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“A late and lush harvest of works by octogenarian Einojuhani Rautavaara continues apace. Here we have eagerly awaited documentation of his two latest neo-Romantic concertos, in beautifully recorded and definitive performances by the soloists who are their dedicatees.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2012 ****

“John Storgards and the Helsinki Philharmonic lay down a basic sound of Axminster luxury throughout the disc” International Record Review, May 2012

“The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra partner Kriikku admirably in this enchanting concerto and under Oramo's sensitive direction provide beguiling accompaniments for Anu Komsi in the four Leino Songs...[Laterna magica] is a filigree tone-poem with a soul of steel that showcases the Finnish orchestra splendidly. Ondine's demonstration sound caps a marvellous issue.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2011

“The Mine of the title is a microcosm of both society and the individual soul - and its inhabitants are cast from strength. The great Jorma Hynninen is in untarnished voice as the dictator figure, The Commissar; the bass Hannu Niemala is a dark Simon...and the mezzo-tinted soprano Johanna Rusanen-Kartano a powerful Ira, his compromised lover.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2011 *****

“Any cast willing to take on this dauntingly unglamorous music, and able to do so with such authority, commands rather more than respect. There is certainly some strain in the singing but also a compelling quota of dramatic truth and passion. Hannu Lintu's belief in the work shines through and he brings the Tampere Philharmonic with him undaunted...The recording fills a major gap in the Ruatavaara discography and fills it with distinction.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2011

“There are Stravinskian as well as Straussian associations here but the overall result seems to me to have more in common with Carmina Burana than Les Noces, and some of the instrumental writing could be taken as parodying (or celebrating) Hollywood conventions of a Korngoldian Ancient Rome. Whether or not Lindberg is consciously mocking such lush aestheticisation of the primitive and the barbaric is impossible to tell. But the effect is always upbeat, exuberant and laid down with immense panache by the Finnish forces involved, in spectacularly vivid sound.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2010

“Swedish composer Magnus Lindberg’s setting, for chorus and orchestra, of graffiti found buried in Pompeii could hardly be described as original...But as a celebration of the fierce pagan joy of these ancient scraps it seems exactly right.” The Telegraph, 12th March 2010

“Taken together they show how effective his recent style is in creating large-scale musical structures...The teeming detail of the two works is far better appreciated on disc than it was at their London premieres” The Guardian

“...the truly individual moments are the most affecting - particularly the ethereal conclusion. In both works the orchestra under Sakari Oramo is a treasure trove of colour.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2010 *****

“Graffiti is the Finn’s first work for chorus and orchestra...No other music exploits a full orchestra in quite the hefty, intricate, expressively airless manner [Lindberg] has made his own....[Seht die Sonne] has an enthralling turbulence...The performances are superb.” Sunday Times, 1st August 2010 ***

“Sakari Oramo and the Finnish Radio Symphony fully appreciate its opportunities for meaningful orchestral display and are accorded spacious sound that lacks nothing in impact. Sculpture makes this a mandatory purchase for Lindberg's admirers, many of whom may well find in the Concerto more than incidental pleasures.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2009

“It is Sculpture however that seems most sure of itself stylistically. Its outrageously Romantic conclusion - huge, organ-enhanced orchestra singing out in unabashed heroic tones - is convincing in the end because it has been so well prepared. The performances are bracingly clean and alert, with no holding back in the big moments, and the recording very convincingly balances clarity and atmosphere.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2009 ****

“Magnus Lindberg has been dedicated in exploring the potential of the modern orchestra, as this disc confirms. Odd that Campana in aria (1998) was unrecorded until now, as its lively investigation of horn sonority makes for the composer's most entertaining concertante piece, especially when Esa Tapani is so in control of its virtuosity.
Each decade in his maturity has seen Lindberg pen an orchestral work as a statement of intent: thus the modernist outpouring of Kraft (1985), then the reconciliation of innovation and tradition in Aura (1994). Fine that the Concerto for Orchestra (2003) is a further step along this path, but quality is simply lacking – whether in the actual ideas or, especially, the interplay of textures such that the harmonies sound derivative of earlier works, while melodic lines are insufficiently defined. Ensemble writing in the latter half fails to sustain momentum, and the apotheosis is perfunctory by Lindberg's standards.
Fortunately, Sculpture (2005) seems intent on righting its predecessor's wrongs – not least in its skilful mediating between extremes of motion without sacrificing either harmonic or textural intricacy, with a final section that fairly saturates the sound-space.
Quite a piece with which to have opened the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
Sakari Oramo and the Finnish RSO fully appreciate its opportunities for meaningful orchestral display and are accorded spacious sound that lacks nothing in impact. Sculpture makes this a mandatory purchase for Lindberg's admirers, many of whom may well find in the Concerto more than incidental pleasures.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…it is a breathtaking achievement. There is passion, but precision, technically well-nigh faultless.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2008

