Penguin Guide Rosette Winners

“Poltéra delivers an utterly compelling and committed performance, and the Malmö Symphony Orchestra under Tuomas Ollila-Hannikainen provides both sensitive and dynamic support. Stott… gets a welcome opportunity to demonstrate her own credentials as a soloist, providing an outstanding performance of the Eight Preludes, Martin's most substantial work for piano. All in all, a wonderful disc.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2008 *****

“Frank Martin's Cello Concerto, so eloquently and sensitively played here, is a real discovery. It is no exaggeration to state that this rapt performance presents this noble concerto with an inspirational intensity to compare with the celebrated Du Pré/Barbirolli recording of the Elgar Concerto.
The works share a similar deep, poignant, meditative feeling, although Martin's concerto also has a distinct valedictory character, expressive melancholy which suggests personal loss.
The soloist opens with a gloriously lyrical theme which is to dominate the movement (commentators have likened it to Vaughan Williams).
A skittish development is in tarantella rhythm with bolder clashes of angry dissonance but at the close comes the balm of the return of the ravishing opening material. Unexpectedly, the touching central Adagietto is in the form of a passacaglia. This sadness is all but dispelled in the brilliantly rhythmic finale, yet the lyricism creeps back and even the tarantella returns briefly before the close.
The (much earlier) Ballade is a free fantasialike dialogue between cello and piano, Kathryn Stott and Christian Poltéra enjoying a perfect partnership. Martin dallied with Schoenberg's 12-note system and he uses it in the Eight Preludes.
But he had no intention of giving up tonality, and the result is a stunning set of great variety and resource, thrillingly played by Stott.
This disc, given state-of-the-art recording makes an ideal introduction to Martin's music.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Many music lovers will not have been exposed to much of Frank Martin's music… I was quite bowled over in discovering the Cello Concerto, so eloquently and sensitively played here. It is no exaggeration to state that this rapt performance presents this noble concerto with an inspirational intensity to compare with the celebrated Du Pré/Barbirollo recording of the Elgar Concerto.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2008

“There's a sameness in Martin's cello writing, which all too frequently consists of juxtaposing long, looping melodies with scampering passages in six-eight time or flurried pizzicato arpeggios. Poltéra, committed and subtle as always, can't quite disguise the resulting thinness. The Malmo Symphony Orchestra under Tuomas Ollila-Hannikainen are his laid-back accompanists in the Concerto, while pianist Kathryn Stott joins him for the Ballade. Left to her own devices, Stott also performs the Eight Preludes for Piano dating from 1944. They rank among Martin's finest works and are, ironically, the best things on the disc.” The Guardian, 18th April 2008 ***

“These are magnificent performances.
Written in 1922, the Agnus Dei being added four years later, the Mass is one of Martin's most sublime compositions. Surprisingly it gains enormously from using boys' rather than female voices. It's a measure of James O'Donnell's achievement with Westminster Cathedral Choir that the gain in purity and beauty is never at the expense of depth and fervour.
This is an altogether moving and eloquent performance, often quite thrilling and always satisfying.
This disc brings us a fine performance by O'Donnell of the Passacaille and the Pizzetti Messa di Requiem, also composed in 1922. The received wisdom is that it is in his a cappella music that Pizzetti is at his finest; in his 1951 monograph Guido Gatti spoke of his setting as 'the most serene and lyrical of all... from Mozart's to Gabriel Faure's'. Serene and lyrical it most certainly is, and it will come as a revelation to those encountering it for the first time.
There is a fervour and a conviction about the Westminster performances of both the Requiem and the 1937 De profundis. The luminous tone this choir produce in both these inspired and masterly works will ring in your ears long after you have finished playing this splendidly recorded disc.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“For connoisseurs of choral music this is an essential buy. Outstanding performances of two rarely heard 20th-century masterpieces.” Classic CD

“The Mass for Double Choir is one of Martin's purest and most sublime utterances. The version from the Westminster Cathedral Choir under James O'Donnell is the most outstanding. The boys produce marvellously focused tone of great purity and expressive power.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition