First performed in Padua in 1619,Stefano Landi's opera takes up the Orpheus story almost at the point at which Monteverdi's masterpiece of 12 years earlier ends. La Morte d'Orfeo begins after the trip to the underworld,with Euridice dead,and follows the version of the myth in which Orpheus incurs the displeasure of Bacchus,who encourages the Maenads to tear him limb from limb. When Orpheus reaches the underworld,Euridice,who has drunk the waters of Lethe and forgotten her previous life,fails to recognise him. But Orpheus is taken up to the heavens and all can end happily. Compared with the recitative style of Monteverdi's Orfeo,the musical texture of La Morte is varied w ith ensembles and choruses as well as set-piece arias,the best of which is the number for Charon in the final act. The 20 roles are shared between 13 singers in this French performance,with Cyril Auvity as Orfeo. Early 17th- century brass canzonas by other composers have been inserted to articulate the dramatic scheme. It's a fascinating glimpse of the beginnings of opera,beyond the towering achievements of Monteverdi.
The Guardian - Friday June 15,2007 - Andrew Clements

In the 400th-anniversary year of the first great opera,Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo,it is refreshing to have a recording of Stefano Landi’s take on the myth,from 1619. Landi was a Roman,and La morte d’Orfeo,though written for the city of Padua,contains elements that mark it out from northern Italian opera. As the title indicates,it concentrates on Orpheus’s fate after his failed attempt to rescue Eurydice,ending with his being torn to shreds by the Maenads,the rejection of his spirit by Eurydice and his elevation to the Elysian fields. Akademia,led by Françoise Lasserre,make the best possible case for a piece rich in vocal finery and instrumental colour. Cyril Auvity,Guillemette Laurens and Jan van Elsacker head a fine cast.
The Sunday Times - Stephen Pettitt - 22 July 07

Orpheus was present,so to speak,at the birth of opera: for obvious reasons his was seen as a very suitable ‘story’ around which first to stitch together then to stretch outwards the intermedi of late sixteenth century Italian drama and music. By 1600 both Peri and Caccini had written and performed a Euridice; in 1608 came Belli and Chiebrera’s Orfeo Dolente; Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo was performed the year before.

The instrumentalists clearly know and love this work – as we will come to do thanks to their persuasive,highly sensitive and utterly non-demonstrative playing. Akadêmia works as a whole,a cohesive team; their intention to expose,and revel carefully in,a highly perfumed and colourful corner of a very special garden has been well met in this gem of a performance.

It’s a good,clear recording,well-presented with a useful booklet,though the text of the libretto is a little small. Probably the best way to approach La Morte D’Orfeo is not as a historical curiosity to set alongside Landi’s contemporaries’ treatment of the Orpheus myth,but a beautiful,compelling work full of clarity and delight in its own right.
MusicWeb - Mark Sealey

‘Andrew Kennedy,one of our best young tenors,has chosen Peter Warlock’s neglected W.B.Yeats cycle The Curlew (and 23 other songs) for his first recital disc. Accompanied by string quartet,the Pavão,flute (Daniel Pailthorpe) and cor anglais (Owen Dennis) – the desolate Curlew shows Warlock at his deepest and most innovative; and Kennedy sings it with plangent and ingratiating tone. The pianist on some of the other songs is Simon Lepper. The best of Warlock is to be found in ‘The Frostbound Wood’ and ‘Sleep’. Kennedy makes a strong case for agreement with Constant Lambert’s estimation of Warlock as one of the greatest of song-writers. Excellent recording quality and balance.’ Michael Kennedy
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *****

‘For his debut CD the gifted tenor Andrew Kennedy plunges into the Peter Warlock songbook and emerges with a well-balanced programme of carols,roisterings and the deeply melancholic song cycle The Curlew…Kennedy’s singing is always expressive – The Frostbound Wood is a knockout. Simon Lepper (piano) and the Pavao Quartet lead the responsive accompaniments.’ Geoff Brown
THE TIMES ****

‘Tenor Andrew Kennedy won the song prize at last year’s Cardiff Singer of the World competition,and his first solo album is this thoughtful examination of the music of Peter Warlock,who died young in 1930….The centrepiece is the haunting 1920 Yeats cycle The Curlew,in which Kennedy uses whispered half-tones to create a sense of unearthly mystery,while the Pavao Quartet together with flautist Andrew Pailthorpe and cor anglais player Owen Dennis spin eerie sounds around him. Elsewhere,with pianist Simon Lepper,Kennedy gives beautiful performances of Bethlehem Down and The Night.’ Tim Ashley
THE GUARDIAN ****

‘Kennedy is a singer with fine powers of definition,whether of notes or words. He catches the gaiety of (for instance) that perfect final encore-song Jillian of Berry,as indeed he does the meditative quality of Autumn Twilight and the tenderness of Cradle Song. Simon Lepper is a splendid accompanist,responding to the text as part of his own remit,and delightfully sure in the interplay of staccato and legato,very much a Warlockian characteristic. The songs with string accompaniment are well placed and well chosen so that one appreciates the new and lovely textures. Expert notes by Michael Pilkington.’
GRAMOPHONE - John Steane

‘In both of these works [The Curlew & Bethlehem Down] Andrew Kennedy shows an absorption,and an ability to hone in on the details that matter without sacrificing the sense of the longer line,that often feels just right. His sweet English tenor voice can soar enticingly,but also has a strong,dark lower register – first shown to advantage at the start of ‘Autumn Twilight’ and drawn out to great advantage in The Curlew...The sound is…very good,as are the accompanists. Balance is excellent in The Curlew.’
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE - Stephen Johnson - Performance **** Sound ****

‘I first heard Andrew Kennedy six years ago,and was immediately caught by the power and focus of his ample voice. His progress since has proved unstoppable,with success last year in the BBC Singer of the World competition adding to a sack full of rave reviews. The lyric tenor's solo debut disc underlines his considerable qualities,not least of which is a willingness to take expressive risks. Peter Warlock's canny way with words and bittersweet tunes suit Kennedy to a tee. His richly communicative performance is slightly diminished by the recessed recorded balance,although this album's tonal beauty returns handsome compensation.’
CLASSIC FM MAGAZINE **** - Andrew Stewart

These discs throw fascinating light on the 18th-century English musical public's insatiable appetite for Italian concerti grossi. Avison's recently discovered transcriptions of 12 solo violin sonatas by one of London's most popular expatriate Italian musicians were perfectly calculated to satisfy this demand. With Avison's thorough grasp of the Italianate concerto style,it is hard to believe that the pieces were not originally conceived in this form.