“Eschenbach's Poulenc is heavily romanticised, squeezing every last drop of pathos from the score and finding many moments of ravishing beauty. Latry is, for the most part, a willing accomplice – only in the swaying rhythm of the subito andante moderato do conductor and soloist seem at odds with each other – and while it is left to him to root out the music's austere and acerbic sides, he clearly relishes Eschenbach's slow tempi in reaching the work's two powerful climaxes.
This performance may miss many of Poulenc's subtleties in its single-minded striving for loveliness but the wildly enthusiastic cheering from the audience seems wholly justified given the unusual breadth of this reading.
The recording was made at the inaugural concerts of the new organ of Philadelphia's Verizon Hall, which included the almost obligatory Saint-Saëns Symphony. Properly, this is more a test of how well an organ integrates with an orchestra than a vehicle for the organ itself, and on those terms this proves to be a wholly successful performance. Eschenbach's intuitive reading casts the work in a rich perspective, the opening possessing a tangible atmosphere of menace while the second movement's Presto positively fizzes with energy.
The organ shows its stature (the booklet tells us that, with 6938 pipes, it is the largest concerthall organ in the US) with palpable depth in the first movement and majestic presence in the finale; but the real star of the show here is the Philadelphia Orchestra itself. Mouth-watering wind solos, gorgeous string-playing and a wonderfully crisp and cohesive sound (as it must be in what sounds a dreadfully dry acoustic) combine to create rather more memorable moments than we have a right to expect; the string entry just before the close of the first section is, as they say, to die for.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The big orchestral canvases show Anderson’s priceless gift for making complex formal shapes totally lucid. Oliver Knussen’s beautifully integrated performances with both the BBC Symphony and the Sinfonietta help inestimably too.” ***** performance/**** sound BBC Music Magazine, August 2006

“Anderson's confidence in handling and shaping his musical material and his wonderfully precise ear for instrumental colour have been constants in his music… Oliver Knussen's beautifully integrated performances with both the BBC Symphony and the Sinfonietta help inestimably... and the detail in the recordings is always faithful to Anderson's fastidious sensibility.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2006 *****

“For more than a decade British composer Julian Anderson has been consolidating his reputation as a leading talent. This first CD shows that talent at full stretch. The music is always direct in its tone of voice and unfailingly approachable without turning its back on all contact with progressive modernism. It has the benefit here of superbly prepared and executed performances, recorded with fine responsiveness to instrumental colour and textural balance.
The earliest work, Diptych, is already formidably accomplished in its control of gradually intensifying formal design but it is in Khorovod, Anderson's first London Sinfonietta commission, that his feeling for balancing resonant harmonic densities and spontaneous melodic flow comes into its own. Anderson filters his admiration for such powerful contemporary presences as Per Nørgård and Tristan Murail through aspects of folk and popular music which are most immediately evident in the rhythmic and motivic profile of the piece. The result of such conjunctions could be mindlessly disparate but Anderson's knack for dramatising unexpected compatibilities makes for an enthralling structure of genuine substance, and this kind of process is replicated on the more ambitious scale of his 1998 Proms commission The Stations of the Sun, as well as in a second, no less rewarding Sinfonietta piece, Alhambra Fantasy.
The Stations of the Sun is complemented by TheCrazed Moon, written slightly earlier, whose much darker, dance-free character indicates that Anderson is well able to inhabit quite different emotional spheres with equal success.
With this release Ondine has made an impressive start to the Anderson discography; it is high time that Anderson was given his due.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The music is always direct in its tone of voice and unfailingly approachable without turning its back on all contact with progressive modernism. It has the benefit here of superbly prepared and executed performances, recorded with fine responsiveness to instrument colour and textural balance.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2006

"A thrilling performance of Luonnotar in which Isokoski’s sonorous soprano is matched by atmospheric playing from the Finnish orchestra. The rest of the disc makes you wonder why Sibelius’s orchestral songs occupy one of the most unjustly neglected corners of his output." Erik Levi BBC Music Magazine

“Soile Isokoski's voice has matured into a powerful instrument without losing its distinctively plangent expressiveness and intense way with words… Segerstam… provides spacious yet vividly dramatic support, with superb orchestral playing.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2006 *****

