Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice

“Pierlot has already proved to be a sensitive and stylish Bach interpreter and in this recording his musicians illuminate Bach's textures with elegant phrasing and a pleasing balance between voices and instruments.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2007 ****

“Whatever one's view on single-voiced Bach, the performances here are among the most persuasive in this medium. Francis Jacob's organ playing is both searchingly fluid and articulated. With the odd misgiving, this is a compelling and instinctive new Bach recording.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2007

“Rather gentler than the reconstruction culture of recent years, the Ricercar Consort ask the listener to contemplate the mourning for the Queen of Poland, Princess Christiane Eberhardine – in 1727, through a 'funerary monument' conceived around Bach's Trauer or Funeral Ode, the Mass in A major and contemporaneous organ pieces. We have no evidence that the Mass or the instrumental music appeared in the 'catalfalque in sound' (to quote Gilles Cantagrel), the memorial ceremony which occurred a month after the Queen's death and for which Bach was commissioned to write his exquisite Ode, but that is of little matter.
Whatever one's view on single-voiced Bach, the performances here are among the most persuasive in this medium. Philippe Pierlot understands the music from the thorough bass up – which one imagines should be common enough; yet so often a properly directed bass in Bach is traded for contrapuntal panache and facile rhythmic gesture. The Mass may lack a certain dramatic presence in the stunningly original exchanges in the Gloria, reconstituted from Cantata No 67 with its memorable Vox Christi 'scena' of Jesus's blessing bestowed on mankind.
However, the vitality, interest and warmth of the opening, as in all the choruses on the disc, are determined above all by textural definition and characterful instrumental playing, the flutes beautifully appointed throughout.
The Ode is a remarkable example of a Bachian synergy between a carefully selected palette of light pastels (lutes, gambas, recorders, oboes d'amores and strings) and a melodic flavour and nostalgic intensity drawn from a Passioninspired language, ideally crafted around the Enlightenment poetry of the young Leipzig humanist, Johann Christoph Gottshed. Its unique atmosphere is captured here, though as so often in single-voiced readings, the solo voices don't always have as much to say out of the collective realm. Francis Jacob's organ playing is both searchingly fluid and articulated.
With the odd misgiving, this is a compelling and instinctive new Bach recording.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Gorgeous chamber music-making - urgently recommended” Fanfare

“A red wine, red-meat disc from the must-have boutique label” The Independent on Sunday

“The Brahms String Sextets… make an ideal coupling on disc. The Nash Ensemble, with a particularly strong line-up of violas and cellos, offer superb new versions, crisp and clear, beautifully co-ordinated, with plenty of light and shade, and infectious springing of rhythms.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2007

“The Nash Ensemble, with a particularly strong line-up of violas and cellos, offer superb new versions, crisp and clear, beautifully coordinated, with plenty of light and shade, and infectious springing of rhythms.
There is real precision and polish of ensemble here that marks the Nash performances out.
The players appear to be listening keenly and responding to one another. The Nash omit exposition repeats in the first movement of each sextet, unlike the older versions. As a sampler try the delectable third movement Scherzo of No 1, which with the Nash Ensemble is beautifully and wittily sprung, one of the gems of Brahms's chamber music.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“It was Rebecca Evans’s Gretel, who took the honours. Spinning out radiant lines of delicious purity, she made it hard to see how the role could be sung better” The Times

“What distinguishes this version is primarily the vigorous and large-scale conducting of Sir Charles Mackerras.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2007 ****

“All told, this set will clearly stand the test of time as an English version, rivalling even the best of versions in the original German. The exhilaration of the final scene in particular is irresistible, with Mackerras drawing a genuinely Viennese-sounding lilt in the waltz rhythms of the "Witch is dead" duet, the destruction of the Witch's House powerfully conveyed and the revival of the gingerbread children movingly done. ” Gramophone Magazine, September 2007

