Reviews

This is 100% wonderful: witty, joyful, a bit mad, wildly eccentric and lots of fun. Whatever you want it’s got it. A brilliant CD.

The Fitzwilliam Quartet players capture the mood of Schubert’s pieces very well, and are particularly successful in Death and the Maiden, where their tempo for the famous slow movement is well judged, with its major-mode fourth variation admirably free of sentimentality.

I enjoyed every minute of this well-structured journey. A subtle and effective fusion of traditional musical language and a more modernist voice. This is a splendid recording, enjoyable from the first note to last. The music is well-written, often profound and always interesting… fascinating and essential.

Soldano’s recital builds [in] a clear and compelling trajectory. A fine interpreter…Soldano captures the glowing grandeur with fingers of steel.

This excellent disc covers a fascinating range of instrumental colours, utilising ancient and foreign instruments as well as more traditional ones… such a feast for the ears; beautifully arranged, constantly surprising and exceptionally well played by the ensemble. A fine introduction to a fascinating composer.

We’re impressed with this, modern without being jarring and traditional in sound without being formulaic. The opening Cuckmere is the best section but the whole programme is interesting.

We’ve previously praised the ethereal music of Östlund and this new one is different but equally good and proves that Östlund can handle a larger orchestra, but he always manages to keep the sound intimate and approachable.

Enjoyable

This is a lovely disc, and listening to it continuously makes you realise there is something rather concentrated and cumulatively meditative about the music. The music is complex and elaborate, but the dance measures clearly come through. Here we have a lovely intersection between the sacred and the secular, between period performance and modern exploration thereof.

Fascinating? Absolutely! I got hooked from track 1 through track 14. This is seriously fun music, as entertaining as it is complex in its sonorities and its devil-may-care approach to instrumentation. The ensemble in charge of these giddy proceedings is named Sirinu and they take on their multi-instrumental tasks with enthusiasm and accuracy.

Beautiful and restrained choral works. As well as the inspiring title work, the album also includes seven pieces for choir, all brilliantly performed by Cor Cantiamo.

Approachable, enjoyable and satisfying from first note to the last. There is much beauty in these pages. The listener will be inspired and moved. The performance by Cor Cantiamo is superb in every way.

Demopoulos is a demonstrative, inventive pianist, his musical explorations evocative of life and experience. On the evidence of this adventurous set, he deserves a wide audience.

The players are fabulous. The reactions of London Myriad are astonishing; the music, as a result, full of joie de vivre. Delicious, frothy and delightful music is performed impeccably by London Myriad.

The performances here are excellent. McCabe, showing a great affinity for Clementi’s piano sonatas, uncovers astonishing new realms of beauty.The accompanying notes by the composer’s widow lift this recording out of the stack of new releases with which we are all inundated and into the realm of something special.

These pieces are beautifully atmospheric and evocative. This disc again has an especially beautiful booklet, both in terms of the art design and the color photos that illustrate each piece.

Ed Hughes’s music comes as a refreshing change. The composer is willing and able to use a wide variety of musical inspirations and palettes. The opening work on this CD is superb. Media Vita is a remarkable work. [Sinfonia] is a remarkably taut score, with many felicitous moments. The playing is excellent in all three works. The recording is ideal.

An especially lucid reading … brilliant, upper register filigree. . Soldano assigns [the Sonata] both a lyric and manic character at once, creating a sense of colliding impulses, creative and self-destructive.

There is much to enjoy in this disc. The playing is of the highest standard and the ensemble consistently excellent; not to be underestimated given the contrasting tones of the four wind instruments.

World première recordings of twenty-three woodwind miniatures by Robin Stevens. Some of the pieces are as astonishing as they are attractive. [A] hugely revelatory parade of woodwind instruments.