Wolf, H: Begegnung (No. 8 from Mörike-Lieder)

“their performances are acutely sensitive to Wolf's musical nerve system. And, best of all, a sense of intimacy, of close confiding with the audience, really does come over - invaluable for private listening...Festival director Sholto Kynoch is a vivid and sentient accompanist.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2011 ****

“Grevilius’s mezzo rises to the challenge of “Seufzer” and Daneman’s soprano brings sweetness to “Zitronenfalter im April”.” Financial Times, 25th June 2011 **

“The team of four singers is first-rate, responsive in every way, and if anything even more remarkable is the work of their pianist, Sholto Kynoch, displaying an exceptional expressive range, not only ideally agile but with the most subtle range of tone and dynamic...Altogether an impressive achievement from an enterprising new company.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2011

“Daneman, Grevelius, Gilchrist and Loges are top-flight lieder singers, with Oxford Lieder founder and pianist Sholto Kynoch offering sensitive support. Richard Stokes provides excellent notes and translations.” The Observer, 22nd May 2011

“What a generous communicator is the vivacious Angelika Kirchschlager. Quirky Hugo Wolf suits her rather better than Strauss's sometimes generic rapture, though she's splendidly scathing in the often archly delivered 'Für fünfzehn Pfennige'. The full extrovert personality seems to unleash the sometimes reticent Roger Vignoles” BBC Music Magazine, December 2010 ****

“listen to [Morgen]...and you will hear a miniature master-class in Lieder singing...Kirchschlager's lightly worn mezzo burnishes a song that is too often over-gilded...It helps that Kirchschlager is such an accomplished singing actress...Vignoles is on tiptop form throughout.” International Record Review, November 2010

“This recital shows the mezzo-soprano at the peak of her powers, richly characterful and infinitely expressive. The same statement can be made about her pianist, Vignoles, in what is quite properly a partnership of equals.” Sunday Times, 28th November 2010 ***

“Few Lieder singers match Angelika Kirchschlager in vibrant stage personality. Even heard 'blind', the Austrian mezzo vividly illuminates each of Wolf's nature rhapsodies, vignettes and character sketches...In the wry and/or touching character studies of Wolf's Six Songs in the Old Style...Kirchschlager the born stage animal is in her element...'Morgen' is moving in its unsentimental sincerity” Gramophone Magazine, February 2011

“Holzmair is at his best in those settings which reveal the soul's innermost questionings; he and Cooper capture the fragile ardour of 'Frage und Antwort', and the chromatic unease within 'I'm Frühling'.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2009

“…more often pleasure is virtually unalloyed, whether in the trance-like wonder of "Im Frühling", the tiptoeing delicacy of "Elfenlied" (a hard song for a man to bring off) or the deft comic timing in "Zur Warnung", evidently relished by the Wigmore Hall audience.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2010

“Wolf's songs require the finest judgement of shifting tones of voice, the closest of close focus. That's just what the 18 selected settings (out of 53) of the poetry of Eduard Mörike receive here. All but one is accompanied by the minutely sensitive Hertha Klust, Fischer-Dieskau's coach and chosen accompanist at the time.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 *****