Britten: Les illuminations, Op. 18

“wonderfully alert readings by the Amsterdam Sinfonietta” Financial Times, 23rd February 2013

“Hannigan brings to the text the dramatic energy she has to burn in her championship of Ligeti and Boulez, while the conductorless orchestra and soloist (herself sometimes a conductor) sound a natural fit...[in the Serenade] both soloists play their parts quite straight...An enjoyable and carefully balanced CD” Gramophone Magazine, March 2013

“Gilchrist’s Serenade, with Jasper de Waal the stupendous horn soloist, is one of the best things the English tenor has done on disc — Pears-like in its intensity and crystalline diction. The Sinfonietta’s strings have a whale of a time as a band of wannabe Paganinis in the Aria Italiana of the Bridge Variations.” Sunday Times, 3rd March 2013

“Hannigan brings a fined-down intensity to the more hushed Rimbaud settings such as 'Being Beauteous', but elsewhere her tone tends to flutter under pressure...Gilchrist, by contrast, sounds at home in the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings...and while his slightly reedy timbre sounds very different to Peter Pears, he brings equally valid insights into this iconic cycle.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2013 ***

“The strings were absolutely beautiful, transients and attacks were sharp, voices were natural, and the totality of the experience was musical and satisfying in every way...Frankly, I can’t imagine recorded music sounding much bette” Audiophile Audition, April 2013

“Candida Thompson’s Amsterdam Sinfonietta disc is pretty special – vibrant, incisive and colourful...Hannigan’s account of Les Illuminations is strong, her quickfire delivery in Parade a highlight...Gilchrist’s vibrato is strong but totally idiomatic, matched by Jasper der Waal’s bright-toned, very European horn sound.” The Arts Desk, 27th April 2013

“...there is much to admire in [Gritton's] delicate, considered vocalism, as well as in her refined musicianship...With the BBC string players on sterling form, Finzi's haunting blend of lyricism and astringency, the bite of his harmonic scrunches and the fluid interplay of his lines...all come over.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2010 ***

“The pleasures here are many...right from the outset one can hardly fail to be struck by the exquisite (but never self-aware) sheen of the BBC SO's response. Edward Gardner directs with the utmost sensitivity...Susan Gritton, too, sings with heartfelt empathy, radiance and intelligence, and her alliance with Gardner certainly distills the necessary tingle-factor.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2010

“Gritton's performance [of Les illuminations) is lustrous and joyous, a precociously talented young man's music brilliantly presented.” The Guardian, 15th April 2010 ****

“Britten completed but didn't orchestrate the songs - 'Phrase', 'Aube' and 'À une raison'; Matthews matches them finely to the style of Illuminations. While the cycle is often associated with pears and other tenors… Piau is a worthy successor, cooler and less emotive than Pears, perhaps less nuanced but more naturally phrased, and simply more beautiful.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2009 ****

“All the performances are superb. Sandrine Piau's stylish and imaginative interpretation of Les illuminations is one of the best soprano versions on disc, in fact. Michael Collins's easy virtuosity in the Clarinet Concerto is a joy. And throughout, Thomas Zehetmair elicits razor-sharp, sensitively shaped playing from the Northern Sinfonia. In short, this is one of the most important Britten recordings in many a year.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2009

“Sandrine Piau makes a superb soloist – impeccable French, or course, but she brings so much more to bear with her cool, clear sound, and often seriously beautiful phrasing, floating ethereally to the centre of Rimbaud’s poetry...Buy this for Les Illuminations, but savour it for so many new discoveries.” Andrew McGregor, bbc.co.uk, 10th December 2009

“this performance, taken from a Northern Sinfonia concert with Sandrine Piau as the delightfully idiomatic soloist, includes as an appendix three further Rimbaud settings that ­Britten omitted from the final cycle and left in piano score, which have been ­orchestrated by Colin Matthews...lots of little ­insights into Britten's musical world.” The Guardian, 25th September 2009 ****

“Some of Britten's richest vocal chamber pieces, by splendidly idiomatic performers are followed on disc 2 by slightly less exceptional orchestral performances. Still, very good value.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2009 ****

“An engaging set of French language orchestral songs, the juxtaposition of Berlioz's Les nuits d'été and Britten's Les Illuminations being especially rewarding. None of the performances are weak, but all are surpassed elsewhere.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2009 ****

“Unless one is allergic to the mono sound, at Eloquence price anyone can afford this disc – either as a first foray into this repertoire or as a complement to other versions.” MusicWeb International

“Dennis Brain's horn playing is magical...with Peter Pears superb in both these works, fresher than in the famous stereo versions under the direction of the composer. Goossens's conducting cannot be faulted - it is highly sensitive and strikingly alert - and the Decca sound is exceptionally good for its period.” Penguin Guide, 2010

“Best of all is Nocturne, more spartan and enigmatic, about which he makes some very perceptive comments and where he seems more engaged; the anguished 'Prelude' is fiercely impressive. So are Rattle and the Berlin players, throughout - almost glassily beautiful, without being overly cool, and quite passionately paced.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2005 ***

“This recording offers a profoundly considered and technically immaculate traversal of Britten's three great and varied cycles for tenor and orchestra, conceived with Pears's voice in mind.
Authoritative as the recordings by composer and tenor may be, there is plenty of room for new insights into such complex and inspired scores.
Bostridge's particular gift for lighting texts from within, and projecting so immediately their images, comes into its own arrestingly in the Nocturne. With his vocal agility and vital word-painting at their most assured – allied to surely the most virtuoso account of the obbligato parts yet heard, and Rattle supremely alert – this reading sets a standard hard to equal. Add a perfectly balanced recording and you have an ideal result.
Not that the accounts of the earlier cycles are far behind in going to the heart of the matter.
Bostridge catches all the fantasy and irony of Lesilluminations and projects the text with a biting delivery that stops just the right side of caricature.
Rattle and his orchestra are once again aware of Britten's subtleties of rhythm and instrumentation.
The Serenade, most easily accessible of the three works, demonstrates the advantages of recording after live performances. Everything seems fresh-minted and immediate, nowhere more so than in Radek Baborák's bold yet sensitive horn playing. Some of the verbal overemphases that are now part of Bostridge's vocal persona might not have been approved by the composer but for the most part they second the plangent beauty of his voice, which is evident throughout these very personal and satisfying interpretations. Bostridge writes illuminating notes in the booklet, too, adding to the disc's value.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Tenor, conductor and orchestra combine to offer inspired readings. Bostridge's particular gift for lighting texts from within, and projecting so immediately their images, comes into its own arrestingly in the Nocturne. With his vocal agility and vital word-painting at their most assured - allied to surely the most virtuoso account of the obbligato parts yet heard, and Rattle supremely alert - this reading sets a standard hard to equal. Add a perfectly balanced recording and you have an ideal result.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2005

“Bostridge proves an ideal interpreter of Britten's often taxing orchestral song-cycles...With Radek Baborák playing the horn obbligato with wonderful sophistication in the Serenade, the clarity of each of these masterly works is enhanced... Bostridge's word-painting is masterly throughout, matching the example of Peter Pears.” Penguin Guide, 2010 ****

“Pears, as always, is the ideal interpreter, the composer a most efficient conductor, and the fiendishly difficult obbligato parts are played superbly.” Penguin Guide, 2010 ****