“Sibelius wrote his songs originally for voice and piano and in that form they are most often recorded. Some he later orchestrated, while others were arranged by Jussi Jalas (his son-in-law), Ernest Pingourd, Ivan Hellman and Nils-Eric Forgstadt. All produce good results and none of the songs appear over-dressed. On the contrary, they are, as it were, fulfilled: orchestral textures are so strongly implicit that the full range of instruments brings out their coloration and renders them complete.
Soile Isokoski has recorded a number of the songs previously with piano, part of a fine recital on Finlandia in 1989, which was about the time we first learned of the radiant Finnish soprano who five or six years later would receive the international acclaim she deserved…” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The voice… lovely, firm and ample in range. Above all, she has a rare command of the legato style which makes her singing a delight to the ears… the recital always gives pleasure, and the challenge of Luonnotar itself is joyfully met. The orchestra play with full appreciation of the richly coloured scores, and since Flagstad in the 1950s there have been few recordings which provide these genuinely enhancing accompaniments as an alternative to the piano.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2006

“Lindberg composed his Clarinet Quintet for Kriikku in 1992, and it is hard to imagine that this fabulously attractive work would ever have appeared without him to play it so brilliantly.” The Guardian Classical CD of the Week*****

“The clarinet has featured prominently as a solo instrument in Magnus Lindberg's output throughout his career, though it was only in 2002 that he set about writing a concerto for his longtime colleague Kari Kriikku. The finished article, however, is really very different from 1980s pieces such as Ablauf and Linea d'ombra.
Running for 25 minutes, the work's four sections play continuously, if not seamlessly. Beautifully written for the instrument, there are hints of Debussy in the opening pages and – in the orchestration – of Barber and Copland later on, but the Concerto is in no way derivative. It proceeds with ineluctable momentum through a varied tonal landscape (including some decidedly jazz-like passages) to an ecstatic peroration that is deeply moving and uplifting, before closing out serenely: Rautavaara meeting Gershwin, perhaps.
There is something of Rautavaara's manner in the modest Chorale (2001-2), written to precede Berg's Violin Concerto (both use the chorale Esist genug). The larger Gran Duo for winds and brass (1999), with its suggestions of Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments, is utterly different though no less impressive. The duo is between the woodwinds and brass en masse, the work a bracing dialogue across some 20 minutes with fascinating incidents along the way, not least where the textures pare down to chamber proportions, though the dark-hued coda has considerable cumulative power. Very strongly recommended.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Magnus Lindberg's Clarinet Concerto has enjoyed phenomenal success since its 2002 premiere… A marvellous vehicle for the amazing virtuosity of clarinettist Kari Krikku, this is a shiny, sophisticated, nostalgic cultural artefact, indubitably contemporary in language yet sensuously easy (tuneful, even) on the ear. ...is a stunning disc.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2005 *****

“Mikko Franck presides over the most intrepidly individual and pungently characterful performance of the Lemminkäinen Legends since Leif Segerstam's 1995 Helsinki PO account for this same label. Clocking in at an eyebrow-raising 53'48" overall, Franck's conception evinces an unhurried authority, a generous expressive scope and a richly stocked imagination remarkable in one so young.
Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island unfolds in especially gripping fashion here. Even more than Segerstam, Franck takes an extraordinarily long-breathed, flexible view of this heady tableau, imparting an unashamedly sensual voluptuousness to the secondary material in particular. It's a risky, impulsive approach, but one that pays high dividends in terms of intoxicating sweep, brazen ardour and, well, sheer daring. Both The Swan of Tuonela (which, in a refreshing change from the norm these days, Franck places second, according to Sibelius's final wishes) and Lemminkäinenin Tuonela combine dark-hued grandeur with tingling atmosphere, the latter's haunting A minor central episode handled with particular perception.
True, Lemminkäinen's Return lacks something in animal excitement, but its unruffled sense of purpose, rhythmic spring and sinewy, clean-cut textures serve up plenty of food for thought none the less.
The Legends are preceded by an uncommonly fresh En Saga, brimming with watchful sensitivity and interpretative flair, and once again studded with revelatory detail. Throughout, the Swedish RSO responds with heartwarming application and genuine enthusiasm, audibly galvanised by Franck's fervent, always invigorating direction. The engineering, too, is very good, without perhaps being absolutely in the top flight.
An auspicious recording début, then, from a young artist of clearly prodigious potential.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010