Miah Persson

“'Gretchen am Spinnrade' is a model of how a middle-weight voice can scale the song's peaks thanks to an inner conviction and trusting how the notes and words can shoulder the dramatic weight...So beautiful is her enunciation in the Swedish-language Sibelius songs that you could take phonetic dictation...The Grieg songs show signs of vocal tiring...In 'Die verschwiegene Nachtigall', though, one can hardly imagine a more alluring nightingale song.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2012

“a lovely, beautifully balanced recital...In an opening Schubert set, Persson, for all the natural brightness of her voice, achieves the right aching heaviness in Lied der Mignon, and a beguiling sense of gentle repose in Du bist die Ruh.” Sunday Times, 15th July 2012

“Persson is beautiful and so is her voice, so she starts with a big advantage. But that is only the start...I did find...that there was a danger of monotony, undercharacterisation and reliance on sheer undeniable vocal beauty. Roger Vignoles is an ideal accompanist, setting the mood with a few notes or chords” BBC Music Magazine, September 2012 ***

“Persson clearly relishes the possibility of characterization particular songs...The voice is light and lyric throughout but there's power too when required, so the final lines of Du bist die Ruh are radiant...However - and this is possibly a subjective caveat - what Persson lacks is the kind of rounded warm tone and inner conviction that makes the best Schubert recitals so warmly satisfying...Hosford is the perfect partner up on the rock” International Record Review, September 2012

“This new, white-hot version of the C minor Resurrection, recorded live with the Chicago SO last year, has characteristic nobility, dynamic variety, detail, clarity, lyricism and, in the opening movement, a monumentally slow, shattering climax.” The Observer, 13th December 2009

“Trust Haitink to be masterfully controlled, alert to every dynamic shading or expressive mark.” The Times, 2nd January 2010

“What no one will deny is the amazing unanimity and precision of the playing here and the superlative quality of the sound engineering. …the Scherzo goes wonderfully well, with solo violin and clarinets in particular excelling themselves. In the finale, Fischer achieves novelty chiefly through understatement, mindful of the need to avoid coyness at all costs. Miah Persson is ideally cast and as she invokes Saint Martha...it's as if we're transported to a small village church, the organ made tangible in the exquisite treatment of the accompanying instrumental texture.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2009

“…Fischer's feeling of the Symphony's supple architecture, his ability to caress a phrase or point out a delicious colour without losing the sense of the larger flow, make this one of the most musically satisfying recordings to appear in a long time - worthy to put beside the great Jascha Horenstein / Margaret Price 1970 version, but in spirit wholly individual.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2009 *****

“Unlike some heavy-duty Mahlerians, Fischer and his wonderful Budapest band don’t overplay the nightmarish episodes. In the opening movement, Fischer lingers on exquisite instrumental detail without halting the music’s momentum. The soprano Miah Persson is angelic in the finale.” Sunday Times

“It's a provocative, iconoclastic performance, and highly recommended.” The Guardian, 13th March 2009 *****

