Christine Brewer

“The joys of the performance lie in the way the acoustical demands of the work have been met” Financial Times, 11th May 2013

“Over the decades, Davis’s tempi have become more measured, but the Wolf’s Glen scene still has spook factor aplenty...Chorus and orchestra are the stars here.” Sunday Times, 12th May 2013

“a moving testament to the late Sir Colin Davis, as well as a thrilling performance in its own right...The chorus, especially in the Wolf's Glen, enthralls, as does the orchestra, rising to every challenge, urgent or lyrical, heroic or poetic. Davis, as ever, balances unrushed tempi with moments of raw excitement and aural extravagance” The Observer, 11th May 2013

“the love [Davis] felt toward Der Freischütz can be felt in almost every bar...there is nothing galumphing here, and the LSO make themselves happily rustic whenever the music swings that way...The vocal cast? Always decent, sometimes compelling.” The Times, 10th May 2013 ****

“…Sir Colin conducts the Requiem with a judicious mix of fire and meditative calm; tempi never drag nor are they, in the reflective passages, metronome-quick. The work of the LSO Chorus is first-rate, as is that of the LSO itself.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2009

“Davis, first and foremost, sees the Requiem as being driven by unresolvable inner tensions and ­paradoxes...Davis creates a sense of almost unendurable emotional uncertainty by reminding us that consolation is ­repeatedly proffered, only to be whisked away.” The Guardian, 11th September 2009 ****

“The luxuriantly recorded Chandos disc is particularly welcome for featuring premiere recordings of four relatively early choral pieces including the lavishly scored Herbstchor an Pan… Performed here with considerable emotional conviction by Jirí Belohlávek and the massed forces of the Trinity Boys Choir and the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, it is by far the most striking of these works... Those drawn to the creamy sonorities of a soprano voice soaring above a lush orchestral fabric will find much to savour in Christine Brewer's warm and ecstatic renditions of 'Barkarole', 'Selige Nacht' and 'Sommerlied'...” BBC Music Magazine, February 2009 ****

“Post-Wagnerian richness and lush harmony marks Marx's orchestral songs. Christine Brewer has the floating purity of voice to soar easily over Marx's beautifully judged textures in for instance "Selige Nacht" and "Maienblüten", both rapt in manner and unashamedly reflective, the latter suggesting the atmosphere of Strauss's Four Last Songs.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2009

“The most substantial work in this selection of Joseph Marx's orchestral songs and choral pieces is the Herbstchor an Pan ('Autumn Hymn to Pan'), his first orchestral work (1911) but one in which his easy mastery of a rich instrumental palette is already evident. His idiom was formed early and changed little: indeed, he had little sympathy with change, and notoriously failed to mention Schoenberg, Berg or even Hindemith when he brought out Weltsprache Musik, a book of aesthetics and philosophy, in the last year of his life, 1964.
It should be no surprise, then, to find that here is a rich, post-Wagnerian manner, luscious in harmony and sensuous in orchestration. Christine Brewer has the floating purity of voice to soar easily over Marx's beautifully judged textures in, for instance Selige Nacht and Maienblüten, both rapt in manner and unashamedly reflective, the latter suggesting the atmosphere of Strauss's Four Last Songs. Some similarity betwen Marx and Delius suggests that they had both moved away from Wagnerian harmony in comparable directions, influenced by a pantheistic response to nature: lovers of Delius's SeaDrift may appreciate the harmonic flavour and modulatory side-slips of the Herbstchor an Pan. It is in this vein that Marx seems at his most effective; the more exuberant songs sound rather laboured and their jollity contrived. Belohlávek draws a suitably rich manner from the orchestra and gives Brewer loyal support with textures that are full but always lucid, and served well by the recording.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…Colin Davis's conducting of the London Symphony Orchestra and the vocal forces is so impressive that it ranks with the greatest accounts I have ever heard of this work… Christine Brewer is a great Fidelio, her big voice under perfect control, electrifying at climaxes.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2007 ****

“Colin Davis is an interpreter inspired from start to finish …” Opera

“Davis's version is crisp and dramatic...Abscheulicher brings out all [Brewer's] masterly qualities to the full, thanks to her big, firm, creamy voice, perfectly controlled...The rest of the cast sings strongly too, with John MacMaster a clear, bold Florestan” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***

“a major Wagnerian” Financial Times

“It's a long time since we’ve had such a richly-gilded sound in this repertoire, darker colours in the lower register moving seamlessly to luminous tone above the stave… The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under Runnicles sounds equally glorious, in warmly lit and irreproachably balanced sound that lends a striking realism to the individual colours of the woodwind solos...” BBC Music Magazine, October 2006 *****

“outstandingly vivid recording, among the finest ever to come from Chandos...[Brewer is] at once heroic but intensely human and warm, brilliant in the demanding 'Abscheulicher'. She is well matched by the Florestan of Richard Margison...always vocalizing lyrically and never barking in heldentenor style, suggesting a fresh, youthful hero.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***

“Never have the fragments of first-movement themes, bouncing and billowing on a sea of azure blue, come across more clearly; never has the essential naivety of Mahler's vision been more convincing. The final ascent to the big blue yonder is surely unsurpassable on both the sonic and interpretative fronts. There's no doubt... Rattle has inspired all concerned to an achievement which joins his groundbreaking readings of the Third, Seventh and Tenth Symphonies in the Mahlerian heaven.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2005 *****

“Gian Carlo Menotti took as his starting-point for the libretto of Vanessa the atmosphere of Isak Dinesen's Seven Gothic Tales. His story is original, but the ideas that fired him can be found in the stories. One of Dinesen's heroines lives a secluded life, and although beautiful, she's forlorn – 'she knew that she did not exist, for nobody ever looked at her'. Vanessa, too, has lived her adult life waiting for the return of her faithless admirer, Anatol. When he does come, it's an impostor.
For an opera that's so seldom performed, Vanessa has been accorded a generous three complete recordings. This new one, recorded in London's Barbican after a concert in 2003, has splendidly vivid sound. Leonard Slatkin draws full-blooded playing from the BBC Symphony Orchestra, accentuating Barber's use of yearning, Puccini-inspired melodies, laced with a few nods to Berg and Strauss. The weirdest music, that for the ball in Act 3, sounds like some kind of Western barn dance, even though the setting is northern Europe.
Excellent though Susan Graham is as Erika, Christine Brewer is so much in command, and in such splendid voice, there's no doubt it's Vanessa's story. One problem is that the three female voices sound a little similar: Catherine Wyn- Rogers is a youthful old Baroness.
Anatol, the greatest cad in opera since Pinkerton, is made almost sympathetic by William Burden. Neal Davies does what he can with the rather stock figure of the Doctor.
But listening at home one is conscious of an awful lot of generalised mood music. Vanessa was the last gasp of American verismo: its Met première in 1958 was in the same season as Bernstein's West Side Story o” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010