Reviews

As a totality, Honma’s Beethoven cycle… is a strong, meaningful and pianistically always impressive presentation of music…it certainly reflects thoughtfulness and a strong commitment to the music, in addition to very considerable technical skill.

There is an intimacy between player and instrument which is both rare and wonderful. There is also a refreshing boldness in the selection of compositions. The Coldplay song ‘Paradise’ soars around the college chapel…mellifluous and immediately engaging…wonderfully atmospheric…masterful dexterity…

soft, distant, echoing passages… seem to emanate from deep inside your head… an amalgam of musical strands, distant voices, and computer generated sound effects, that seek to conjure up the essence of this tragic story. You often get the feeling that you’re inside a…large cathedral filed with long subterranean passages that echo the phantom’s pain and sorrow.

The performances and the recording is of the highest quality and the composer must have been thrilled. If you don’t know Lefanu’s music this would be a good place to begin.

Edward Cowie’s solo piano is splendidly colourful…Our two composers lay down sounds like a painter lays colour on a canvas. Laura [Chislett] uses fascinating avant-garde techniques

Michael Finnissy is one of the most articulate and prolific composers of his generation…this is an engaging and accessible issue, displaying Finnissy’s trademark precision and creative powers…a fascinating disc.

So, in the end, the reasons for buying this would seem to be either in recognition of Boyden’s life, or possibly nostalgia for the reissue, but finally for the chance to sample some highly rated, but under the radar classics of the earlier Romantic era.

Phillips is clearly in full command of this daunting repertoire…Phillips treats this lyrical and introspective music with a sensitive poignancy. With his fine musicianship and impressive technique…His talents most definitely deserve greater exposure.

Lore’s held-notes bellow control at different volumes is amazing. Lore’s musical virtuosic performances make this a must-listen release for all.

This is a great resource for representing British contemporary music. Ronald Woodley should be congratulated on actively expanding the music available today for the basset horn and bass clarinet.

I did smile to see the conductor was Shea Lolin…so even before I pressed play, I knew I was in for a treat. I was not disappointed; the recorded sound is great and the ensemble playing is superb with lovely dynamic contrasts, great articulation…All five pieces on the album are world premiere recordings and all are deeply descriptive in nature.

The recording quality is second to none and compliments the often intimate nature of these improvisations…I enjoyed this release immensely…The impact is sensuous, inventive and often fantastic.

Beville’s playing is excellent, fast yet delicate and agile, capturing both the whimsy of the shorter pieces and the reverence of others.

This is an approachable album of American choral works…the variety…makes for an enjoyable programme.

Without invoking the names of poets Coleridge and Poe, nor the contemporary musician Berlioz, Schliessmann raises the deliberate ambiguities, harmonic and structural, in Schumann’s oeuvre that invoke the darker hues of imaginative expression.… Schliessmann’s realizations of the Schumann scores, therefore, bear the agogic and polyphonic textures that invoke menace and uncertainty, even while an otherwise placid surface presents itself, as in the familiar Arabeske in C. The recording from Berlin’s Teldex Studios, utilizing the Dolby Atmos process, has done Schliessmann’s keyboard good service.… Highly recommended, both to read and to audition.

With Robert Schumann: Fantasies, Burkard Schliessmann has opened up new horizons for Schumann interpretation. His performances combine the intellect necessary to understand Schumann’s music, the highest level of poetry and just the right instinct for timbres, agogics and tempo.

Captured in superlative sound, his Steinway instrument is caught magnificently…Under Schliessmann’s fingers, the music seems to strive for an unknown other, and yet the search emanates from a heart at peace. Burkard Schliessmann, in his finest offering yet, offers a homage to Schumann for the ages.

“…an exceptional performance here…This is an impressive recital that ’parallels’ old and new favourites.”

Burkard’s pianism is, as always, a thing of beauty to behold, at once limpid and limned, while always equally as constant in attention to the demands and details of the score as to the emotions and expressive gestures the written notes imply. In my experience, Burkard Schliessmann’s Schumann may be equaled by two or three pianists past—Richter, Horowitz, and especially Arrau—but he is not surpassed by any of them.

…music that lives in its own fleeting dimension, and which is superbly recorded in glowing detail.