In these spirited performances,the full tutti sound enhances Pavlo Beznosiuk's beautifully characterised playing of the first concertino violin part,whether in yearning slow movements or sparkling gigues.
The Telegraph - 6th October - Elizabeth Roche

Britten was still a very green young man,fresh out of the Royal College of Music,and steeling himself to accept a full-time job at the BBC to make ends meet. He jumped at the offer,which was to provide a score for a documentary about the production of a special jubilee stamp for George V,entitled The King's Stamp. Flick to track 10 on the CD,and you'll hear that spiral staircase descent,preceded by an equally vivid man opening door. Altogether this CD shines a fascinating side-light on a great composer in the making.
The Telegraph - Ivan Hewett

‘Writing film scores quickly,for strictly limited performance forces,was an inestimable professional training,as was collaboration with Auden. The results,as laid out in this 10-part sequence,are fascinating.’
Sunday Times

This is a wonderful release … of immense importance to the musical world’
The Birmingham Post

‘Lovingly produced with a hugely informative 40-page booklet setting everything in context,this is an essential festival of Britten.’
HMV.co.uk

'A catalogue hole has been filled with this conspectus of Britten’s imaginative film music of the 1930s,including the GPO Film Unit classics Coal Face and Night Mail. Perky winds,brass and percussion dominate,and Brabbins’s accounts with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group vibrate with character.'
The Times

'Lashings of period-feel,especially in Simon Russell Beale's spruce delivery of the iconic Night Mail’
Independent on Sunday

‘The inventive ingenuity in every fragment Britten produced is extraordinary,while the practicality and economy involved in writing for these ensembles left a more permanent mark on his music too,particularly on the scoring of his three chamber operas.’
The Guardian

‘The performances,by the BCMG and assorted choirs and soloists,are first rate’
BBC Music Magazine

‘This generous 79-minute collection consists of the film music without the film,so if you’ve once seen some of the better known ones such as Night Mail or Coal Face your visual memory fills the gap. An excellent feature is the provision of Auden’s texts as well as thorough documentary material from Philip Reed’
Gramophone

That luscious adagio is always the pivotal moment of any performance of Rachmaninov''s titanic second symphony,and the sensuous strings of the Budapest Festival Orchestra under its co-founder,Ivan Fischer,make this outstanding recording no exception. But the outer movements are not,for once,overshadowed by its lyrical beauty; Fischer is at pains to demonstrate their sinuous strengths,drawing a rich range of colours from his very accomplished players. In this impressive company the celebrated Vocalise,a bonus to an already fulfilling programme,amounts to a soothing encore.

The Observer 23rd May 04 Anthony Holden

The Observer 23rd May 04 Anthony Holden

A new partnership between the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Dutch label Channel Classics yields great results in this exceptional recording of Rachmaninov''s Symphony No.2 and the vocal piece Vocalise. The symphony in particular burns with a powerful intensity. Even the archly romantic adagio allows no slack through its billowing Hollywood curtains. Mikes placed tightly round the podium reproduce for the listener what Fischer hears as he sculpts each note,moulds each inner crescendo,shapes the phrases and dramatically elasticates the pulse. Indeed,every detail of the symphony''s rich score is vividly,excitingly audible. The movements progress with epic appeal. Moody Tchaikovsky struggles against monkish piety in the opening movement. Horns toll a mocking Dies irae in the innocent,racing scherzo. The breathless finale wrings the last emotion from an utterly compelling score. The Vocalise concludes the disc serenely. Within the strings'' warm,feathery embrace an immaculate cor anglais sings the plaintive melody. The listener seems really to be at the heart of the sound,ghosting among the orchestra. Romanticism never sounded so fresh.

Five out of five

Reviewed by Rick Jones,Classic FM Magazine,Oct 04

Five out of five

Reviewed by Rick Jones,Classic FM Magazine,Oct 04

Bucking the current fashion for hard-driven Vivaldi,Chiara Banchini and Ensemble 415 (all her ex-pupils) deliver string concerto performances of airy delight. The focus is on the concerti for four violins from the ground-breaking set L’Estro Armonico. So many notes,interweaving; yet with Banchini’s team of soloists everything stays elegant,subtle and unclogged. The disc marks ten years of excellent releases from this idiosyncratic French label.
The Times - Geoff Brown - 24th August 2007

This is rare and rarified music of great beauty and regional historical significance. It represents the beginning of a collaboration between the label,Zig-Zag Territoires,and the early music group,Discantus with its director,Brigitte Lesne. It reflects the work of a substantial new research project lead by musicologist Marie-Noël Colette under the auspices of the Institut Français de Prague and the Sablé Festival . The project has unearthed new antiphoners,processionals and tropers from St George's Basilica in Prague that date from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. It is these which are performed with great style,enthusiasm and sophistication on this excellent (though somewhat hard to track down) CD: persevering in obtaining a copy is worth it; it's lovely music and expertly sung.

This CD uses representative music to trace the developments in the Bohemian liturgy from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries; most significant was the continuity which obtained once the initial impact of the new chants had been felt: works in honor of Virgin Mary and two patron saints,Ludmilla and Wenceslas,who were responsible for important innovations in Bohemian worship.

There is,though,no sense of the performances on this CD being cultish. Nor are they dry. Discantus (between five and ten women depending on what's right for each piece) presents the music as fresh,but not novel; exciting,but not histrionic; and devotional but not excluding. There is the same kind of ecstasy (in Castus mente corpore/Preclaris,for example) as one expects from Hildegard. But the singing is a trifle more subdued,and appropriately so. If you enjoy early a cappella singing (though minimum tuned percussion is used in places) performed to a high standard,a very high standard,and of considerable historical significance,then you should certainly look into this CD.  Recommended.
Classical Net

‘The performances are fresh,furious and frenetic ... The essence of his [Dennehy's] style embraces obvious aspects of minimalism – feisty and explosive in the crazed electro-acoustic idiom of Junk Box Fraud ... mesmerising and liquid in the newest work featured,Dennehy's 2005 Elastic Harmonic for violin and orchestra'
Scotsman

'Dennehy likes to imbue his pieces with an urban energy and drive them with the punchy impact of a rock band. He also likes and air of derangement,as if to suggest both a breaching of conventional boundaries and Jean Tinguely-like disintegration.'
Irish times (****)

CD of The Month - Gramophone January 2009

Rival Handel sets will have to be very special to top, or even approach, this.....

..........the performance is utterly magical

............but it seems to me that the Dunedins have transformed the way in which we can understand and enjoy Handel's lovely early English masterpiece.

All the performances are excellent with Jakub Hrusa,still in his mid – twenties,drawing colourful and alert playing from the Prague Philharmonic,reflecting the fact that he is the talented pupil of Jiri Belohlavek,the founder of the orchestra. First rate sound.
Gramophone - Edward Greenfield

Lutyens’s centenary has been sparsely celebrated,but at least we have this excellent production from NMC. Expertly compiled by Bayan Northcott,it presents music written between 1953 and 1970,which he finds her most inspired period. Starting with the tautly mournful Présages,for oboe,finely delivered by Melinda Maxwell,the sequence moves to the first of four choral works,the extraordinary Motet,a setting of propositions from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.

As first among equals,Muller is unfazed by the intricately embellished lines of the more virtuosic movements…. I was much taken with Muller's beautiful (and beautifully selective) use of vibrato. The recorded sound is appropriately intimate,and the CD cover is attractively adorned by one of Anne Peultier's abstract paintings. 
The Strad - Nov 06 - Carlos Maria Solare

... Yet it is Muller who most succesfully evokes a sense of adventure: in her imaginative performance she explores the music as it unfolds,just as one would a labyrinth.
Gramophone - March 07 - Julie Anne Sadie

This 350th birthday tribute to the French viol composer Marin Marais makes an excellent introduction to his music. A substantial set of 32 well-contrasted variations on the La Follia bass reveals both the viol da gamba's expressive powers and its remarkable virtuoso possibilities.

These are further demonstrated in the E minor Suite,with its flowing,melancholy sarabande,energetic gigues (one of which involves stratospherically high double-stopping) and the grandly sorrowful Tombeau on a chromatic ground-bass,which makes a satisfying conclusion.
The Telegraph - 30th December 06 - Elizabeth Roche

Even by the ambitious repertoire policies of Linn Records,this new disc,featuring the doyenne of clarinettists Lesley Schatzberger together with the Fitzwilliam String Quartet,is a bold enterprise.

