Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice

“This is a thrilling recording that captures the spirit of the 15th century of Spain's Queen Isabel I. Recorded in sound of amazing immediacy.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2005

“performances of a superlative vitality and super-fine sensitivity” Gramophone

“…there is plenty to enjoy in Sudbin's expressive, rhythmic and thoughtful playing, virtues which come together rewardingly in the Sonata in B minor (K87).” BBC Music Magazine, May 2005 ***

“This generously packed CD is sheer delight from start to finish. Even with recorded selections available from the likes of Horowitz, Pletnev, Schiff and Pogorelich, the 25-year-old Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin makes his solo debut on disc with performances of a superlative vitality and super-fine sensitivity.
His choice of sonatas is richly enterprising, pinpointing their infinite variety, their abrupt changes of mood and direction, so that whether familiar or unfamiliar (and there are many unfamiliar numbers), each offering is a delectable surprise. Free from the nervous tension that can sometimes plague him in the concert hall, Sudbin relishes the way Scarlatti turns convention topsy-turvy, presenting him in both performance and his affectionate accompanying essay as one of music's most ardent and life-affirming adventurers. He's brilliant and incisive in Kk545, and makes every bar of the reflective Kk57 glisten with poetry. What thrumming guitars he evokes in Kk435 and 487, reminding us that Scarlatti forsook his native Italy and later Portugal for a heady addiction to all things Spanish.
There are spicy and witty imitations of changing registrations and some notably rumbustious closes to make every facet of these diamond-like sonatas spark and scintillate as if new-minted.
This is, arguably, among the finest, certainly most enjoyable of all Scarlatti recitals. As a crowning touch Sudbin is heard in a beautifully warm and natural acoustic.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Sudbin finds, besides much to charm the ear, an infinite expressive depth in many of the minor key works, which are played here with appealing expressive freedom...There is sparkle and brilliance here too, and Sudbin can be both strong and delectably light-fingered. He is recorded splendidly, and this can be placed among the finest and most generous of recent single-disc Scarlatti collections.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“This is mostly well-planned and executed recital mixes favourites with extracts from operas that have remained rarities, even with the increased interest in late 19th-century repertory. It begins with Rodrigue's great prayer, 'O souverain' from Act 3 of Le Cid. Rolando Villazón sings this with an attractive quiet introspection to start with, but then there is metal and passion in his voice for the climax. Of the other well-known Massenet items, it's good to hear Werther's 'Lorsque l'enfant' as well as the show-stopping 'Pourquoi me réveiller?'. In 'En fermant les yeux' from Manon, Natalie Dessay provides Manon's brief phrases, and Villazón makes a really sensitive dreamer. 'Ah, fuyez' goes well too, but it will be the arias from Roma, Grisélidis and Le Mage that will attract most listeners. In all Massenet's output is there a more seductive tune than the one that forms the centre of the Roma scene, 'Soir admirable'? This is done very well by Warren Mok in the complete recording, but Villazón outshines him.
Of the Gounod arias, Faust's 'Salut demeure' fares the best, but again it will be the extracts from Polyeucte and La Reine de Saba that will please immediately.
Villazón has established himself as one of the most promising among the new generation of tenors. His French has improved recently, butthere is the odd difficulty still with certain vowels.
Accompaniment, recording and presentation are first-rate.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This recording in Richard Hickox's Britten series is beautifully played and recorded, and in its all-important central role reunites Hickox with Philip Langridge, so compelling in their earlier set of Peter Grimes. Britten tailored the role of Aschenbach so perfectly for Peter Pears's inimitable tenor that it's unlikely any other singer will find it an easy fit. A few years ago Langridge might have been more adept than he is now at handling some of the high-lying lyrical lines, but the compromises in this department are worth making for a singer who's so penetrating in dramatic insight. Hardly a page of the score passes without his vivid delivery opening up some new dimension of the role. As the drama deepens he progressively strips the soul of Aschenbach bare.
His two main colleagues perform to an equally high level. Alan Opie is still in his vocal prime and all seven of his multifarious Dionysiac characters are sharply delineated. The excellent Michael Chance is more ethereal as the Voice of Apollo than James Bowman, and for that reason is preferable by a whisker.
As always, Hickox takes his time over the score, but there's less sense of self-indulgence than in some of his earlier Britten recordings.
He raws playing of high quality and generosity of feeling from the City of London Sinfonia.
Add an exemplary choral contribution from the BBC Singers and a typically atmospheric Chandos recording, and there's no reason to resist.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“...matches and in many ways even outshines the fine model of the original recording...Langridge proves an inspired interpreter of the role of Ashenbach [sic], more passionate than Pears, and in his death scene he is even more poignant...Add to that Hickox's powerful, finely-timed pacing of a work which is largely meditative, and the result is totally magnetic.” Penguin Guide, 2010 ***

“The Pears/Bedford version tends to emphasise the opera's elegiac side… The Chandos… is certainly not lacking in depth. But it also has an incisive clarity matching Richard Hickox's generally more urgent approach to expression and tempo, and the more anguished Aschenbach of Philip Langridge... His riveting intensity is finely supported by Alan Opie's increasingly sinister evocation of the succession of characters who convey Aschenbach to his doom; easily a match for John Shirley-Quirk on the Decca set, as is the new Apollo of Michael Chance for that of James Bowman.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2005 *****

“Hard to believe, but this is the first CD devoted solely to Sir Richard Rodney Bennett's extensive choral output. That it's a richly rewarding body of work is nowhere better exemplified than in the curtain-raiser, Sea Change (1984) a marvellously effective, 17-minute cycle to texts by Shakespeare, Andrew Marvell and Edmund Spenser. The Spenser setting thrillingly evokes the terrible monsters encountered by Sir Guyon during a stormy sea voyage by employing a technique akin to Sprechgesang, while the concluding 'Full fathom five' is a worthy successor to Vaughan Williams's setting in his Three ShakespeareSongs.
Whereas Sea Change minimally and subtly deploys tubular bells, A Farewell to Arms (2001) memorably incorporates an extensive role for solo cello and sets the same poems by Ralph Knevet and George Peele that Finzi first brought together for his 1945 diptych. It's a tenderly moving creation, as is the part-song 'A Good-Night' (1999) from the sequence A Garlandfor Linda. If Britten's shadow looms large over the Missa brevis (1990) for Canterbury Cathedral Choir, it's a no less appealing creation for all that.
Bouquets all round to John Rutter and his Cambridge Singers; theirs is a cappella singing of a very high order. Exemplary presentation and admirable sound, tastefully balanced within the comparatively intimate acoustic of the LSO's home, St Luke's in the City of London. A delightful anthology.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Beautifully sung and even more beautifully recorded…” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2005