“What no one will deny is the amazing unanimity and precision of the playing here and the superlative quality of the sound engineering. But how to read a work that can feel brittle as well as heart-warming and graceful? Despite Iván Fischer's eminently sane and central pacing overall, he courts controversy with inconsistencies of tone between (and individualised inflexions within) the four movements.
Some maestros choose between neo-classical modernity and old-world Gemütlichkeit. Fischer gives us both and more: he gives us instability.
Rather than taking his cue from the opening bars in which the jingling sleigh bells might be construed to lose their way, Fischer mixes them down, introducing his own eccentric nuance a fraction later. He permits an oasis of exquisite repose just before the movement's final flourish yet much of the rest is unsettling. While details unearthed are revelatory – often linear, maybe functional, certainly more than merely illustrative – the quest can seem obsessive, at odds with the sense of ease indicated by the composer.
Make no mistake however, the playing has character and conviction, the divided violins enhancing transparency albeit at some expense of weight and blend. Less self-regarding or at least less wilful since the idiosyncrasies are intrinsic, the Scherzo goes wonderfully well, with solo violin and clarinets in particular excelling themselves.
The slow movement is just a little pale, as if Fischer were deliberately avoiding the calculated sublimity and cushioned string tone associated with big-band performances of late Beethoven. The gates of Heaven are flung open with a great blare, possibly a bit much for home listening but replicating the immediacy of the concert hall. In the finale, Fischer achieves novelty chiefly through understatement, mindful of the need to avoid coyness at all costs. Miah Persson is ideally cast and as she invokes Saint Martha it's as if we're transported to a small village church, the organ made tangible in the exquisite treatment of the accompanying instrumental texture. This is just one of countless imaginative touches on an exceptional hybrid SACD.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“With Roger Vignoles making much of Rossini's modest-looking piano parts, the three singers give virtually unalloyed pleasure. Bruce Ford, a seasoned Rossini stylist, excels in the melancholy La partenza and L'esule. Miah Persson is witty without archness in the infantile nonsense of La Chanson du bébé, while mezzo Stella Doufexis makes a spirited, sensuous Angelina ...as she gees on her gondolier lover in the delightful mini-song cycle La regata veneziana.” The Telegraph, 14th June 2008

“It is hard for any disc of Rossini’s Paris salon songs not to speed by in a wink of delight. And it’s impossible with Miah Persson’s bright soprano and the sensitive accompaniments of Roger Vignoles. The tenor Bruce Ford, so practised at trifles, isn’t far behind in glory. The mezzo Stella Doufexis occasionally thinks she’s singing opera, but the moments pass and we’re back with Rossini – never more charming than in the childish Chanson du bébé.” The Times, 30th May 2008 ****

“Doufexis is an attractive interpreter, duetting gorgeously with Persson in La Regata Veneziana, while Ford is sly and agile in La Danza. At the keyboard, Vignoles revels in the high jinks. Sheer delight.” Sunday Times, 3rd August 2008 ****

“The real start of the record is a pianist Roger Vignoles. Rossini's writing for the piano is highly idiosyncratic. It requires a first-rate technique, a sure sense of style and an ability to bring off with insouciance all manner of hair's breadth effects.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2008

“This is a classic case of 'spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar', as well as further evidence of Hyperion's uncharacteristically uncertain touch with Rossini. Having taken the trouble to engage three distinguished singers to record the Soirées musicales, they have drawn the line at employing a fourth, the bass required for the final duet 'Li marinari'. The disc cannot therefore be the 'library' recording of Les soirées we currently need. After the 11 numbers from Soiréesmusicales, we are given a further nine songs plucked somewhat randomly from the later Péchés de vieillesse.
That said, there is much to enjoy on the record. The ordering and voice allocation of Lessoirées is open to variation. The eight solo songs are generally sung by a soprano or a mezzo, 'La danza' by the tenor. Here the tenor has three of the songs. In 'La danza' memories of singers from Caruso to Pavarotti are perhaps a shade too insistent. Elsewhere in Les soirées, Bruce Ford shows every sign of shifting from opera to chanson with skill and imagination; the duet 'Les amants de Séville' from Péchés in which he partners mezzo Stella Doufexis is one of the disc's highlights. The two women barely put a foot wrong, though Miah Persson's Alpine shepherdess is preferable to her somewhat overindulged bébé. The real star of the record is pianist Roger Vignoles. Rossini's writing for the piano is highly idiosyncratic. It requires a firstrate technique, a sure sense of style and an ability to bring off with insouciance all manner of hair's-breadth effects. Vignoles has the measure of all this and more.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“There isn't a low point on the entire disc. Roger Vignoles plays with all his characteristic intelligence and subtlety. Miah Persson is enchanting in the opening La Promessa...Bruce Ford is technically brilliant and dramatically engaging in the drinking song, L'orgia, and smoothly leads the mood from light to darkness with L'esule, the first of the Péchés De Vieillesse.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 24th June 2008