1 September 2020
Classica, France, Jorge Morales
Palestrina: Lamentations«Cet enregistrement est une véritable prouesse esthétique et musicale … après leurs éblouissants enregistrements de Willaert (2010) et Lassus (2015), les chanteurs de l'ensemble Cinquecento accomplissent de nouveau un travail musical exceptionnel, redonnant ses lettres d'or à ce répertoire méconnu» (Classica, France)

29 August 2020
BBC Record Review, Andrew McGregor
Liszt & Thalberg: Opera transcriptions & fantasies‘Marc-André Hamelin is just the kind of pianist you need to make the most of some of the great nineteenth-century virtuoso pianists’ entertaining operatic transcriptions … making light of Liszt’s virtuosic demands in—well, everything here; all these operatic transcriptions and fantasies. Such prodigious technique that he always has time to make musical sense when lesser pianistic mortals would be happy just to play the dots. You need pianism of this elevated quality to fully appreciate the genius of Liszt and the imagination of Thalberg’ (BBC Record Review)
29 August 2020
BBC Record Review, Andrew McGregor
Shostakovich: Cello Concertos‘You want intensity, passion, drive and hard-won exaltation? You certainly get them all in this new recording of the Shostakovich Cello Concertos from Alban Gerhardt. Sweetness and toughness in the solo cello sound; he’s prepared to dig into the strings for the edge he wants, spurred on by the urgency of the orchestral playing from the West German Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste. They take Shostakovich’s ‘Moderato’ marking for the middle movement [of No 1] seriously: a flowing tempo, not too slow, but it's still shot through with nostalgic melancholy, and Gerhardt delivers the great solo cadenza into the Finale with soulful introspection. The second concerto reaches darker places, and the recording frames them with a kind of claustrophobic depth that’s really effective.’ (BBC Record Review)
28 August 2020
colinscolumn.com, Colin Anderson
Dunhill & Erlanger: Piano Quintets‘Wonderful discoveries … I am smitten by these scores. The Potton Hall recordings (February 2019) are superb, ideally capturing the trusted partnership of Piers Lane and the Goldner Quartet—musicians who seem totally convinced of these works’ considerable worth’ (colinscolumn.com)
» More28 August 2020
Presto Classical, Katherine Cooper
Liszt & Thalberg: Opera transcriptions & fantasies‘[A] flabbergasting new recording … [Hexaméron] makes for an arresting opening on this album, with Hamelin revelling in the diversity of each composer-pianist’s technical strengths … his wry acknowledgement of Liszt’s desire to have the last word genuinely made me chuckle: the gloves truly come off for the home straight as he races towards the finishing-line with a crazily accelerating flurry of double-octaves, then smashes through it in a thunderous closing chord which hangs in the air for a good five seconds. It’s jaw-dropping pianism’ (Presto Classical)
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