Reviews

Pure Cowie, and extraordinary Cowie at that. This is first-rate music, engaging the listener and always surprising him or her with the progression of his musical mind. I really enjoyed this album. The music is both complex and intimate, which sucks you in and forces you to pay attention to everything Cowie is doing.

From the opening crescendo of the first piece on the disc, Clarke proves herself adept at writing for massed voices. In all cases, Clarke’s settings fit the words well and allow the texts to come through clearly; and the fine pacing and clarity of the choir under Māris Sirmais show the music in its best and most-effective light.

Listeners unfamiliar with Östlund may be pleasantly surprised at the accessibility of his works and the consistent quality with which he produces them. And all the performances, by a very large number of soloists and ensembles, are engaging and effective. Inviting and pleasant to listen to, staying firmly in a tonal universe.

This disc will whet the appetite of listeners who are favorably inclined toward contemporary opera composition. There is not enough material on this disc to judge the worth of the two operas themselves, but there is enough to show that Cook knows how to handle various vocal ranges and typical-for-the-stage operatic concerns.

“Clarke here stakes a claim as a significant composer of choral music…. one of Ireland’s most cherished composers. {An} inviting recording pairs the composer’s choral music with the superb State Choir Latvija’s richly resonant sound.” – Liam Cagney (Gramophone)
Gramophone Editor’s Choice May 2022

The music here is suffused with a sense of loss and grief, impeccably performed by the Latvian choir. Beautifully done.

Exceptional release…: it would be difficult to imagine finer or more insightful interpretative performances than these. The individuality and approach of the French master is consistently revealed in these engrossing accounts.

There is no doubt that Tom Hicks is a serious musician, possessor of a formidable technique and has the intellectual capacity to master a relatively wide range of repertoire. Playing of consistent excellence supported by very fine recording quality.

Unique selection of music for clarinet and piano… almost all of it melodic and lyrical. Good playing from both artists. The recording quality is excellent.

I found Craven’s music admirably varied in mood and color, and thoroughly engaging throughout. Dullea continues her persuasive advocacy, playing with tonal beauty, textural clarity, and characterful phrasing. The recording provides a lovely, realistic, and intimate acoustic. A wealth of intriguing, stimulating, and inspired music making, both by Craven and Dullea. Recommended.

Soldano’s arrangements are very good. They don’t go over the top with virtuosic flair, but retain the musical integration of voice and piano. The creative aspect here is how well Soldano builds the complex sounds and voices of a full orchestra using just two hands. This great-sounding recording is well worth hearing.

For most of his life Eric Craven has kept a very low profile, concentrating on his teaching career and developing his “non-prescriptive” composing method, a style that allows the performer varying degrees of freedom. We like it — it’s interesting. He’s now released two volumes of easier pieces that are more accessible for both listener and performer. This second collection of pieces is quite lovely, a nice programme of gentle piano.

Peter Sheppard Skærved and Daniel-Ben Pienaar are ideally matched in presenting these works. Neither tries to outdo the other… these are intimate works pervaded by a sense of cordiality between the players – a sense of which Skærved and Pienaar are fully aware, and of which they take full advantage in these warm, congenial performances.

Kreisleriana, always highly expressive, gets a passionate and involving reading here: Chai is very impressive in the way she contrasts the hard-driving passages with the delicate, quietly lyrical ones. Chai makes The Alcotts a simple, genuine, rather straightforward movement expressing warmth, affection and a certain level of delicacy – a very strong contrast indeed to the Schumann heard afterwards.

Works by composers whose music is rarely heard on the same program. Beville contrasts [the moods] especially effectively.

Everything is well-played and attractive… intensity and expressiveness that Hicks brings out with considerable skill. The fine renditions of the major works by Liszt and Ireland are very much the primary attractions here.

A superb introduction to Lynch’s pianistic output. This is a remarkable, and satisfying, disc of Graham Lynch’s engrossing piano music… compositionally fascinating… sometimes ravishing harmonies. Throughout, it is evident that Sanchez enjoys complete resonance with Lynch’s output; there is the most blissful sense of comprehension, of melding even, in these performances.

Gray has opened up a treasure trove of fascinating rarities and little known arrangements that add quite considerably to the relatively modest amount of original piano works from this prolific composer and with his performances of conviction and presence this is well worth the outlay to explore.

The sounds and music evoked will play strongly on the imagination… The performance by Sara Minelli (flute) and Roderick Chadwick (piano) is stunning, beautiful, revelatory, often moving and thoroughly committed, both in creativity and technique.

This is an excellent and well-balanced recital that fully deploys Tom Hick’s multitudinous talents. An exceptionally commanding performance, which balances the dramatic with the intimate. The sound recording is perfect.