“When a perfectly serviceable version of Hanseland Gretel in English already exists on CfP, it is generous as well as bold for the Peter Moores Foundation to sponsor this new one. In every way it replaces the old. That was an EMI effort in 1964 using multichannels – the result: unnecessarily close voices and a dim orchestra. On Chandos the recording is clear and beautifully separated yet with an agreeable bloom on voices and instruments.
The Canadian Mario Bernadi, then briefly the Sadler's Wells company's music director, conducts a lively performance but Sir Charles Mackerras is altogether more inspired and imaginative, with pointing and phrasing that readily match Karajan's masterly conducting on the classic mono EMI set.
Though the CfP singers, from the old Sadler's Wells company, are good with clear, firm voices, their 'prunes and prisms' enunciation of words harks back to a pre-war tradition, dating the performance. This time, following the practice at English National Opera, the David Pountney Opera Humperdinck 602 translation is used, fresher and more idiomatic, helping the starry cast of soloists, led by Jennifer Larmore and Rebecca Evans, both superb in the title-roles, nicely contrasted while blending well together.
There is strong casting, too, for the Witch, with Jane Henschel refusing to caricature the role in 'funny-voice' singing; Rosalind Plowright, gravitating down to mature mezzo, as the Mother, and Robert Hayward as the Father, don't guy their characterisations, either; while there are good contrasts between the bright Dew Fairy of Sarah Tynan and the warm Sandman of Diana Montague.
All told, this set will clearly stand the test of time as an English version, rivalling even the best of versions in the original German. The exhilaration of the final scene in particular is irresistible, with Mackerras drawing a genuinely Viennese-sounding lilt in the waltz rhythms of the 'Witch is dead' duet, the destruction of the Witch's House powerfully conveyed and the revival of the gingerbread children movingly done. The fresh young voices of the New London Children's Choir are beautifully caught.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“These are beautiful performances by two careful and thoughtful artists.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2007

“This four-CD album redresses a faulty or at least misunderstood balance. Superbly played and recorded, it prompts a sharp and necessary awareness of the full range of Clara Schumann's gifts. A deeply courageous woman who juggled her roles of wife, mother (to eight children), pianist and composer, she also bore the tragedy of her beloved Robert's collapse into insanity and the added complication of her relationship with Brahms with rare strength and fortitude.
Certainly her Op 1 (composed when she was 11) suggests a startling precocity before her skill deepened over the years into music where outward conventions thinly disguise a highly personal and poetic nature. True, she pays loving tribute to her husband's work, but the listener should not be misled. Theirs was clearly a symbiotic relationship, and composing side by side during the early days of their legendary romance, Schumann both marvelled at and feared her gifts. Indeed, there is evidence to show that Clara felt over-shadowed ('I compose, too,' she asserted as she pushed her compositions under Robert's door) while Robert felt threatenend by his wife's celebrity as a pianist (the Tsar of Russia politely enquired of Clara, 'and is your husband also musical?').
Yet Clara always remained true to her own lights. And even when her veneration for others (to Chopin in the exquisite Nocturne from Op 6), is clear she always maintains her own voice.
There are some strange prophecies (Alkan's Enrhythme molassique, for example, in her Le balletdes revenants from Op 5) as well as a capacity to wear her cap and gown with the best of them (the Op 16 Preludes and Fugues) or play her virtuoso trump cards with aplomb (Op 14 and the Agitato from Op 21). But whether you turn to the chirpy Scherzo from her single Piano Sonata or to the scintillating volante close to the Op 8 Variations you will be brilliantly surprised and subtly challenged. This issue is an invaluable addition to the catalogue.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This four-CD album redresses a faulty or at least misunderstood balance. Superbly played and recorded, it prompts a sharp and necessary awareness of the full range of Clara Schumann's gifts. But whether you turn to the chirpy Scherzo from her single Piano Sonata or to the scintillating volante close to the Op 8 Variations you will be brilliantly surprised and subtly challenged.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2007