At a time when the repertoire on CDs tends to be carefully bracketed and pigeonholed,the combination of a staple,in Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet,with a classical unknown – the reconstruction of a Mozart movement abandoned by the composer – a real Romantic rarity by Glazunov and a new,modern work by Glasgow composer William Sweeney speaks of a freshness of imagination in the planning departments of both Linn and the artists themselves.

That freshness informs equally the performances,with a bright,immediate,forward-moving account of the Brahms that resists wallowing indulgence. There is a charming,poised and fascinating performance of the Mozart Quintet movement (completed by Duncan Druce),a ravishing version of the Borodin-flavoured Reverie Orientale by Glazunov,and a hypnotic and beautifully atmospheric performance of Bill Sweeney’s An Òg-Mhadainn (The Young Morning) with its apparent duets staged over the upper and lower registers of the basset clarinet. Schatzberger’s playing is so creamy you will melt away.
The Herald (Glasgow) - Saturday 17 February 2007 - Michael Tumelty

‘Is yet another disc of Brahms Clarinet Quintet really needed?’,asks Alan George in his liner note,before discussing what makes this one well-nigh unique: Lesley Schatzberger uses a copy of one of Richard Mühlfeld’s boxwood Ottensteiner clarinets from the original performances,and all the players are striving to get back,via the classic Kell/Busch,Thurston/Griller performances,to the original playing style as attested in contemporary reports. Above all,to the rhythmic freedom and strong expressive contrasts Brahms loved. The result is a triumph: the most revelatory version of the piece I’ve heard in years; animated,dynamic,passionate,with the greater agility and more focused tone of the Ottensteiner clarinet ideally matched to this approach. ‘More confrontational,red-blooded,wilder,at times angrier,’ says George,acknowledging that this won’t be to everybody’s taste. But those of us who have long deplored the late 20^th-century tendency to make this masterwork one long indulgence in nostalgia (for instance,David Shifrin and the Emerson Quartet on DG) can only applaud. Despite the eminent virtues of Thea King and the Gabrieli (Hyperion),long my modern favourite,I have no hesitation in naming this the new benchmark,as Kell/Busch (on EMI) remains the historic ones.

The enterprising couplings here are a real bonus: Mozart’s unfinished B flat quintet movement in Duncan Druce’s idiomatic completion,a fetching Reverie by Glazunov and An Òg-Mhadainn (The Young Morning),an atmospheric piece for basset clarinet and strings by William Sweeney whose Ceol Mor-style keenings show off Schatzberger’s virtuosity to the full. Why isn’t there more of this gifted composer on disc? For warmth and depth of resonance Linn’s recording is perfection.
BBC Music Magazine - Callum MacDonald - Performance 5/5 Sound 5/5

The opening bars of this new recording of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet are a revelation. The clarinet emerges from the string texture with a haunting,veiled quality that seems exactly right. As we discover from the booklet notes,it’s just that,as Lesley Schatzberger is playing a copy of the instrument used by Richard Mühlfeld,the player who inspired Brahms’s Clarinet Trio and Sonatas as well as the glorious Quintet. As the movement goes on we hear the remarkable range of colours that this clarinet can produce – from dusky,whispered half-tones to a brilliant and strident forte. It’s the quiet playing that is truly lovely here. The Fitzwilliam Quartet use gut strings and a playing style that employs vibrato for real expressive enhancements of phrases rather than as a default setting,and there is occasional use of subtle portamento,especially by the leader Lucy Russell. All of this follows the evidence that survives of Joachim and his disciples,and it draws most productively on the important research by the scholar Robert Pascall on Brahms performance practice.

The historically informed thinking behind this recording of the Brahms has resulted in a vibrant and emotionally involving account of the work that is enormously welcome from a purely musical point of view as well – these players are utterly at home with the style,and the result is one of the most rewarding discs of this much-played work to have appeared in recent years,with a range of colours that is ear-opening and often ravishing – from strings as well as clarinet. The ‘modern’-instrument versions I listen to most often are more than half a century old – Alfred Boskovsky’s wonderfully unforced and autumnal stereo recording with members of the Vienna Octet on Decca or the earlier mono version from the same soloist and ensemble on Testament. For a modern version using a copy of the clarinet Brahms had in mind when he wrote the work,and string players steeped in the style of the period,look no further than this new version.
International Record Review,February 2007 - Nigel Simeone

Donald Tovey (1875-1940) will always be remembered as one of the UK's finest writers on music,though in his day he was also admired both as composer and pianist. He was a favourite accompanist of Pablo Casals,who gave the premiere of his Elegiac Variations in 1909,and for whom Tovey also wrote his Cello Concerto in 1933. The Concerto's notorious length - nearly an hour - proves its undoing. The central sections have great lyrical and emotional strength,but Tovey's carefully wrought,Brahmsian idiom often sits uneasily with his quest for structural expansiveness,and the outer movements are worryingly diffuse. The Variations,self-consciously peering back through Brahms to Schubert,occasionally sound derivative,but are also infinitely more satisfying in their compressed austerity.

Alice Neary is the intense,persuasive cellist in both works,though neither she nor her excitable conductor George Vass can disguise the Concerto's flaws. Gretel Dowdswell is the weighty,impressive pianist in the Variations.
The Guardian - Tim Ashley - Friday February 9,2007

A chance to get to grips with Tovey's massive Cello Concerto.
Having enjoyed grappling with Tovey's large scale Symphony in D last summer,I shall persevere. Alice Neary performs valiantly,with sympathetic support from Geroge Vass and the Ulster Orchestra. Throw in some engaging fill-ups,decent sound and assiduously detailed booklet notes,and it adds up to yet another intruiging release from this young label.
Gramophone - April 07 - Andrew Achenbach

This is the first modern recording of Sir Donald Tovey’s Cello Concerto written in 1931-4 for his friend Pablo Casals who gave the first performance in Edinburgh in 1934. It is on a grand scale,lasting 54 minutes. Tovey was a great musicologist but this is not mere academic music. Its serene opening theme for the cello is a memorable inspiration and reappears as effective contrast to the stormy material of much of the rest of the movement. Tovey’s orchestration,sometimes reminiscent of Elgar,is never thick and cloying and allows the soloist full reign. The slow movement is a dark and sombre elegy,harmonically more adventurous than the rest of the work and rising to a passionate climax. The finale develops into an argument between soloist and orchestra that is both witty and dramatic. Alice Neary plays this demanding work with immense skill and dedication,and she is impressively supported by the Ulster Orchestra conducted by George Vass. The disc also includes a charming Air from an early quartet and recently arranged for orchestral strings by Peter Shore and the Elegiac Variations for cello and piano (Gretel Dowdeswell) which Tovey wrote in 1909 in memory of the cellist of the Joachim Quartet. A revelatory issue.
The Sunday Telegraph Sunday February 18,2007 - Michael Kennedy – 4/5

Donald Francis Tovey (1875-1940),a great writer on music,was too brilliant to be a significant composer — as a young man,he was introduced to Brahms as the most knowledgeable musician in Europe. There’s an oddly facetious,deprecating tone to his analysis of his Cello Concerto,printed here. The work is simply too long.

