Rachmaninov: Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19

“…what I love about both these performances is their spontaneity, flow and warmth, their natural ease with the idiom of both composers. Walton achieves a fabulous legato in the Rachmaninov's Sonata, so that one feels it is really being sung… Grieg's Sonata is a more challenging work to negotiate. Walton can produce a special purity of tone, heard to great effect in a searching slow movement, but he also lets the air into his bowing in a highly articulate Allegro agitato. ...towards the end of the taxing finale... both players create a blazing climax, in which we taste the extent of their charismatic daring.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2010 *****

“the musical give-and-take of these players is excellent: they seize upon the music with enthusiasm, energy and sensitivity – one can almost sense that they are keen to show us just how fine this music is … strongly recommended. It is good to see these young artists taking up these works with such conspicuous success.” International Record Review

“…Fountain's idiomatic nuancing and the grainy texture of Geringas's cello are certainly distinctive. But it is in the magnificent Sonata in G minor that the duo dig deepest. There's nothing ethereal about the achingly beautiful Andante, which is seized with passion, building to a thunderous climax. The finale surges restlessly, as I feel it should. The sound is edgy and virile, not always purely resonant, but overall their tremendous sweep and sense of shape convinced me.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2009 ****

“A pupil of Nathan Milstein, Hideko Udagawa retains the Master's nobility and warmth throughout a programme of Rachmaninov transcriptions centred on Mikhailovsky's skilful adaptation of the Cello Sonata.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2010 ****