Granados: Goyescas: Quejas ó La Maja y el Ruiseñor

“There's a tangy, lived-in quality in Schwartz's tone that is immediately appealing. She compensates for some metallic top notes and an occasional lack of fullness in her lower registers with a wide emotional range” The Guardian, 7th February 2013 ****

“This is a delightful programme of early twentieth-century Spanish song...[Martineau] proves to be an instinctive Spaniophile in his enchantingly nuanced accompaniments. He brings us as close as it is possible in a purely aural medium to the sights and scents of Spain...[Schwartz] delivers these songs with impressive precision and security. On a purely technical level, these are performances of the highest order.” International Record Review, February 2013

“Hers is not a big, fruity Caballe voice but a soubrette - a voice small enough to convey subtlety without having to scale back but one that also encompasses the volatility of this repertoire without audible strain.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2013

“Sharpness and sweetness combine attractively in Sylvia Schwartz's voice. The mixture is perfect for this programme of Spanish songs, some barely a minute long, all beautifully characterised by the soprano and her accompanist Malcolm Martineau” The Independent on Sunday, 3rd March 2013 ****

“Creamy and pure, Royal's voice is directly in the aristocratic line of Kiri Te Kanewa and Reneé Fleming” Gramophone Magazine

“This CD represents something of a triumph not for one young artist but for two. ENO's new music director, Edward Gardner, conducts the accompaniments, with the Academy of St Martin's on fine form. Kate Royal matches him precisely. Each item is beautifully vocalised, but she too is alert to detail. In the Ravel Vocalise en forme de habanera, she finesses her tone and colour and even her pitch to give us the sensual, Spanish, hot-summer-afternoon feel of the piece. In Delibes's Les filles de Cadix, her trills are a delight, but so is the immediacy of her response to the rhythms.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2007 *****

“Royal’s voice is just sublime; rich, warm and pure, it is able to be both lightly playful in Canteloube’s “Malurous qu’o uno fenno”, and languorously dreamy in Strauss’s “Wiegenlied”...What really sets her apart, though, is her ability to get under the skin of a song’s lyrics to take on their emotions...Royal is much more than just a beautiful voice. This is music and singing to savour.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 31st August 2007

“No matter how jaw-dropping her miraculously clean-fingered negotiation of such as Liszt's Mephisto Waltz, it's what happens between the notes, the way she grippingly characterises everything she plays, that constantly arrests the listener's attention. not since George Cziffra's hey-day have such white-hot, volcanic eruptions of pianistic derring-do been captured on disc. ...Montero also magics her phrasing poetically, as witness Chopin's heavenly D flat Nocturne. But what sets the seal on this remarkable release is the bonus disc of Montero's self-penned improvisations, whose jazz-styled inflections will have all die-hard romantics misting over on contact. Her spine-tingling rethink of Rachmaninov's Vocalise is worth the price of the disc alone.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2005

“A rich ripe peach of a recital, and in case that suggests something altogether too sweet and lush to satisfy a fastidious taste it should immediately be added that the soprano's tone is fresh, her responsiveness to words keen, the pianist's touch very evidently guided by a refined, lively intelligence, and the programme a delight in the variety as well as the generous melodic appeal of its contents” Gramophone Magazine