Gramophone Awards, 2002

If Saint-Saëns's idiom once answered – and maybe still does – to qualities fundamental to the French musical character, it must be said straight away that Hough sounds the complete insider.... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Andsnes penetrates the psyche of this music, and his playing of consummate artistry and insight. Not only does he have keen poetic feeling but magisterial pianistic finesse. — BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2007 More…

Strauss singing doesn't come much better than this. No doubt the composer himself, with his love of the soprano voice, would have been enthralled by Isokoski's glorious singing. He might also... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

When the glories of Haydn's late Masses have been widely appreciated, it's sad that Hummel's have been so neglected.
They are for chorus and orchestra alone, without soloists, which may have... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

If Saint-Saëns's idiom once answered – and maybe still does – to qualities fundamental to the French musical character, it must be said straight away that Hough sounds the complete insider.... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

The Takács do a fine job here: controlled, well paced and impeccably balanced.
They manage to balance the music's vertical and horizontal aspects beautifully, long-breathed contrapuntal lines... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

So what's so special about the performance? Try Canadian tenor Ben Heppner, outdoing his fellow countryman Jon Vickers on Sir Colin's first recording of Les Troyens. The other principals are... — Matt Fernand, bbc.co.uk, 20th November 2002 More…

on this disc Cecilia Bartoli makes clear that Gluck was a formidable musical dramatist even in his early, pre-'reform' works...This CD, in short, is a tour de force of dramatic singing, in the... — Gramophone Magazine, 2001 More…

From Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire to Boulez's Le marteau sans maître and Kurtág's Messages of the late RV Troussova, modernist composers have used the medium of voice with mixed instrumental... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…