Claude Achille Debussy

“Vol 10 of Naxos's "Great Pianists" consists of 21 bonnes bouches with which the incomparable Moiseiwitsch enchanted his adoring audiences down the years. And, as a crowning touch, there is Mendelssohn's First Concerto full of old­fashioned touches in the central Andante but with a finale tossed aside with all of his legendary legerdemain and leaving most of his rivals at the starting-post. Elsewhere you can hear a jackdaw's nest of performances where the merest trinket is turned into purest gold.” Gramophone

‘I cannot imagine many piano lovers failing to fall for this delectable and all-too-brief collection of impressions, portraits and postcards. If you are not drawn to the imaginative programme of the familiar, the brand new and the entirely unknown, then the elegant, eloquent playing of this master pianist will surely seduce you … we are treated to some of the loveliest pianissimos and and delicate shadings you’ll hear, familiar from Hough’s earlier Piano Albums and similar in his complete empathy with this kind of repertoire … Hough’s own On Falla has an authentic ring that should provide him with a blistering encore for years to come … the piano sound (Andrew Keener and Simon Eadon) is as you would expect from Hyperion’s dream team’ (Gramophone)

“The young French violinist David Grimal draws a consistently pure and silky tone from his Roederer Stradivari (1710) with a controlled and somewhat discreet vibrato. Nevertheless, Grimal’s accuracy, lyricism and technical command … show him to be an artist of immense talent and promise.” The Strad

“…David Grimal's… performances have tremendous musical integrity and are deeply felt. The contemplative side of his playing is perfectly epitomised in the first movement of the Debussy Sonata where certain passages achieve an almost trance-like state. The tensions between melancholic introspection and powerful defiance are more finely drawn in the Bartók Solo Sonata, and here Grimal seems in his element.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2007 *****

‘Debussy’s string quartet demands an exquisite control of dynamics, right down to the merest shudder of a pizzicato, and the Ysaÿe proved equal to every challenge.’ The Observer

“The Ysaÿe's take on Debussy is forthright and dramatic, pointing up the edginess of the opening particularly well. This is a warm, generous reading… The Stravinsky pieces are a very different proposition, and the Ysaÿe well express the savagery of the first of the Three Pieces and the hypnotic chorale of the third.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2006