette of colours on both: limpid, translucent textures, vital rhythmic address and shapely phrasing of both composers’ melodies … an absorbing and brilliantly played programme’ (The Sunday Times)

‘Danny Driver’s performances are intensely focused but always alive to the deep humanity of the exercises, not just their ingenuity and complexity … and it's a luminous, detailed recording as well’ (BBC Record Review)» More

‘[Osborne and Lewis are] decorous guides to the old-world charms of [Debussy's] suite after delighting in the more piquant rhythms and harmonies of Poulenc's Sonata for four hands and the beautiful fairytale tints of Ravel's Mother Goose. It's excellent piano sound as well’ (BBC Record Review)

‘A meeting of two finely balanced, subtle musical minds’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Aristocrat or bumpkin? Joseph Haydn seems to be both at once, which is a large part of his appeal. His music effortlessly straddles the class divide, just as it straddles any number of other opposites: high and low, serious and comic, transcendent and everyday … this new recording of his radiant, wise and often mysterious set of six quartets Op 76 leans heavily towards the aristocratic … those minuets sidle into being with insinuating gracefulness, as if we’re in an aristocratic ballroom. It’s the same story in the spacious opening movements, the rapt hymn-like slow movements, and the helter-skelter finales … the London Haydn Quartet give those balanced phrases and sudden pauses a very different, tenderly expressive quality’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘This music is so full of gusto, of passion, of a lust for life that it is nearly impossible to think of death. Especially in performances as persuasive, as rhetorically potent—as alive—as these’ (Limelight, Australia)» More

‘It would be hard to find a more highly committed advocate for this music than Howard Shelley who masters all the considerable technical challenges of these works with consummate ease, and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra offers sturdy and reliable support throughout’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More

‘Paul Lewis and Steven Osborne, two of Britain's foremost pianists, give matchless performances, and their virtuosic brilliance and unique sensitivity to the many nuances of these scores are an absolute joy to listen to. A real peach of a disc from one of Britain's best-loved labels’ (Classical Music Daily)

‘In Nos 5 and 6, Haydn even abandons the traditional sonata form for his opening allegros, shifting the expressive weight in each work to the slow second movement. It is in these—harmonically adventurous, formally ambiguous—that the London Haydn Quartet are often at their best, distilling an atmosphere of striking intensity in the ecstatic F sharp major Cantabile e mesto of No 5 and the resonant depths of the B major-ish Fantasia of No 6. The opening of the Sunrise (No 4) is similarly rich, leader Catherine Manson taking her time and unfurling the movement’s thematic material with improvisatory freedom … comparing these two period-instrument sets [the LHQ and Chiaroscuro Quartet] demonstrates once again that there is no single (or ‘right’) way to approach the infinitudes contained herein’ (Gramophone)

‘The issue [of attribution] is tackled head-on in this engaging programme, which includes a number of works over whose attribution debate is possible, and three securely ascribed ones to which one or more voices were added by a later composer—or perhaps, for Huc me sydereo, by Josquin himself. These ‘expanded’ versions are worth the price of admission … this rarely heard Josquin has much to tell us’ (Gramophone)

‘The ensemble’s sound is clean and ingenuous throughout: boyish sopranos and altos are balanced by fresh-voiced tenors and basses, intonation is nigh flawless, the recording limpid. Stephen Rice and his singers subtly capture the emotional and spiritual gamut of these works … Rice’s detailed liner notes, which include a summary of the scholarly debates surrounding the spurious works, wrap up this treasurable anniversary disc’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More

‘David Matthews continues to build on the rich British symphonic tradition, offering a principled alternative to those 20th-century styles that bore little if any audible relation to major-minor tonality … Matthews’s Eighth projects a winning eloquence and energy without ever lapsing into ponderousness’ (Gramophone)