Penguin Guide Rosette Winners

“A distinguished series of beautifully presented reissues.” Gramophone Magazine

“Solo soprano and trumpet… have long made Bach's cantata 'Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen' a favourite with audiences. …this new performance with Carolyn Sampson and trumpeter Toshio Shimada is likely to prove appealing. Sampson's voice has bell-like clarity and an expressive warmth which serves Bach's writing... uncommonly well.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2006 ****

“Of Bach's 12 sacred solo cantatas, Jauchzet Gott stands as a virtuoso concert piece without peer.
No other work – with the possible exception of the secular cantata O holder Tag – pushes the soprano voice to such dazzling limits of coloratura. While Bach is thought to have used the work for a Trinity Sunday, perhaps in 1730, its provenance would appear to lie in the same celebratory context as O holder Tag (an aria of which is included as a 'bonus' track here), where courtly entertainment and panegyric often encouraged Bach to impress a potentially influential audience.
Carolyn Sampson joins a notable and plentiful list of fine sopranos who have tackled the work on record. She sails through it with controlled authority, encouraged by Masaaki Suzuki's spacious approach to tempi until, that is, the Choral and Alleluja where she and the admirable solo trumpeter (Toshio Shimada) pick off each fiendish run with a brilliant, almost nonchalant ease. Still, this is not a performance where Suzuki seeks to liberate the musicians towards true exultance: perfection is all but achieved, but rather as a geometric proof than the kind of genuine uplift we get from Stich-Randall, Giebel or Stader. Sampson's performance still remains highly accomplished and her natural poetic instincts are wonderfully realised in the recitative 'Wir beten' and the delectable but slight Alles mit Gott. Suzuki presents all 12 verses in a 48-minute marathon which no manner of variation and embellishment can sustain: maybe it's rather too much of a good thing.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

‘Technically Perlman is beyond reproach. There is brilliance in the faster movements, delicacy in the galanteries, and grave expressiveness in the slower music. As the coupling of the names of Bach and Perlman is not one that readily springs to mind, this fine recording has come as a real surprise.’ (Gramophone)

“This is probably the finest single collection of trumpet concertos in the catalogue. When it first appeared in 1987 (the Hummel and Haydn have since been recoupled with a later set as listed here) it created overnight a new star in the firmament of trumpeters.
The two finest concertos for the trumpet are undoubtedly those of Haydn and Hummel, and Hardenberger plays them here with a combination of sparkling bravura and stylish elegance that are altogether irresistible. Hardenberger opens with the famous Hummel Concerto, played in E major rather than the usual E flat, which makes the work sound bolder and brighter than usual. The finale with its crisp articulation, fantastic tonguing and tight trills, displays a genial easy bravura, yet overflows with energy and high spirits. Marriner and his Academy accompany with characteristic finesse and warmth, with the lilting dotted rhythms of the first movement of the Hummel, seductively jaunty. The lovely Andante of the Haydn is no less beguiling, and both finales display a highspirited exuberance and an easy bravura which make the listener smile with pleasure.
The recording gives him the most vivid realism and presence, but it's a pity that the orchestral backcloth is so reverberant; otherwise the sound is very natural. A superb disc.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Britten characteristically refuses to follow any set tradition, whether Baroque, Victorian or whatever, and, with greater extremes of tempo than is common (often strikingly fast), the result makes one listen afresh...A superb bargain.” Penguin Guide, 2010 ***