Monica Groop

“Fascinating manuscript fragments and student exercises appear alongside Finnish and Swedish-language choral classics...Supple, springy choral singing.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2012 *****

“Where the newcomer scores is in a clutch of real rarities, the least of which - the five student Contrapuntal Exercises written in 1887-90 - are fascinating (and also very taxing to sing)...Dominante's 40 [singers] do it [Man fran slatten och havet] proud, Christian Starke's sound superbly capturing throughout their finely nuanced interpretations” Gramophone Magazine, February 2013

“…exciting, lucid, wonderfully well-proportioned, and recorded in stunning sound the final hymn to the rising sun would lift the most morbidly lethargist out of their chair.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2009

“The Signum engineers have performed miracles to match and convey those of Schoenberg's prodigious orchestration. The 90 male voices divided by 16 parts in the Wild Hunt is around a third the number that Schoenberg had in mind but they are a convincingly rowdier bunch than Ozawa's Tanglewood Festival Chorus at almost the same hectic stampede... Nor need the Philharmonia fear competition: they play superbly...” Gramophone Magazine, March 2010

“Sometimes less is not more. More is exhilarating. ... the music-making was superb ... And what terrific soloists!” The Times

“The opening songs have a featherweight transparency, the interludes a natural fluency … and the choral climax transmits a properly ecstatic, pantheistic glow” Financial Times

“Salonen cracks into Schoenberg’s stacked layers of activity and strikingly schizophrenic mood shifts, revealing clarity and sonic grandeur. His soloists are top-notch too. Essential listening.” Classic FM Magazine

“This is a voluptuous, feverish and thrilling performance, characterised also by the clarity of vision and texture that have always been Salonen’s hallmarks.” Sunday Times ****

“The narrator... is the great German actor Barbara Sukowa, and as a consequence, the climactic Wild Hunt of the Summer Wind is about as heart-rending as it can possibly get.” The Guardian, 9th October 2009 ****

“Dramatically realised here by the Philharmonia under Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gurrelieder is a fascinating work which illuminates the development of Schoenberg's compositional style.” The Independent, 25th September 2009 ****

“...you can hear why it was critically acclaimed for the quality of the soloists, the impact of the choruses, and above all the playing of the Philharmonia – from transparent impressionistic textures to vast, bone-crunching climaxes. It’s an exhilarating journey from illicit love to redemption, and the sense of live adrenaline only increases the impact of Schöenberg’s score.” Andrew McGregor, bbc.co.uk, 18th December 2009

“Following the Luosto Symphony's premiere, Aho wanted to write on a smaller scale, for chamber orchestra. In the event, however, he produced a concert full of three interlinked works (2006-07) that, while performable separately, taken together 'form some sort of great “meta-symphony”'.
The concert opens with The Book of Questions, a half-hour-long song-cycle to lines from Neruda's final collection. Absent is the lushness of the Chinese Songs: the opening and closing sections are spoken and not until the fourth section does anything like their radiance of vocal writing emerge; by the 10th there is a hint of Aho's old teacher Rautavaara. Monica Groop sings as beautifully as she may, but the cycle's restraint is all-pervasive. Not so in the Viola Concerto which starts from the same chord with which the cycle concludes (in concert the soloists play tag while the music is still sounding); this is the more familiar Aho, dramatic, lyric, rhythmically vital.
The Fourteenth Symphony (Rituals) forms the concert's second half, exchanging singer and viola-player for two percussionists, the first performing on the Arabian darabuka and African djembe (Aho confesses he is 'bored' with Western drums). Their special timbres infuse the three main sections called 'Incantation', separated by two interludes and a Procession in which the second percussionist takes centre stage with an array of gongs. At a few points the spirit of Hovhaness hovers dimly over proceedings but Aho's personal voice is too strong to succumb to pastiche. The performances here are strong and compelling, the soloists at the top of their game and BIS's recording (made in Rovaniemi Church) superb as always.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“A specially composed triptych of works forms one grand design. The performances here are strong and compelling, the soloists at the top of their game and BIS's recording (made in Rovaniemi Church) superb as always.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2009

“The soloists are first-class and I particularly relished the bass Michael Volle's warm tone and affectionate phrasing. The chorus too make the most of their varied opportunities - emphatic in the chorales, lithe in the fugues - as does the orchestra.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2009 *****

“The performances throughout are first-class, with Andrea Brown a radiant soprano, and chorus and orchestra both full of life and energy…” BBC Music Magazine, April 2009 *****

“The use of trumpets and timpani in both works but especially in the Magnificat is thrilling, and is superbly performed here, with bite and thrust bringing out the fact that even at 13 the boy was not just writing pastiche but was beginning to develop a style of his own.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2009

“Monica Groop and Roger Vignoles sound every bit as committed to these ditties as to anything Grieg wrote. They're disarmingly sung, and compellingly accompanied throughout.” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2008 ****

“Groop's middleweight mezzo… remains attractive and clear, well suited to this repertoire and fortified with Roger Vignole's sterling support.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2008 ****