The 25-minute first movement,with all its learned construction,doesn’t live up to the promise of its opening,beautifully shaped by Neary. But the dark andante is a fine piece; and the Brahmsian Elegiac Variations,played with splendid conviction,is definitely worth reviving.
The Sunday Times - David Cairns - Three stars

A disc of charm and curios,which might satisfy all of the would-be-performer,the scholar or those merely wanting a hits collection on the keyboard. The biggest curio is the Sonata K545,a kind of “Edvard Grieg plays Mozart” (as in “Jacques Loussier plays Bach”) in which the second piano provides a running commentary of jam session,harmonic filler and,in Grieg’s words,“a sound that commends itself to modern ears”. Well,“modern” has,of course,become “Romantic”,but time has been kind and the result,Mozart with bass and drums avant la letter,is compelling,a tribute to the Norwegian composer’s wit and taste.

Confidence and space are the hallmarks of the duo’s Peer Gynt suite (one of the three versions Grieg made of this music) and the romance of “The Death of  Ase” is cunningly inflected. The piano duets of the Norwegian Dances are taken quite swiftly but with an appropriately Beechamesque wistfulness. Recorded with clarity last year in a Lincolnshire church,the performances have a consistently live feel and will give pleasure.
Gramophone - January 2007 - Mike Ashman

+++ RSK LABELS SCOOP THREE GRAMOPHONE AWARDS +++

RSK Entertainment is very pleased to announce three winners in the 2007 Gramophone Awards held at the Dorchester Hotel  on Wednesday.

The awards went to the Pavel Haas Quartet on Supraphon Records,who won the Chamber Music Award for their incredible debut recording of string quartets by Leos Janacek and their namesake,Pavel Haas,a Czech composer who is only just finding recognition following his untimely murder in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945.   Scottish ensemble the Dunedin Consort won the Baroque Vocal Award for their recording of Handel's Messiah on Linn Records,which is presented in the original version first performed at the works premier in Dublin,a far more stripped version down than the later versions of the oratorio. And the Editor's choice award went to Ivan Fischer's masterful account of Mahler's Symphony No.2 on Channel Classics. British label NMC were also nominated in the contemporary category for their Julian Anderson disc.

We were thrilled to see three of our labels pick up awards. The last time we won anything was back in 2003,and that was just one award - to win three is a dream come true!   says RSK’s classical label manager Matt Groom. Lots of people in the media have been moaning that classical music doesn't sell anymore,that the industry is in decline,but we are experiencing just the opposite. The industry took a dip several years ago,but recently we have seen classical music sales increasing. Music lovers will always be hungry for new recordings,as long as they continue to offer something different. Each new generation needs to have its own heroes - artists who are alive and kicking and performing live on stage,and committing their interpretations to posterity on CD so that we can enjoy them at home. Classical music is simply adapting to changing times.

Founded in 1990 as Koch UK, RSK Entertainment provides specialist music marketing,public relations and distribution for labels in the UK. Three years ago RSK created a highly successful classical music dealership called Club RSK,working in partnership with over 40 of the UK's independent classical retailers,supporting the independent sector alongside it’s excellent relationships with the UK’s national accounts like HMV and Virgin,and online retailers from Amazon and Play to specialist mail-order companies like MDT and Europadisc. Because RSK provide in-house PR for many of it’s labels it is in continuous communication with the UK's classical press and media,allowing us to inform UK retail about forth coming reviews and features in advance,helping retail sales.

The darkly astringent Quartet for the End of Time - written and first performed in a prisoner-of-war camp - gets an impressive account from the Hebrides Ensemble on this disc,which includes some lesser-known but rewarding smaller works,including 'The Blackbird',Messiaen's first attempt at a detailed depiction of a specific bird in his long fascination with birdsong,and a Theme and Variations for violin and piano,which he wrote as a wedding present for his new bride Claire Delbos in 1932.
The Observer - 1^st June 2008 - Stephen Pritchard

In celebration of Messiaen's centenary,the Hebrides Ensemble gives a quite dark performance of the Quartet for the End of Time. This suits its provenance in a wartime prison camp when it was performed by the composer and fellow PoWs on clapped-out instruments in the depths of winter. William Conway's cello burns with weighty intensity. In fact,a little spring and lightness would not have gone amiss,especially in the Danse de la Fureur,where the syncopated rhythm lacks bounce. Also included is Le Merle Noir,the black thrush,the first birdsong that Messiaen turned into music. The solo flute burrs authentically.
The Times - 31^st May 2008 - Rick Jones – 4 stars

Though the Quartet for the End of Time is by far the best-known work in this collection of Messiaen's chamber music,it is the other four pieces here that make the disc especially interesting. None is very substantial,but they all occupy intriguing positions in the composer's output. The two works for violin and piano - the rather Franck-like Theme and Variations and a single-movement Fantasie rediscovered last year - were composed for his first wife,the violinist Claire Delbos,in 1932 and 1933 respectively. The Piece for Piano and String Quartet,alternating stark chords with the song of the garden warbler,was one of his last compositions,written in 1991. Le Merle Noir for flute and piano from 1952 was Messiaen's first work to specifically identify bird song. All these pieces get vivid,beautifully judged performances from the Hebrides Ensemble,and the account of the much more frequently recorded Quartet stands up well to the competition,too.
The Guardian - 23^rd May 2008 - Andrew Clements

“The work is supremely approachable,with expressive,often simple harmonies offset by catchy rhythms,touching on popular styles in ways that echo Messiaen and Berio.”
Gramophone

The sequence is wonderfully varied... Perspectives constantly change; it's diverting and surprising,worlds away from Schoenberg's overpowering work yet still mysteriously close to the essence of Giraud's unique imagination. The Guardian

A lyrical and sensuous song-cycle makes a pleasing return to the catalogue ... a significant issue on NMC's Ancora imprint
Gramophone

Turn to Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra in the Seventh symphony and the contrast is striking. In the opening Poco Sostenuto,the tension created by monolithic chords set against rising string figurations is heightned by a sense of commitment in the playing. There's the hesitant (and wiry) alternation between winds and strings before the dotted Allegro takes flight,a sort of implied shall I,Shan't I. Fischer hears the humour,knows how to ease the tempo subtly and,in doing so,accentuate the dance element. ..Fischer and his players romp through the finale like devils possessed,pausing only when strings wrestle for supremacy.
Gramophone - April 08 - Rob Cowan

Iván Fischer takes the allegretto and the trio of Beethoven's Seventh at traditional,broad tempos - way under the composer's metronome markings. Elsewhere,though,he and his fabulous Budapest orchestra have the measure of the music's exhilaration and fury. The finale combines phenomenal precision at speed with white-hot intensity. Crucially,too,Fischer divides his violins left and right,enhancing the effect of their thrilling antiphonal swordplay.
Telegraph - 14th March 2008 - Richard Wigmore

In the music of Anthony Payne,who turned 70 last year,two apparently irreconcilable musical worlds are brought together and synthesised. On the one side there is the English music of the first quarter of the 20th century - from Elgar (whose sketches for a Third Symphony Payne famously realised for performance) to Frank Bridge (on whom he has written an authoritative book). On the other there is the legacy of Schoenberg (the subject of another Payne monograph) and his pupils. Those two tendencies have ebbed and flowed in his music over the past quarter of a century,and they move in and out of focus in this selection of his ensemble pieces. They are most tellingly reconciled in the 1979 tone poem for septet,The Stones and Lonely Places Sing; the 1995 wind-and-string sextet Empty Landscape - Heart's Ease; and in the three Poems of Edward Thomas,for soprano and piano quartet,written for his wife Jane Manning. But they come together rather less convincingly in the Hardy setting of Scenes from the Woodlanders,which seems to lack some of the others works' rigour and tautness.
The Guardian - Andrew Clements - Friday March 2,2007

Strongly personal works from Julian Anderson's Birmingham years

This,the magnificent follow-up to the recent Ondine Julian Anderson disc (9/06),contains the five works he wrote for Birmingham forces during his years as CBSO composer-in-association (2001-5). The recordings were made at different times in different places but the strongest impression is of a group of compositions exploring closely related ideas and beliefs.

