Patricia Rozario

“While there may be doubts over the music there can be no doubt as to the excellence and commitment of all three performances on this pair of discs. The recorded sound and booklet are up to the usual very high Chandos standards.” MusicWeb International, August 2012

“Pride of place foes to Joubert's 1977 Second Quartet, an impressive piece played with great conviction by the Brodsky Quartet, in the best recording of the set.” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2007 ****

“The Brodskys kick off proceedings with a gloriously persuasive and stylish performance of the Second Quartet (1977): a marvellously invigorating and cogent creation… Landscapes for soprano and piano trio… will leave you in no doubt as… Joubert's instinctive ability to illuminate the text. Patricia Rozario sings with ardour and is watchfully supported by an ad hoc group that includes the composer's cellist daughter, Anna. Fifteen years separate the first two piano sonatas, the finale of No 2 (1977) enshrining another Passacagalia of giddy fecundity. John McCabe... remains a consummate champion. He also performs the substantial Third Sonata (2006)... with thrilling discernment and belief.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2007

“Throughout the disc, Graham Johnson's accompaniments are typically illuminating with numerous touches of detail glossed over by many pianists. And, as ever, his vastly comprehensive notes, amounting to no less than a book, are in a class of their own” BBC Music Magazine

“There are unknown treasures here. Anyone who hasn't invested in this vast enterprise might well begin with this volume” Classic CD

'As ever, illuminating words complement revelatory music-making' (BBC Music Magazine)

“Like the previous Schubertiads in the Edition, this disc mixes solo songs and partsongs, famil- iar and unfamiliar. The only really famous work here is Der Wanderer, that archetypal expression of romantic alienation whose popularity in Schubert's lifetime was eclipsed only by that of Erlkönig. Some of the partsongs – Zum Punsche, Naturgenuss and Schlachtgesang – cultivate a vein of Biedermeier heartiness that wears a bit thin today. Nor will Schubert's consciously archaic tribute to his teacher Salieri have you itching for the repeat button – though, like several other numbers, it shows the 19-year-old composer rivalling Mozart in his gift for musical mimicry. To compensate, though, there are partsongs like the sensual Der Entfernten, with its delicious languid chromaticisms, and the colourful setting of Gott im Ungewitter. The slight but charming setting of Das war ich is appealingly done by the light-voiced Daniel Norman, and Ann Murray brings her usual charisma and dramatic conviction to the pathetic Italian scena Didone Abbandonata.
Christine Schäfer is equally charismatic in the unjustly neglected Die verfehlte Stunde (recorded here for the first time), catching perfectly the song's mingled yearning and ecstasy and negotiating the mercilessly high tessitura with ease. Other happy discoveries include Schubert's virtually unknown third setting of Des Mädchens Klage, with its soaring lines, a melancholy tale of courtly love, sung by Christoph Prégardien with as much drama and variety as the music allows, and the surging Entzückung ('music for an infant Lohengrin,' as Graham Johnson puts it), for which Toby Spence has both the flexibility and the necessary touch of metal in the tone. Doubts were fleetingly raised by Lynne Dawson's slight tremulousness in Des Mädchens Klage, and by Christopher Maltman's prominent vibrato at forte and above in an otherwise involving performance of Der Wanderer.
But, these cavils apart, no complaints about the singing or the vivid accompaniments.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010