Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice

“Here is an attractive recital of five varied pieces or suites of pieces, familiar and not so familiar, played with Hewitt's expected intelligence and finish and not a little verve. In her very readable introduction, Hewitt quotes a contemporary review of the Italian Concerto describing Bach not only as a great master but as someone 'who has almost alone taken possession of the clavier', and whose compositions are exceedingly difficult to play 'because the efficiency of his own limbs sets his standards'.
They still are, and Hewitt conveys the feeling that the challenges aren't just to be met but should be sensed as integral to successful performance.
By giving the quick numbers plenty of pace she makes the music sound difficult in the right way. No question of hustling them along, but rather of touching the core of the rhythmic energy and of making all the lines, throughout the texture, directional and lively.
Hewitt's isn't a monumental Bach, rooted to the spot, but one that makes us curious as to what lies around the next corner. The brilliant outer movements of the Italian Concerto, the long fugal section of the French Overture, the second and fourth of the Duets (those extraordinary studies in two-part writing) are all successes of her musical dynamic and high-stepping style. And the Echo movement of the French Overture (track 28) has a positively theatrical allure, like something out of Rameau – wonderful! What she can't disguise, however, is that some of the movements in this great suite 'in the French style' lie uneasily on the piano, especially when the sonorities characteristic of a two- manual harpsichord are transcribed as if for a piano without sustaining pedal. If only she'd allow herself a dab of it now and then; the music needs to hang in the air a bit, and the 18th- century harpsichord was, after all, an instrument of mass as well as point, richer in colour and weight of sound than Hewitt's pencil-lines and sometimes rather brittle and over-articulated manner suggest.
On the other hand, her characterisation of the two early Capriccios in terms of the modern piano is a tour de force – sparky, fresh, as if improvised.
The greatness of the rest of the music here may put them in the shade, a little, but they're delightful. Bach aged 17, trying his hand at programme music? Well, the Capriccio 'on the departure of his beloved brother' remained his only example of it, but it's a reminder too that there was nothing he couldn't do. A stimulating disc, and beautiful sound.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“A stupendous showcase for Dessay's chameleon qualities, there are few better examples of vocal dexterity allied to dramatic commitment.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2008

“Plaudits all round to Richard Hickox and his excellent Manchester band (and the Chandos production team) for at last granting Sullivan's Irish symphony the first wholly recommendable digital recording it so richly deserves. And what a charmer of a work it is! Mendelssohn (and his Reformation Symphony above all) provides the dominant stylistic template, but the work is soundly constructed, effectively scored, and the scherzo's irresistibly perky oboe tune, in particular, already reveals a very real melodic gift. Hickox observes the first-movement repeat, but his direction is highly imaginative and he never allows tensions to sag. What's more, the playing of the BBC Philharmonic ideally combines bright-eyed affection, keen vigour and nimble polish.
Following the symphony's successful March 1866 première under August Manns, Sullivan was asked to provide a work for that same year's Norwich Festival. The sudden death of his father just a few weeks before the festival proper jolted Sullivan into penning the likeable overture, In Memoriam. In terms of inventive freshness and orchestral scope it's rather trumped by the astonishingly confident incidental music for Shakespeare's The Tempest that Sullivan had written nearly six years earlier while still a student at the Leipzig Conservatory. Again, Hickox and company do plentiful justice to Sullivan's precocious inspiration. A thoroughly enjoyable collection, then, accorded sound of glowing realism in the finest Chandos tradition.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010