The opening of the Symphony is emblematic,evolving from attenuated noises to the trills,arabesques and fanfares of a pastoral dawn-music. You might pick up hints of Tippett’s Ritual Dances,Nicholas Maw’s Odyssey,even of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. But the music never falls back on simple imitation,and while it seems to share Tippett’s modern construction of Utopia – of aspiration inseparable from uncertainty and doubt – the subtle intricacy of Anderson’s approach to harmony,and to the interplay between tempered and non-tempered tunings,reinforces its strongly personal,authentically contemporary quality.

Similar images are powerfully projected at the end of Book of Hours for instrumental ensemble and live electronics,when an artless,folklike tune is challenged by much darker,denser materials,and again in the shorter orchestral works Eden and Imagin’d Corners. In all these scores the luminous yet abrasive resonance of the textures counters the risks of old-style pastoral complacency.

As John Fallas’s well informed notes point out,Anderson’s is not an escapist vision of Utopia. Hope is always uncertain

These players offer intelligent,idiomatic and often brilliant performances. Amandine Beyer is a neat and sensitive violinist with a secure technique,clear and sonorous tone and a discreet approach to ornamentation… She is wonderfully expressive in the two slow movements of no.6 and demonstrates her virtuosity in the two Viste movements of the Fifth sonata.
Robin Stowell - The Strad - Nov 06

Gramophone Editor’s Forward
‘It’s always welcome to see a major musician at the start of what promises to be a terrific career….there seems something very special about this artist. It’s evident in the hushed,reflective passages,in the whole sense of a pianist who knows how a piece should go. One to watch indeed.’ James Inverne

Review
'In days of yore when pianists weren't so thick on the ground (and the distinguished ones as thinly spread out as they are today),the most absorbing Liszt players for me were Claudio Arrau,Clifford Curzon and Wilhelm Kempff. Naturally,their response to the composer was far from uniform; but they didn't substitute stridency for power. There was a common desire (not always reflected on disc) for an evenness of touch at all times.

[Libor Novacek's] command of the keyboard is very impressive and he aspires to the highest interpretive ideals in this second book of which,like the first,contains some of Liszt's finest music.

This artist takes time to express his views about these masterpieces. He is not in a hurry,not even in overtly virtuoso pieces such as the Dante Sonata and the First Mephisto Waltz. There is an expansive dignity to Novacek's playing that spares them from falling into a trough of banality,as often happens. how a similar approach works at a slow tempo (basically lento) may be heard in the Petrarch Sonnet No 123 where Liszt tries to convey its spirit through numerous marks of expression. Novacek doesn't balk at observing them. nor does he balk at emotional involvement with the music; and both virtues are duplicated everywhere. The recording by Tony Faulkner doesn't get in your way. It is unobtrusively excellent - as recordings ought to be.' Nalen Anthoni
GRAMOPHONE (Editor’s Choice,February 2007)

‘On his second disc for Landor Records,Libor Novacek performs Liszt with an exceptional poetic verve and inwardness. Hushed and reverential at the start of Sposalizio,he then re-creates a rare sense of wonder and interior magic,and whether evoking bells distantly or jubilantly chiming,his playing is ear-catchingly fresh and vital. Il penseroso’s dark-hued prophecy of Liszt’s final years is no less memorably caught,its harmonic tension and audacity made almost palpable…Novacek captures all of the smouldering intensity of No 104 and is rapturous and interior in No 123. His imaginative scope makes something very special of the Dante sonata. Textures are kept enviably transparent in even the heaviest climaxes,stillness and hyperactivity are vividly contrasted yet nothing is exaggerated. Indeed,such a clear sense of poetic perspective makes this among the finest Dante Sonatas on record. The Mephisto Waltz is no less brilliantly alert and picturesque. This lavishly presented,beautifully recorded recital strongly suggests a young pianist very much on the edge of a major international career.’
PIANIST MAGAZINE (Pianist Recommended) - Bryce Morrison

‘The repertoire choice facing both record buyer and pianist,seeking to begin his recording career,is vast,and the competition is fierce. None the less,this new recital by Libor Novacek is exceptional,and I urge all Lisztians and also those keen to get to know some of this composer's finest piano music to hear it. Novacek has the measure of these pieces. He shows a rare combination of virtuosity and musical intelligence,so that,as they progress,we experience the Dante Sonata as the culmination of the set. Indeed,there is a oneness of conception which is impressive in Novacek's playing the whole time. After the two tone-pictures which open the set,his delightful pointing of the Andante marziale throughout the brief Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa comes as the perfect foil,and his subtle revealing of the inherent unity of the succeeding three Petrarch Sonnets makes for absorbing listening. Finally,the Dante Sonata - a grand and spacious performance,powerful yet sensitive - is utterly true to Liszt,and which,at 19 minutes (among the longest on disc),crowns Novacek's remarkable achievement. There are other felicitous details in Novacek's playing of the Italian book,which is followed by a compelling account of the First Mephisto Waltz. The recording quality is very good indeed,natural and warm. This excellent issue is strongly recommended.’
INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW (piano recommended) Robert Matthew-Walker

‘Someone just starting out on his career is the young Czech pianist Libor Novacek – and judging from Liszt (Landor) he has a brilliant future ahead of him. His performances of the Italian suite from Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage and the Mephisto Waltz No 1 are so painterly,so full of detail and colour,and so sympathetically recorded,that they fairly leap off the disc in front of your eyes. He knows when to play the showman and when the visionary – just as an ideal Lisztian should – and the result is compelling in the extreme.’
METRO MAGAZINE ***** Warwick Thompson

‘I have yet to hear Libor Novacek in the flesh but this CD held me in my seat for the whole 73 minutes and I have played it again and again to convince myself that this is Liszt playing of the highest order by a player who concentrates on the composer's all too often ignored genius. Of course the Italian Années de Pèlerinage contains the three expressive Petrarch Sonnets and the dramatic and exciting Dante Sonata,often played separately in recitals,yet when the seven movements are presented as a whole conception of Liszt's Italian experience the overall impression is as stimulating as any epic. Even more impressive,however,is Novacek's treatment of the all too popular Mephisto Waltz,for once becoming a wonderful keyboard tone poem. Novacek won the 2006 Landor Competition and their recording shows the quality we hope to expect in the future.’
MUSICAL OPINION Denby Richards

I’m not generally a fan of recital CDs devoted to a single character or mood,but this album certainly makes a success of the genre. Familiar pieces alternate with interesting rarities,and the programme has several focuses of attention – the varied collection of Frank Bridge pieces,the contrast between Edwardian Morceaux de salon and items connected with Paris in the 1920s the alternation of song arrangements with instrumental pieces in song style,and the culmination in a true song with obbligato violin (Strauss,featuring a radiant-sounding Elizabeth Watts(.

Madeleine Mitchell’s playing is most appealing. Her tone is sweet and bright,and she and Andrew Ball are unfailingly sensitive to the nuances and character of each piece. I find the performances of the later music must convincing: the Prokofiev,Boulanger and Copland,for instance,where a measure of coolness and objectivity is an advantage. In the earlier pieces I sometimes found Mitchell rather too reserved and distant – the great violinists of 100 years ago wouldn’t have hesitated to push forward at moments of passion,or to treat each piece as an opportunity to engage personally with their audience. The recorded sound is excellent,but the violin might have benefited from a more intimate presence.

