Wolf, H: Der Feuerreiter (No. 44 from Mörike-Lieder)

“Drake's playing has successfully suited the varied repertoire. Finley has enthralled with his interpretations and delighted with his singing purely as singing, combining the two aspects expertly.” International Record Review, July 2011

“they're all tales and Finley is a fine tale-teller. In Loewe, he sounds as though he's singing just for you, the listener, so rapt and intense is his communication. Drake is a fine accomplice, tuning his fingers to full orchestral capacity for Schumann's psycho-drama 'Die Löwenbraut' and Wolf's 'Der Feuerreiter'” BBC Music Magazine, July 2011 ****

“Listen to these wonderfully melodramatic, mostly Victorian ballads by candlelight in a haunted house...Performances full of raging fortissimos and ghoulish tremolandos from Finley and his pianist Julius Drake.” The Times, 18th June 2011 ****

“Their approach to text and music consistently casts light on turbulent emotions, at times glaring in its dramatic intensity at others passed through restraining filters. The recital's heart pulses with Wolf's Der Feuerreiter and a spine-tingling account of Stanford's La belle dame sans merci.” Classic FM Magazine, August 2011 ****

“It's Maltman's superb breath control which gives shape and sensuous beauty to Debussy and Dupare. And, thanks to Drake's restraining pace, Warlock's Captain Stratton's Fancy' has real swagger. Flanders and Swann's little masterpiece… about the Honeysuckle and the Bindweed, ends the recital in raptuous applause.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2008 ****

“Christopher Maltman… is remarkably skilful in the management of his voice, dealing wonderfully well with Debussy's high tessitura and still plumbing the depths with ease as he does at the end of "Der Wanderer" and "La vague et la cloche". Julius Drake is his perfect counterpart...” Gramophone Magazine, Janurary 2008

“As the palette of voices is varied, Kynoch is able to group the Lieder thematically without risking tedium...Gilchrist alert to [the songs'] volatility and drama; Daneman capturing every elusive and sensuous breeze of emotion and tale-telling; Grevelius discovering the inner angst darkening the songs; and Loges the Sehnsucht of late-Romantic yearning.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 ****

“[Kynoch] is among the finest accompanists around. Sophie Daneman’s bright soprano is always a pleasure to hear but here she is not always ideally steady and her vibrato is at times too prominent. Her floated pianissimos sometimes make me forgive some of the unsteadiness...Best of all, to my mind, is Anna Grevelius. Her voice is a flexible instrument, beautiful and even from top to bottom, and with a wide range of nuance and expressivity.” MusicWeb International, June 2012

“The four excellent singers...show a vivid understanding of the texts (translated in helpful CD notes by Richard Stokes). Sholto Kynoch steers the performances with secure, expressive playing, especially in dark moods – "Der Jäger" (Gilchrist) – or in the sardonic wit of the last song, "Abschied" (Loges).” The Observer, 9th October 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

“Still too little known outside Germany, Roman Trekel brings to his selection of 22 Mörike Lieder a voice of burnt umber, a scrupulous sense of style (including a true legato) and a probing imagination, whether in an eager wondering "Auf einer Wanderung" or a musing unmawkish "Verborgenheit".” Gramophone Magazine, October 2008

“There can be no better advocate of Hugo Wolf than Roman Trekel, now at the peak of his career as a Lieder interpreter, who presents this deeply satisfying recital of the best of the Mörike Lieder.
These inspired songs need, above all, the kind of intense expression and intimate, detailed treatment that Trekel brings them. Performed as convincingly as they are here, they offer a particular frisson of individual accent that no other composer in the genre, whatever their other merits, quite equals: words and music seem as though they were written at one and the same time Trekel achieves an ideal fusion of tonal security, sense of line and word-painting. In a comparatively long and complex Lied such as 'Im Frühling', he and the admirable Oliver Pohl traverse all the points of the expressive compass, and all the nuances of dynamics that belong to them. In that surpassingly sincere and beautiful love-song 'An die Geliebte' they build to the climax from 'Von Tiefe dann zu Tiefen' with a confidence that bespeaks long familiarity with the piece.
Even better is the heartache they bring to 'Peregrina II' and 'Lebe wohl', where Wolf seems to enter into all the poet's suffering at the hands of a beloved. They also find the inner spirituality of the religion-inspired settings, such as 'Auf ein altes Bild' and 'Denk' es o Seele', the latter so compelling for saying so much in such a short time. In a quite different vein, they rise marvellously to the frenzied melodrama of 'Der Feuerreiter', always a challenge to singer and pianist and one that's surely met here.
A truthful recording adds to the disc's merits.
Not so the notes, which omit any exposition of the songs and also English translations. Even so, this is a recital that ought to convert even Wolf heretics to the cause.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010