Reviews

A change of pace for the artist who is known for her performances of avant-garde and contemporary music. Her performance is impassioned and shows off more of her technical virtuosity coupled with her fine sense of line and lyrical interpretation. It all sounds so effortless in her hands that it entrances the listener. Highly recommended.

Ed Hughes’ compositional style is unique and thoroughly personal. Much ‘new’ music has close connections with the idea of place, and this is certainly true with Hughes’ music. Elements of folk music, the merest touch of jazz in some of the rhythms, and melody lines on the outer fringes of tonality pervade Hughes’ musical style. With Hughes, every time you listen, you discover something new, surely a treasure-house of musical inspiration.

It has that required aristocratic distinction mixed with a feeling of spontaneity as Chai reveals the work’s full beauty coupled with much forceful brilliance.

In some ways, the new disc is actually a better tribute than the earlier one [DDA 25210]… a way for the uninitiated to hear some music written by the person who is being lauded. All the performers perform with sensitivity and a sense of suitable deference to the person whose accomplishments the CD is designed to celebrate.

A solo piano recital that’s illuminated with quiet fire and spirit that shows how cultural clichés are about to be smashed. This is a true hot, new find.

The first and greatest masterpieces ever written for the instrument. Technically demanding and exhilarating: the cellist on these recordings, Marina Tarasova, takes a radically different approach, one which is inspirational and which infuses the works with vitality and spirit.

The technical finesse of Clarke’s choral writing and her ability to ‘home in’ on the expressive essence of the text(s) at hand makes for an emotional empathy which communicates directly to listeners. It helps when the contribution of the State Choir LATVIJA, under Māris Sirmais, is so attuned to this music. [This recording] underlines the stylistic extent of her music as well as its versatility over a range of texts from the Medieval to the present era.

Witchery from complexity: lyricism and ecstasy; pell-mell power and centred peacefulness, most skilfully played. The booklet is most beautifully composed and executed with colour photographs of the South Downs and extended insights by the composer into the witchery of his music.

Marina Tarasova is an absolutely first-rate cellist, sensitive to the dance forms underlying these remarkable compositions but equally aware of the extent to which Bach built upon and enlarged those forms rather than simply following them slavishly. It is clear from the very beginning that this will be a very personal interpretation… convincing on its own terms… emotionally satisfying in a way that more-straitlaced performances are not. Tarasova allows both the notes and their foundational heartfelt communication to flow with considerable beauty and an impressive level of technical precision.

A fascinating collection; the pianist is to be congratulated for his imagination in assembling such an interesting program. Performance is not lacking in any aspect… his stunning technical agility refuses to be suppressed. All of this sounds forth in full glory on the Steinway D.

This is an auspicious and impressive beginning to a series devoted to Saint-Saens’s piano music. All [the pieces] are well crafted, and many are technically quite demanding.

Jenny Q Chai shows her mastery in a sweeping performance; the music comes alive and breathes a freshness few performances are able to capture. There is not a whiff of academia in her playing. Her Fazioli sounds forth with power and all the color one could wish for.

A varied program ranging from sacred to secular, dissonant to melodic, and complex fare to children’s rhymes where spirited handclapping is the order of the day. She’s not in a rut. See what you think of her 4-movement Requiem. I rather like it.

Reeves couldn’t have asked for a better interpreter. Blue Sounds, with its playing distinguished by fluidity, authority, and musicality, shows the connection between him and Reeves to be especially strong. Blue Sounds appeals for many reasons beyond Hicks’s sterling treatments. What makes the three pieces particularly fascinating is to witness the way Reeves reconciles the spontaneous personal expression of blues (and jazz) with the meticulous through-composition of classical writing.

An Impressionistic visit and tribute to the 260 square miles of chalk hills in England’s southeast. Audiences already familiar with the area may find a number of touchstones here with which to identify [and] pleasant enough material for those who do not know the geography. Certainly all the performers treat the music with respect and play it with care and understanding.

Great Women is a powerful new work [which] draws on poems, letters, and speeches of four remarkable women. The performances on Great Women are outstanding, with a stunning, virtuosic performance by Dublin-based soprano Elizabeth Hilliard. She brings the words of the four women to life with clear conviction, and she switches between different vocal techniques with ease.

Marilyn Nonken charts a decade’s worth of compositions in a search to extract a greater expressive weight than has perhaps been heard before. Nonken is a far saner interpreter [than Joshua Rifkin). A reflective, somewhat serious look at Scott Joplin and his collaborators.

We have the pleasure of hearing British recorder virtuoso John Turner on all 22 tracks of this CD. On the majority of works we hear soprano Lesley-Jane Rogers’s beautiful singing, in which the texts are clearly audible. Once again, Turner and colleagues provide a wonderful collection of music.

A highly stimulating and individual recorded recital that will give much pleasure and food for thought. Tellingly sensitive voicings, a desire to always produce warm, reserved but glowing tone at all levels and rhythmic and articulative control – one could never imagine this player to panic, lose control or focus. Highly listenable, contrasted, and intriguing.

An excellent and genuinely important recording of Saint-Saëns’ piano works provides a heretofore unavailable chance to hear just how good Saint-Saëns’ solo-piano music is and to muse about its longstanding neglect. The first two-disc volume places Saint-Saëns firmly in the pantheon of Romantic-era compositional virtuosity.