Admirers of Frank Bridge will note his distinctive voice even in the more conventional pieces,and will be especially interested in the Morceau Caracteristique,premiered by May Harrison in about 1908 but only recently rediscovered. It’s a substantial movement,bold and virtuoso,and well worth resurrecting.
Gramophone - Duncan Druce - November 07

Even when providing a musical portrait of an anchovy,Rossini turns on the seductive charm. These superbly played miniatures are pure,undemanding pleasure from begining to end.
BBC Music Magazine - October 2007 - Jan Smaczny - 5/5

The excellent Parker foursome give us Bartok with bounce - more please!

Prior to hearing this disc the most recent account of the Fifth Quartet to take my fancy was by the Arcanto Quartet,a performance notable for its precision... The Belcea Quartet display similar qualities,but the Parker Quartet tap into something quite different: Bartok's sense of humour. Try the playfully exaggerated glissandi at 4'16' into the finale and the cartoon like characterisation soon afterwards. Then listen to the Parkers handling of the folk tune at 1'50' into the Scherzo,quiet and intimate at first but turning rowdy,like a peasant gathering at mealtime... So yet another top-rated contender in a field that is already rich in superb recordings,not that Bartok's wonderful music deserves anything less. I sincerely hope another instalment is planned.
Gramophone - April 08 - Rob Cowan

Pavel Sporcl´s debut in Liverpool
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Violin – Pavel Sporcl,conductor – Libor Pesek Preston,Liverpool 4-9 April,2006

Deprived of the piratical presence that his publicity material had seemed to promise,the audience nevertheless still found themselves gazing on one of the more unconventional figures to take the Preston Guild Hall concert platform - a shoulder-length,neo-glamrock hairstyle,purple shirt and white jeans. His swashbuckling reputation as a kind of Czech Nigel Kennedy in fact belies an intense and personal style. No swagger here but instead a formidable virtuoso technique which flowed easily from one idea to the next to produce a consistently gripping performance of the Dvorak A minor Violin Concerto. His flamboyant image conceals a stage performer of considerable substance. Under Libor Pesek,the Philharmonic was last night arguably in its best form of the current Preston concert series. From the outset there was a purposeful Bartered Bride Overture by Smetana and finally a full-blooded account of Dvorak's New World Symphony,No 9. Pesek,once the Phil's principal conductor,exudes a sense that it's still his orchestra and the players responded joyously. The Pesek podium style is almost painterly - a dab here,a dab there,the occasional flurry,then stand back and admire the canvas. Marvellous.
Trevor Willis – Lancashire Eveing Post 5 April 2006.

Spellbinding Czech Delights Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra,Philharmonic Hall,Liverpool – 9 April,2006

The RLPO´s conductor laureate will always find me in the audience,especially when Czech repertoire is on offer. He knows it inside out. ... (Smetana´s cycle Má vlast) If this performance didn’t make newcomers in the audience want to pick up a CD of the work on the way out,I can’t imagine what would. ... (Dvorák Violin Concerto in A Minor) His (Sporcl´s) playing itself is anything but gimmicky. It radiates not just consummate ease but also a respect and affection for the music that keeps him just the right side of the border between the relaxed and the casual. His Paganini Caprice encore made no fetish of perfection but had all the unostentatious charm and wizardry of a born showman...
Daily Telegraph -  David Fanning

Beethoven virtually invented the cello sonata with the two exuberant Op 5 works. Two decades later,the craggily contrapuntal Op 102 sonatas prefigure the world of the late quartets. In between came the radiant A major Op 69,with its unforgettable opening for unaccompanied cello.

In Op 5,the young keyboard lion gave himself plenty of scope for virtuoso display. And Pieter Wispelwey,with his lean,resiny tone,is always ready to cede the limelight to the nimble-fingered Dejan Lazi'c. These are uncommonly bold,mercurial performances that delight in Beethoven's trademark explosiveness and subversive wit.

The A major also balances lyrical grace with an unusual vehemence. The syncopated scherzo is just about the fastest and fiercest on disc,and the finale quivers rather than smiles. In the late sonatas the players rightly eschew surface smoothness and relish the music's often bizarre contrasts. The brooding adagio of the D major has an austere,concentrated intensity,while the finale of the C major is almost zany in its caprice. There are more glowing versions of these sonatas be to had,but few charged with such physical and intellectual energy.
The Telegraph - Richard Wigmore

This is still the front-runner as far as I'm concerned - even though it was recorded over half a century ago. It was taped with a first rate cast in the Rudolfinum under Krombholc and I don't think anyone has surpassed him since,not even himself in a 1974 broadcast issued on Praga.

Let's start with the orchestra. Though this is a small,domestic comedy there's no reason why the band should be at all apologetic or recessive. And they most certainly aren't. Their rhythm is tremendously resilient and assured,the corporate sonority stirring,blended and powerful and the wind principals characterful and personalised. Krombholc,whose insight into operatic Smetana was profound,was just the right man for this opera and he directs throughout with sure pacing and eloquent control. One example will suffice; the urgency and expressive truthfulness of Act II Scene V's Odcházejí spolu where Anezka's own feelings are vividly reflected and amplified by the taut incision of the orchestral writing - really magnificently accomplished all round.

The cast is pretty nearly ideal. Some have felt them lacking distinction but not me. Maria Tauberova is full of verve as Karolina - her trill is good,she has no wobble,her coloratura impresses. She makes a fine foil for the Anezka of Drahomíra Tikalova; their voices offer sufficient tonal contrast and yet fuse so well together in their exchanges. Eduard Haken turns in his drolly cavernous turn as Mumlal; turn to the buffo hilarity of Act II's Necht cokoliv mne zlobí as evidence of prime Haken in full flow. Ivo Zidek is a suave and amusing Ladislav - note his asides in the Trial scene. More plausibility is added by the convincingly youthful Antonín Zlesák's Toník and Miroslava Fidlerová's Lidunka. The roles are relatively small but there's no underestimating the dramatic realism of these kinds of voices.

The chorus is vigorous and maybe a touch raw but that's not inappropriate in the context and they're assuredly well drilled.

The booklet has full libretto in Czech,English,German and French and there is a good introduction with cast biographies and photographs. The later Supraphon Two Widows conducted by Jílek was strongly inferior to this earlier one and the Praga [PR250 022/3] though dating from 1974,and with similarly marvellous conducting,featured a less enticing cast. If you can locate it however and are not too distracted by the 1948 radio sound I would strongly suggest you try to hear the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra broadcast under Ancerl which featured three of the singers on this commercial set - Tauberova,Haken and Fidlerová - and adds the magnificent Beno Blachut,the greatest Ladislav one could imagine [SBB 003-07-02]. Otherwise this 1956 Supraphon is still your Two Widows of choice.
Musicweb - Jonathan Woolf

This is a work which defies categorisation. It falls somewhere between an oratorio and a cantata. There are clear baroque influences in its structure,these are interspersed with sweeping orchestral melody in the tradition of Dvorak and Smetana. Whilst it never strays from a tonal framework,there are passages that mark it definitively as of the mid-20th century. Tension is heightened by skilful repetition of words and musical passages.

The words are drawn from an ancient Babylonian epic,drawing us back to a prehistoric world where gods,men and the animal kingdom held together in the natural order for survival and a fine line marked the balance between life and death.

