Heather Harper - download (MP3 & FLAC)

“Solti's Belshazzar's Feast is more symphonic than dramatic but monumentally impressive. Preston directs a useful anthology of short choral works.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2012 ****

“Decca have done it again, transferring this highly spectacular choral work [Belshazzar’s Feast] with incredible aplomb. The Coronation Te Deum is hardly less impressive, the choral sound richer textured to suit the occasion, and there is a great bass pedal effect near the end. … Solti has come to Belshazzar's Feast, a great British masterpiece, and in his refreshing way has given it a crisp, international look … It is certainly a most distinctive performance, sharply focused and helped by a recording of superb clarity and brilliance … Indeed the range and bite of the sound here is little short of miraculous” Gramophone Magazine (Belshazzar’s Feast, Coronation Te Deum)

“The disc thus gives a panorama of the composer's choral development over five decades … Preston has welded the choir into a most expressive and flexible instrument … The disc does credit to all concerned and will add lustre to the already high standard of Argo recordings in this field.” Gramophone Magazine (CD2: Choral works)

“Heather Harper’s singing … is a constant pleasure. Paul Hamburger, a first-rate accompanist who has appeared far too little on records, plays the quite demanding piano parts with great skill and sensitivity” Gramophone Magazine (Songs)

“In Steinberg's Gloria, the choir's accent on 'hominibus' is just right: quiet, not overdone...Steinberg hammers out 'consubstantialem Patri' in fine style...Peter Meven intones the the opening to the Agnus Dei with gravitas.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2012

“Steinberg impresses by keeping a firm hand on the tiller. Almost without exception I thought his tempi were judiciously chosen...Beethoven makes the most unreasonable demands on the chorus, the sopranos especially, yet the German singers never flinch and I admired the tenors who produce strong, incisive singing yet never force the tone” MusicWeb International, July 2012

“the cast is fine and the tension cumulative” BBC Music Magazine, July 2011 ***

“Sir Colin Davis takes a fundamentally darker, tougher view of Peter Grimes than the composer himself. Jon Vickers's powerful, heroic interpretation sheds keen new light on what arguably remains the greatest of Britten's operas...A genuine bargain.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***

“Britten characteristically refuses to follow any set tradition, whether Baroque, Victorian or whatever, and, with greater extremes of tempo than is common (often strikingly fast), the result makes one listen afresh...A superb bargain.” Penguin Guide, 2010 ***

“two outstanding performances by Dame Janet Baker, recorded at the peak of her career...Luxon makes the selfish Tarquinius into a living character...The seductive beauty of the writing - Britten then at his early peak - is caught splendidly” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***

“It hardly needs saying that Britten's direction of his piece is superlative...In this Dream, Britten combines the sense of atmosphere and beauty of tone...And it is an enthralling experience.” Gramophone Magazine, May 1967

“This recording remains as fresh and inspired as the day it was made. Britten's taut, disciplined yet magical reading is unsurpassed.” Good CD Guide

“Britten again proves himself an ideal interpreter of his own music and draws virtuoso playing from the LSO...The mechanicals are admirably led by Owen Brannigan as Bottom; and among the lovers Josephine Veasey (Hermia) is outstanding. Deller, with his magical male alto singing, is the eerily effective Oberon.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***

“John Culshaw, the recording manager, put an extra halo round the fairy music to act as a substitute for visual atmosphere.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“Fischer-Dieskau [is] terrific in the title role. The London Philharmonic sounds stretched at times by Busoni’s eerie writing and the recording quality isn’t exactly sumptuous, but Boult, who had introduced the opera to Britain 20 years earlier, paces the drama with gusto. There is much characterful singing from Heather Harper and Richard Lewis” The Times, 27th August 2011 ***

“strongly cast, with a magisterial account of the title role from Dietrich Fischer Dieskau. Heather Harper is in radiant form as the Duchess of Parma, and Richard Lewis acquits himself well in the cruelly demanding part of Mephistopheles. The mono recording is serviceable.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2011 ****

“The performance can hardly have been over-rehearsed but proceeds with confidence - this conductor was always at home with German operatic music. Alongside Fischer-Dieskau, a cast of British worthies work hard on unfamiliar territory (Richard Lewis and Heather Harper especially) to match the German's fluent Faust.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2011

“Fischer-Dieskau's is a great assumption of the role throughout. On this occasion, his quality doubtless inspired the rest of the cast, for with Richard Lewis as Mephistopheles and Ian Wallace as Wagner it is impossible to imagine these parts being better sung - Wallace, in particular, never did anything finer than this...At all times, Boult shows himself to be the great musician he undoubtedly was.” International Record Review, November 2011

“Our Hunting Fathers … is easily the most vivid version of Britten's earliest masterpiece to appear on disc.” Guardian, May 2005