Reviews

a tour-de-force…Goldstone & Clemmow bring a subtle intimacy to the music that is really wonderful…pristine presentation, copious notes and stunning recording…. A superb disc

Marvellous recording featuring familiar music in unfamiliar form … astonishing performance of Tchaikovsky’ Symphony No. 4… to say that the first movement contains some barnstorming pianism is an understatement. Wonderful pianism … great transcriptions … beautiful natural piano sound.

Highly enjoyable…well worth hearing ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a feast for those addicted to the liquid legato of the clarinet. The hero here is Cristo Barrios and his accomplished partner is Clinton Cormany. Together they put forward a largely delightful collection.

There is of course lots of lovely, even cosy, deliquescent melody around. Cristo Barrios makes a nice individual sound, reedier than some, and has great breath-control; and I am sure he has absorbed all the texts, which are generously printed in full in the booklet. There is no shortage of beautiful moments, and even surprises.

The transcriptions are well done, and Cormany’s playing mirrors his vast experience as a vocal accompanist. Barrios, a former student of Richard Stolzman, bears much of his teacher’s passionate musicianship.

A fine début, with the many repertoire challenges within eloquently and skilfully met… Philip Howard plays to his strengths on this auspicious recorded début… this striking…programme augurs well for Philip Howard’s future

This is an impressive, challenging debut… Howard’s fingerprints as a performer are clearly evident throughout: a ferocious technical ability filtered through a bold and thoughtful interpretative intellect. Most refreshingly, he seems (perhaps by dint of being a composer himself) prepared to adapt his whole approach to the demands of some very different aesthetics, lapsing neither into received ideals of pianistic beauty nor into crudely iconoclastic dogmatism… [A] brave and impressive display of musical intelligence and integrity

Wonderful stuff, ideal for this record label which is trying to forge its own unique image… As for Philip Howard, I am full of admiration. Technically he is totally assured in this challenging music. On top of that he has an innate ability to discover and use piano colour

Many rewards… Howard…is pretty fearless… has all the qualities of intense concentration to bring the work off – and listen to the stunning way he projects the music [of Palais de Mari] around the seven minute mark as being as delicate as porcelain…Highly recommended.

I believe it can bring surprising rewards. Every piece is superbly played with total belief by this most gifted pianist and I trust this CD will get the attention it clearly merits.

I don’t know whose idea this CD was, but it was a brilliant one. It goes without saying that [Clarke] is technically well in command of this music, and his performances are poised, imaginative and strongly characterised. The CD is accompanied by a learned and informative booklet of notes by Raymond Clarke himself, and the piano is the excellent Steinway model D at Newcastle University. More please!

This is a collection of very fine music…highly enjoyable… a recording to savour

performances of considerable sympathy and insight… with a flawless technique… The recordings are particularly fine and the performances here do it full justice, piano tone being impressive. Raymond Clarke contributes his own scholarly and informative booklet notes. An important CD enthusiastically recommended.

[an] impressive CD… The performances throughout are exemplary, each note being played with great precision and delicacy

Clarke’s impressive technique is placed entirely at the service of the music, bringing lucidity even when the page is black with notes, never diluting the percussive qualities of the Piano Variations, or smoothing the jagged quality of the Sonata.

We need a definitive recording of the Piano Fantasy and Clarke is exactly the kind of performer to deliver it… As usual all Clarke’s interpretations are scrupulous … the slow music in the last movement achieves a magical atmosphere … In the Fantasy, as elsewhere, Clarke is in complete command of the passagework in this utterly uncompromising half-hour epic …  First-class playing

Trevor Barnard is an ideal performer in this collection …a very enjoyable cross-selection of accessible and attractive works that repay repeated hearings. Very entertaining and well worth investigating.

[Barnard’s] performance of the works on this CD is excellent and he has captured the style and mood of the works well. For those collecting Australian works this is another ‘must’.

Trevor Barnard presents this music with power and conviction.