A narrator anchors the story,and four first class soloists represent Gilgamesh (baritone),the huntsman Enkidu (tenor),father and spirit of the dead Enkidu (bass),and the woman (soprano). It is imbued with a building sense of the inevitable destiny,culminating in the peace and tranquillity at the final acceptance of death. The chorus augment and comment on the action.

They all perform with loving dedication in this classic 1976 recording,which preserves its fresh sound after 30 years.
Musical Pointers - Serena Fenwick

Three works by the big three figures of the second Viennese school,and not a dry note in earshot. These are pieces that breathe lavish,expressive freedom,for all that two of them – Berg’s Lyric Suite and Schoenberg’s String Quartet No 4 – are serial works. The exception is Webern’s lovely,10-minute Langsamer Satz,inhabiting a late-Romantic,Brahmsian world of lush texture and expressive line. Berg’s autobiographical suite is unequivocally impassioned,its underlying text concerning an illicit love. And Schoenberg’s quartet calls to mind a Beethoven-like emotional scope. The Psophos quartet invest every work with maximum drama and colour.
Sunday Times - 17th June 07 -Stephen Pettitt

First though,here’s a trio of interesting new releases that all find something interesting to say about the New Viennese School…the works of Schönberg and his disciples Berg and Webern,as well as the others they taught or who were influenced by their serial technique. In fact,this first newcomer from the Psophos String Quartet begins well before the method overtook them all. Here’s Anton Webern in 1905; like Alban Berg he’s been in Schönberg’s private composition class for less than a year,and Brahms (and Mahler) are obviously important influences in his Slow Movement for string quartet. I’ll let the disc run on into the first movement from Berg’s Lyric Suite,so that you can hear for yourself how much happened in the intervening 20 years…

Plays Webern and 1st Mvmt Berg Lyric Suite...

The first movement of Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite for String Quartet from 1925,and before it the Langsamer Satz or slow movement written 20 years earlier by his fellow-Schönberg pupil Anton Webern,from this new CD performed by the Psophos Quartet. The work that follows the Lyric Suite was written a decade later: Schönberg’s Fourth Quartet,from his American exile…where Schönberg was finding ways of reconciling his method with both traditional form and a more tonal,even melodic musical grammar. It makes for a stimulating traversal of a critical 30 years in the history of 20th century music in the company of three of its most influential figures; the concept is engaging (as are the excellent notes),while the playing is eloquent and well recorded. It’s a new CD on Zig Zag Territoires…
Transcription of Andrew McGregor on BBC Radio 3 CD Review,23rd June 2007

31 May 2009
Sunday Times
Hugh Canning
5/5 Stars

Retrospect is a newly formed period-instrument ensemble comprising former members of the King's Consort under their erstwhile acting director, Matthew Halls. With Sophie Gent and Matthew Truscott (alternating as first violin in five sonatas each) and the bass violist Jonathan Manson, Halls shows his prowess, on both harpsichord and organ, as a chamber musician. Most of Purcell's 10 Sonatas are latish works, posthumously published by his widow in 1697, but some may even predate a collection he released in 1683. Whatever their date, they are magnificent works, offering a fusion of Italian sonata, French suite and English viol consort music styles. Only No 1 in B minor emulates the slow-fast-slow-fast-slow movement structure of the typical Italian sonata da chiesa, while No 6 is an extended Adagio in G minor. Only the Golden Sonata, No 9 in F major, is widely known, but the entire set counts as one of the pinnacles of baroque chamber music - adagios and largos are tinged with a uniquely Purcellian melancholy, while the many vivace numbers show the composer revelling in the spirit of baroque dance. The playing is immaculate - expressive and alert to all the nuance and variety of this superb music. An absolute winner for the Purcell year.

08 June 2009
BBC Music Magazine
Paul Riley
4.5/5 Stars

There's something decidedly appropriate about Retrospect Trio choosing Purcell for its debut recording. During the build-up to Purcell's tercentenary celebrations in 1997, the group's previous incarnation, The King's Consort, displayed tireless dedication to his works, expanding the catalogue. Now reinvented as Retrospect Ensemble (with Matthew Halls still artistic director), its chamber offshoot rides to the rescue again with repertoire ripe for revisiting. The fine accounts by the Purcell Quartet and London Baroque already date back nearly 20 years.

Like the companion Sonatas for Three Parts, Purcell nails his four-part colours to an ‘imitation of the most fam'd Italian masters' - ‘music's best master' he insisted while admitting that a little ‘French air was good for gayety and fashion', For all the advertising claims though, the music grafts continental inclinations onto the sturdy roostock of the English Fantazia to produce music rich in contrapuntal argument, ear-catching harmonies, melodic felicities and suave fluidity. Retrospect captures it all with an inexhaustible spirit of delight in the Purcellian moment - from the harmonic adventures which bring Sonata No. 5 to a psychedelic close, to the vibrant thrusting joie de vivre of the ‘Golden Sonata'. Violinists Sophie Gent and Matthew Truscott take it in turns to occupy the lead violin chair; a potent demonstration of the generous reciprocity which informs the playing throughout. Considered yet never corseted, Retrospect's Purcell makes a release of the three-part sonatas a mouthwatering matter of urgency.

08 June 2009
The Observer
Nicholas Kenyon

Now early music is among the most forward-looking parts or our musical life, Retrospect seems an unfortunate name for a new group. No matter; this first release is superb, with distinctive tuning and very sharp edges bringing excitement to some of the finest sonatas of the era. The influences on Purcell's style from Europe are always evident, but there's something utterly English about the result. The interplay of violinists Sophie Gent and Matthew Truscott captures Purcell's intricacy, and the shorter movements pass as if in a single breath.


10 June 2009
Classic FM Magazine
Rick Jones
4/5 Stars

Fiddlers Matthew Truscott and Sophie Gent, bass viol Jonathan Manson and harpsichordist Matthew Halls are the group ‘formerly known as the King's Consort'. A tragic mood pervades the disc. The first sonata shares an almost identical first chord with that of Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas. The ornaments slither dangerously and the dances tread with guilty lightness. The highpoint is Sonata No.6, a long, single-movement adagio consisting of fiddles intertwining with ever-increasing invention above an untiring ground bass.

“Sinae Lee certainly has the technical ability to master this repertory… she projects the music with a real sense of forward momentum and intensity… managing to bring welcome transparency of texture to the involved contrapuntal layering.
BBC Music Magazine (Benchmark Recording)
Performance **** Sound ***** - Erik Levi

Immersing oneself in Szymanowski’s piano music is an exhilarating and exhausting experience. And it takes a pianist of Sinae Lee’s uncanny expertise to clarify music which,in lesser hands,can easily make you feel as if imprisoned in a hothouse. But whether in early Chopin-inspired Romanticism,the second period’s fin-de-siècle opulence,or the extremes to which Szymanowski takes Scriabin’s later experiments,Lee is formidably equipped. Rubinstein himself quailed be fore the Second Sonata’s Reger-like thickets of notes,but even here Lee’s command and lucidity are unfaltering.

