ECM label - CDs

“Ever cince Trio Mediaeval's inception in 1997 their repertoire has included music from folk traditions, but this is, I believe, their first CD consisting entirely of arrangements of traditional songs… Their direction is clear even to non-Norwegiophones like me, their phrasing and textures as admirable as ever.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2008 ****

“It looks like a standard song recital, yet it's played on the viola. …the opening excerpt from Falla's Seven Popular Songs… turns up later in its usual context to hypnotic effect: slower than would be singable, and so contemplative that it sounds like Arvo Pärt. The sense of concentration, with minute inflections of line and timbre in which the pianist is caught up too, continues into the ensuing Granados set.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2007 *****

“The performances deceive the ear into thinking these idiomatic arrangements are instrumental originals.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2007

“The crowning glory in this fifth volume of András Schiff's resonantly recorded, chronological survey of the Beethoven sonatas is his urgently propelled Waldstein Sonata. Schiff clearly views this work as the piano equivalent to the Eroica Symphony, and uses maximum dynamic and textural contrast to emphasis its almost orchestral nature. ” BBC Music Magazine, November 2007 ****

“András Schiff leads the pack of top pianists recording Beethoven sonatas. His touch with these middle-period works is revelatory…” The Independent

“The Austrian composer and conductor Friedrich Cerha's…Cello Concerto, completed in 1996 for Heinrich Schiff, is a work of both substance and originality. Schiff himself is the eloquent soloist ere, casting off reams of golden tone in…work's lyrical central movement and never resorting to coarseness in the more energetic music. Peter Eötvös conducts the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra in a full-blooded, luxuriant account of Schreker's masterly late-Romantic score...” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 *****

“ECM has performed another valuable service in releasing a major work by Friedrich Cerha who remains best known for completing the third act of Berg's Lulu. His own music is poorly represented but the Cello Concerto is certainly representative of his recent output. It began life in 1989 as a 'Phantasiestück' that, seven years on, was made the centrepiece of the present three-movement work. And it is this movement, its serene outer sections enclosing a scherzo of limpid delicacy, that makes the strongest impression. Those either side intensify Cerha's combative post- Romanticism, but their rather dutiful alternation between relative dynamism and stasis does not always generate the momentum needed to power the 35-minute whole, for all that dedicatee Heinrich Schiff is effortlessly in command of its interpretative challenges.
Whether or not Cerha occupies a niche corresponding to that of Franz Schreker at the beginning of the 20th century (as Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich's booklet-note seems to imply), his Chamber Symphony (1916) makes an apposite coupling: a work that both reflects the Straussian opulence of his previous operas and anticipates the impressionistic subtlety of those that followed.
Peter Eötvös emphasises the latter and throws the ingenious four-movements-in-one format into constructive relief. With its luminous textures alluringly caught by the superb recording, this is now the version to have and the whole disc offers an unfailingly absorbing listen.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…an extremely dramatic an atmospheric performance of the Shostakovich 14th Symphony, the more unusual for being conducted by Gidon Kremer from the concertmaster's desk. …magnificent playing from the Kremerata Baltica and two first-rate soloists: The coupling is the Adagio from Mahler's Tenth Symphony in an arrangement for string... This tow is beautifully played... But certain things - notably the huge 'death chord' ... don't work in this medium...” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 *****

“What most impresses about Márquez's playing is a sweetness of tone that recalls the use of the flesh against gut courses, a relatively free approach to phrasing and a seemingly effortless technique - this latter a huge plus in the more rapid passages and ornamentation, which can often sound over-articulated and effortful on the guitar.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2007

“…whether the performances illuminate or irritate, Schiff consistently conveys a sense of timbral differentiation between registers akin to the instruments of Beethoven's time, together with their unique pedal effects. For example, listen to the pungent resonance of the bass notes in the Op 26 first-movement minore variation, or how the vaporous haze of the Moonlight's celebrated Adagio sostenuto never turns muddy.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2007

“András Schiff's Beethoven Sonata cycle… continues to be stimulating and provocative, always forcing one to hear such familiar music in a new light. As he approaches the final sonatas of the composer's early period, Schiff makes us fully aware of the enormous stylistic and emotional journey that Beethoven had traversed from his first essays in the medium. A magnificent release.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2007 *****

“The playing is superb, capturing the most delicate hues and gentlest whispers of the score, and the immaculate recording provides the inky blackness from which the music emerges and into which, at the end, it decays...It feels simple, yet it obviously isn’t; it’s profoundly beautiful, timeless, and unforgettable.” Andrew McGregor, bbc.co.uk, 29th June 2007

“Andrey Boreyko has drawn playing of admirable suavity and precision from the Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, and ECM's recording quality and supporting documentation are first-rate.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2007

“This enjoyable programme of works by Erkki-Sven Tüür… helps to confirm this young(ish) Estonian composer as an important contemporary voice. The performances all seem to be of the highest quality, and two artists deserve special mention: Pedro Carneiro for his almost unbelievable feats of prestidigitation as marimba soloist in Ardor, and Leho Karin for the sustained intensity she brings to the volatile and high contrasted expressive range of Dedication. Fans of Tüür (a growing band, I fancy) need not hesitate.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2007 *****

“For some years now Erkki-Sven Tüür has been routinely described as the leading Estonian composer. With this disc he not only justifies that label but lays claim to wider recognition... The rewards are great. This is music that is exhilaratingly open to experience.” Gramophone Magazine

“The case for one-to-a-part Bach is well established nowadays. It works particularly well for the rich textures of the right-part motets, and the expanded Hilliard Ensemble sings them superbly. And, as one may expect from the Hilliard Ensemble, the intonation here is exemplary throughout.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2007 ****