Edition Staatskapelle Dresden series

“the strings have a warmly cosseting quality, the winds are mellifluous, the brass powerful but cleanly focused...The voices are well balanced and Haitink's willingness to let the music breathe while never allowing it to sag (just listen to how the first movement gains momentum) benefits Mahler's structural design...A great recording, then” Gramophone Magazine, October 2012

“These performances, captured shortly before Sinopoli's untimely death, make a fine memento of his art…these highly individual interpretations won't be to all tastes, but especially in the Mahler Sinopoli's quirks never turn into annoying mannerisms, and the superiority of the orchestral execution goes a long way toward selling the concept. Yes, he takes some big risks, but here at least they pay off.” Classics Today

“…trombone and trumpet solos, throwing careful intonation to the winds, achieve even more rasping emphasis than their Moscow counterparts in the 1962 recording. Unique, though, are the staggering dynamic range, focus and atmosphere of the Dresden Staatskapelle's string playing. Kondrashin, like Mravinsky, was famous for his intensive pianissimos and the gradations of his crescendos and this is perhaps the finest testament to them, especially in the twilight zones of the imploding first movement, the shadow-world of the finale's off-kilter ballet divertissement and the tragic snuffing-out of the relentless C minor coda.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2006 *****

“Thielemann favours a monumental approach to Bruckner...The sublime slow movement is quite glorious...Any lover of this great work will want to add this issue to their collection.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2010 ****

“These recordings date from 1992, the aftermath of German reunification and a time in which emotions in Dresden were running high...Certainly Colin Davis, who was then building a strong bond with the orchestra, has drawn from it performances that are exceptionally intense in nature...These are fine, thoughtful performances of timeless masterpieces that seemed to find in those years at Dresden a particular time and a particular place.” International Record Review, May 2011

“Davis occasionally bends the line for rhetorical effect...demonstrably smitten by the sheer lustre of Brahms's writing...As to Davis's Schubert Unfinished, breadth and depth of feeling prevail, the transition from repeated exposition to development section in the first movement as darkly mysterious as on any other version” Gramophone Magazine, July 2011

“The Schubert is beautiful: warm intensity of tone, long phrases that feel elegant and acutely sensitive, at the the same time, pathos, grandeur, romantic atmosphere, and underneath all that a feeling of steady, unpressured momentum carrying the music to its conclusion.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2011 **/***