Franz Peter Schubert

“The Bach Partita movements and the Mendelssohn Scherzo are exuberantly executed with wonderfully shaded phrasing and clear voicing.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2006

“Ashkenazy - a long-time champion of Rachmaninov's music - rattles it all off with a technical ease that borders on prestidigitatious. But there's also an innate sympathy with the musical language...The reworking of Tchaikovsky's Lullaby embodies all that's best in the art of transcription - it's both a loving homage and a distinctly personal poetic statement.” Paul Cutts, bbc.co.uk, 25th November 2002

“This is the most beautiful of Mozart playing, his last piano concerto given here by Emil Gilels with total clarity. This is a classic performance, memorably accompanied by the VPO and Böhm. Suffice it to say that Gilels sees everything and exaggerates nothing, that the performance has an Olympian authority and serenity, and that the Larghetto is one of the glories of the gramophone. He's joined by his daughter Elena in the Double Piano Concerto in E flat, and their physical relationship is mirrored in the quality, and the mutual understanding of the playing: both works receive marvellous interpretations.
We think Emil plays first, Elena second, but could be quite wrong. The VPO under Karl Böhm is at its best; and so is the quality of recording, with a good stereo separation of the two solo parts, highly desirable in this work.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“incandescent atmosphere and magisterial playing” Classic FM Magazine, August 2011

“These are marvellous performances: vibrant, clear, characterful and effortlessly well played.
The recordings, too, still seem new-minted, even the Ninth, the first of the symphonies to be recorded. The Berliners' art is the art that disguises art. Böhm never feels the need to do anything clever but just quietly sees to it that this superb orchestra plays at its best. Böhm's way with the two late symphonies is, in fact, highly sophisticated. The Unfinished begins in what seems to be a leisurely fashion but his performance of the first movement catches Schubert's mix of lyricism and high drama with extraordinary acuity. Conversely, the second movement seems swift but brings the work full circle with an equally extraordinary sense of calm and catharsis in the final pages. The celebrated 1963 Ninth out-Furtwänglers Furtwängler in the myriad means it uses within a single grand design to capture the symphony's sense of danger and derring-do in addition to its lyricism, nobility, and earthy Austrian charm.
In the early symphonies, Böhm's approach is simpler-seeming and more direct. Rhythms are so finely propelled, the pulse so effortlessly sustained, the music always lands on its feet. The zest comes from the stylish Berlin string- playing; melodically, it's the woodwinds (every one a Lieder singer) who catch the beauty of Schubert's melodies and the skirl of the attendant descants. You won't find yourself tiring of Böhm's approach; he doesn't give in to irritating idiosyncrasies (à la Harnoncourt), but ensures that the Schubertian stream is always clear to the eye and sweet to the taste.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010