‘Hyperion already has cornered the market with its roster of top pianists, and with this release the label looks about ready to do so with string quartets as well. On evidence here, the new partnership is operating in top form … 'Death and the Maiden' is frighteningly intense in its outer movements, with driving rhythms and a real feeling of danger, of music making 'on the edge' in the concluding tarantella … Hyperion's sonics do them proud. Music lovers have much to enjoy, and much to look forward to in this and future releases’ (Classics Today)

‘It is a considerable coup for Hyperion to sign up the Takács Quartet. They are currently the greatest string quartet in the world … the first product of the group's new partnership is outstanding … the recording quality is ideal—natural, never aggressive. This disc is a model for what chamber music should be’ (The Guardian)

‘The Takács have the ability to make you believe that there's no other possible way the music should go, and the strength to overturn preconceptions that comes only with the greatest performers’ (Gramophone)

‘Glowing interpretations—a fine recording … this is a superb performance’ (Gramophone)

‘This is music that pulls us in myriad of emotional directions and includes some mightily challenging writing. All of this is welcome meat and drink to the excellent Gaudier Ensemble, who play the work with an obviously deep affection’ (The Evening Standard)

‘The String Quintet typifies Schubert's late style at its most profound. Composed in the year of his death (he was unbelievably still only 31), it is difficult to associate music of such awesome harmonic boldness and innovation with someone who, in the last throes of syphillis, had just over a month to live. The Raphael Ensemble, led by Anthony Marwood, plays with an engaging freshness, simplicity and purity, tantalisingly suggesting that this was after all the work of a young man with plenty still to live for. It's a captivating reading that will blow away any Schubertian cobwebs and have one falling in love with this masterwork all over again’ (Classic FM Magazine)

‘The playing has a kind of disciplined abandon that's rare enough on the concert platform and rarer still in the recording studio. The sound is forward and immediate enough to catch some moments of roughness in the tone. But the thrust is unfailingly persuasive, and the players are as sensitive when they delve inward as when they effectively seem to be playing their hearts out’ (The Irish Times)

‘I don't know how Hyperion keeps coming up with such fine young talent, but here we go again with another beautifully sung and superbly recorded effort from our English friends … excellent but seldom heard music, wonderful singing, fine engineering, and Hyperion's well-above-average documentation all add up to a thoroughly enjoyable experience’ (American Record Guide)

‘Anyone who cares about lieder singing and repertoire must have this disc … artful, sensitive, attentive, technically assured performances―absolutely first rate’ (Classics Today)

‘Stephan Loges brings to his contributions the youthful warmth of his attractively vibrant baritone and his wonderful feeling for line and word … Lieder singing of the highest calibre … delightful … it is good to have all these songs, long hidden in libraries, available on CD’ (Gramophone)

‘A superb Schumann disc’ (The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs)

‘Margaret Price sings consistently like an angel here, though it probably needs a human to inject such variety and ardour as we find throughout this recital … Price and Johnson are in wonderful accord, and in a year already notable for Lieder recitals this will take a high place’ (Classic CD)