Presto Recordings of the Year, Brahms (composer)

Volodos, rather like the music, can seem to inhabit a world of his own – removed, remote, yet in steely control of the expression of that remoteness…Volodos is a master of soft and silken tone... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2017, 5 out of 5 stars More…

This is an achievement on a pretty spectacular new level, and the range of musical sensibility she demonstrates here is vast...her rhythmic sense [in the Ligeti] keeps the music aloft and totally... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2024, 5 out of 5 stars More…

He is tender in op. 118/2 and powerful on op. 118/3. Op. 116/4 sings, and op. 117/2 is delicate, with a lovely touch. In several of these works—op. 116/5 and 6, and op. 117/1, for example—Brahms’s... — Fanfare, Jul/Aug 2020 More…

From imposing sonatas to salon bonbons, these recordings constitute a deft salute not just to Tertis the man and multifaceted musician, but also to an enduring legacy which lives on in distinguished... — BBC Music Magazine, March 2024, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Schiff conducts from the keyboard...securing crisp ensemble and cogent longer-term grasp of structure in his forward-moving tempos...The wiry tone of his restored circa-1859 Blüthner grand may... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2021, 4 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 3 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

The Pavel Haas Quartet and Boris Giltburg take on [the Piano Quintet] with no holds barred: this is an allgiving, full-on version in which the sense of involvement is total and the exhilaration... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2022, 4 out of 5 stars More…

We don’t normally associate Daniil Trifonov with Bach, so this recording is a revelation…Many pianists radiate effort in their attempts to make intellectual sense of The Art of Fugue: Trifonov’s... — BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2021, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Nigel Short and Tenebrae have come up with a beautifully balanced and contrasted programme…The beauty of sound and dignified expression of intensity that Tenebrae create in the opening of the... — BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2015, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Fröst revels in the deep-plush velvet of his chalumeau regions - and, indeed, sustains this timbre throughout the instrument's register...the ensemble creates cutting-edge rhythmic urgency,... — BBC Music Magazine, September 2014, 4 out of 5 stars More…

There’s a marble-statue nobility to his playing, a sense of his powerful technique being harnessed to expression, and a seriousness-of-purpose…To end, we hear three of Brahms’s Intermezzos:... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2023, 4 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 5 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…