‘The King’s Consort are on top form throughout. Highly recommended’ (The Organ)

‘Charming music from one of Bach’s 17th-century predecessors as Kantor of the Thomaskirche, Leipzig. Strongly recommended’ (Gramophone)

‘This important recording is fine proof of Schelle’s imagination and invention … Robert King should be congratulated for an outstanding espousal of another of Bach’s contemporaries’ (Early Music Review)

‘The choral blending is fresh, vital and alert, with particularly alluring contributions from the soprano voices. The big brass arsenal is arresting and provides an effective foil for the more contemplative pieces. Thanks, King and Co’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘The man who is gifting this superlative disc to his friends is doing them the greatest favor imaginable. It contains an absolute treasure trove whose only common denominator is the high quality throughout every one of these nine works … King's fervent espousal of Schelle's marvelous music is apparent in every bar of this flawless disc’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘I feel unusually evangelical about this new disc. Its riches are thrillingly overt: the music radiates a glowingly optimistic sense of spirituality comparable with the most outgoing of Bach’s later cantatas’ (International Record Review)

‘Anyone who has yet to investigate King's indispensable 'Bach's Contemporaries' should rectify the omission without a moment's further ado. Start with this treasure of a disc, then investigate the Kuhnau, Knüpfer and Zelenka. By that time you'll be ready to get down onto your knees and pray for further additions to the series’ (Goldberg)

«Certes nous n'avions «besoin» d'une nouvelle interprétation des Quatuors «La Jeune fille et la mort» et «Rosamunde», mais ce CD est imparable … les Takács ont plus que bein réussi leur entrée au catalogue Hyperion. Si leur version de «La Jeune fille et la mort» fait jeu égal avec les meilleurs, celle de «Rosamunde» se dégage vraiment comme un très grand moment de la discographie schubertienne» (Classics Today France)

‘The impassioned beginning of Death and the Maiden sweeps all before it, and the jittery refrain from the finale sounds like a madman's jig, different each time it appears, too. The Rosamunde is simply heartbreaking. The playing from all four instruments is spectacular in its force and finesse. For once, that abused term 'definitive' is absolutely justified’ (The Dallas Morning News)

‘Another great achievement of this recording is the sound. The engineers really surpassed themselves; it is natural, reverberant and crystal clear—always bright and detailed. The Takács Quartet's move from Decca to Hyperion certainly seems to be a successful marriage … a worthy contender among the elite of Schubert string quartet recordings’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘If their recent Hyperion debut is any indication, everything is pretty copacetic. The recordings capture the quartet's ability in concert to build a seemingly spontaneous rhetorical structure for its characteristic drive, fire and focus, while making each member of the audience feel that the quartet is playing for him or her alone … Hyperion has outdone itself for the release, choosing for the CD cover Hungarian artist Adolph Hiremy-Hirsch's darkly intense 1888 painting 'Ahasuerus at the End of the World', which powerfully reflects the composer's transformation of death into something beautiful’ (Strings, USA)

„Ein wunderbare Einspielung mit einem Quartett, das vielleicht bislang zu wenig Beachtung fand—Is there really a view of Schubert's String Quartet No 14 that hasn't yet been considered? Is it possible to add to the already countless number of interpretations one that is fresh and new? On hearing this recent recording by the Takács Quartet, the answer has to be 'Yes!' For here less emphasis is placed on Schubert's melodic language, and on the purely songlike, and much more weight is given to the sense of dramatic development so important in this work: an intensive interplay with the formal material, with the expressive power of communication itself. And so the Takács Quartet builds up a musical portrayal as intoxicating as it is charged with emotion, one of a kind that has never been heard before. Beauty of tone is not the main aim here, but rather the harmonious euphony of the different voices, here achieved so superbly: above all in the quartet's second movement, the variations, before melancholy and despair take a rest during the Presto, then culminate completely in the Tarantella of the Finale. The recording of the Quartet No 13, the so-called Rosamunde also shows the same approach of constant urgency, possibly expressing Schubert's intentions far better than the usual meticulously reproduced melodic treasury. A marvellous recording, by a quartet to which perhaps too little attention has been paid so far“ (Ensemble, Germany)