Gramophone - January 2007 - 
Recommended Recording-Bryce Morrison

Sinae Lee chooses as her recording debut a performance of the complete piano music by Szymanowski. Here Hamelin is sovereign in his single CD of the complete mazurkas,but if you want the complete piano music (and I can see no reason for not owning every single piece of Szymanowski),Lee is the choice between Martin Jones on Nimbus and Martin Roscoe on Naxos. Lee got her PhD on the topic of Szymanowski piano music and her fingers are as clever as her brain – none of the tricky passages in the daunting sonatas or studies startles her. Martin Jones is not helped by an over-reverberant piano and Martin Roscoe is solid,sturdy and,in the best sense of the word,playing safe. But Sinae Lee’s is the complete version to have.
Pianist Magazine - Marius Dawn

Today's members of the Smetana Trio are relatively young,but the ensemble goes back three-quarters of a century: it was founded by the present-day cellist Jan Pálenícek's father in 1930,inspired by the example of Cortot,Thibaud and Casals. This combination of the weight of tradition with the vitality of youth makes for invigorating performances of two of Dvorák's best-known chamber works. The dumka that the composer used as the model for his Op 90 was originally a morose Ukrainian ballad form,but Dvorák injected it with contrasting colours and moods,and it is these that are expounded with such life and diligence by the Smetana Trio through the work's six movements. The forward-sounding recording enables Pálenícek to make his mark from the opening bars (though some may conceivably find his tone too strident here),and his colleagues - violinist Jana Vonásková -Nováková and pianist Jitka Cechová - soon join in what becomes a celebration of dance rhythms and expressive narrative. Their performance of the more conventional,four-movement F minor Trio is no less inspired,capturing its agitation as successfully as its lyricism. Matthew Rye – The Telegraph July 06

The Smetana Trio has passed down the generations: founded in the 1930s with Josef Palenicek as pianist,the line is preserved through his cellist son,Jan. He,the pianist Jitka Cechova and the violinist Jana Vonaskova-Novakova comprise the current formation. In this coupling of Dvorak’s most popular (the Dumky,Op 90) and greatest (the F minor,Op 65) piano trios,they capture the national spirit of Dvorak’s dance movements with a native understanding of the idiom. The Dumka was a Ukrainian dance,but Dvorak claims it for the Czechs in this cycle of six pieces,with its restless shifts between melancholy and exuberance. The F minor work is a turbulent masterpiece in the tradition of Schumann and Brahms. The Smetanas have this glorious music in their blood. 
The Sunday Times - Hugh Canning -  * * * * 

Along with the seventh symphony,the F minor trio best exemplifies the perfectionism Dvorak sought in the mid 1880s. Well aware that his new works in a venerable classical mould would be scrutinised by the likes of Brahms and Hanslick,Dvorak subjected the trio to painstaking revision before it reached a final form. Far from suppressing spontaneity,the numerous changes made harness the passion of Dvorak’s original inspiration to a powerful sense of momentum which leads with devastating logic to the magnificent catharsis that concludes the finale. Although designed for a rather different audience of Dvorak’s fellow Bohemians as a temporary farewell before he left for America in 1892,the Dumky Trio shares the passion of the F minor trio,even though it is displayed with greater volatility and arranged in the far from conventional frame of six short movements. Building on a consistent track record of virtue,the Smetana Trio,excellently recorded,deliver landmark performances of both trios. The developmental intensity of the F minor trio’s first movement has rarely seemed more incandescent and the whole work has an integrity that impresses on every level. Likewise their way with the Dumky which produces exactly the blend of soulful expressiveness and wild infectiousness that Dvorak intended. A vital ingredient in the Smetana Trio’s success is the quality of the string sound,its variety of tone,even vibrato; combined with an unrivalled feeling of ensemble,the results generated are unmatched in the catalogue.”
BBC Music Magazine Disc of the Month - Performance ***** Sound **** -
Jan Smaczny – September 2006

Dvorák comes home with a thoroughly Czech trio
Coupling Dvorák’s most popular Trio,the Dumky with its predecessor offers a striking contrast. In the Dumky Dvorák had fully adopted his pure Czech style,basing the work on the traditional folk formula involving sharp changes of tempo in each movement,but in the Third Trio he is much more Brahmsian,even though there are plenty of characteristic touches that identify the composer.

Not surprisingly,the performance by the Smetana Trio – cellist Jan Pálenícek is the son of the original Smetana Trio pianist,Josef – is thoroughly idiomatic,with the many dumka speed-changes sounding totally natural and spontaneous. What instantly strikes the ear is the delicacy,the piano relatively light to bring out the filigree textures of much of the writing.

They also play with a hushed concentration,keeping the different sections tautly woven together. In the fifth of the six movements,there is a delightful pay-off at the end,and the finale is taken at a thrillingly fast tempo,though light textures bring complete clarity.

In No 3 there is an apt if subtle shift in the recording balance,with the piano weightier,reflecting the Brahmsian quality of much of the writing. Though in the conventional four movements instead of the six of No 4,it is a work on a bigger scale. Not surprisingly,the Czech flavours are brought out more strikingly than with the Florestan Trio. It is also a rather warmer,more passionate reading,and the contrast with the Florestans in the Allegro con brio finale finds the Smetanas more energetic. You cannot go wrong with either of the versions considered here but the new disc has clear advantages,with the Supraphon sound excellent.
Gramophone - Awards Issue 2006 - Edward Greenfield

Steve Hackett was one of the more artistically adventurous members of Genesis,a band whose creative vision moved from progressive rock to formulaic pop after the guitarist’s departure in 1977. Nowadays Hackett prefers the term ‘permissive rock’ and his remarkable ability to play blistering electric guitar and move seamlessly onto a classical instrument is a staple characteristic of his eclectic (if not schizophrenic) solo albums. His acoustic guitar albums were often blighted by swampy reverberation and reliance on effects processors but he is accomplished enough to allow his playing to speak for itself. Tribute does his classical playing full justice: the recorded sound is still not as natural and naked as classical purists might prefer,but the use of reverb is subtler thanks to Roger King’s excellent engineering. The Bach tributes are performed with impressive agility (most notably an astonishing performance of the Chaconne from BWV1004),and a finely played arrangement of a Byrd keyboard piece,but La catedral and La maja de Goya best show Hackett’s highly personal,involving and poetic style of playing.
Gramophone - April 08 - David Vickers

Gramophone Editor’s Choice!
Santiago de Murcia (1682 – 1732) was the last,and possibly greatest,Spanish exponent of the five-course Baroque guitar,his music achieving a perfect balance between strummed and plucked styles that were prevalent at the time. As if to reinforce this point,William Carter opens his recital with a superb account of Murcia’s Folias españolas,which starts with some highly percussive strumming before slowly giving away to delicately plucked lines.

Such nuanced playing is just as effective in the Passacalles,each of which gradually builds in excitement,as it is in the funereal “Del Rey Francia” (in the Suite after Gaspar Sanz),the melancholy Marionas or the lullaby-like Gaitas. Throughout,Carter somehow conjures up the sights and sounds of a bygone age with the mastery of a real dramatist,counterbalancing flurries of overlapping scales,energetic strumming and virtuoso trills with the richness and warmth of the more reflective passages.

Not to be too pedantic about flying solo,Carter is joined by fellow Palladian Ensemble member Susanne Heinrich on bass viol. Her pizzicato accompaniments bring a pleasing depth to dances like the Zarembeques and the Cumbees, but are especially effective in Murcia’s transcription of the prelude and gigue from Corelli’s Violin Sonata,Op 5 No 3,to which she restores the original bass-lines. The effect is like hearing the last two movements of some ghostly guitar concerto.

This is more than just a worthy follow-up to Carter’s first solo disc “La guitarre royalle” (12/04) – quite simply,it contains some of the finest Baroque guitar playing you’ll ever hear.
Gramophone - William Yeoman – August 2007

Lovers of the Baroque guitar will know just what I’m talking about,and will want to rush out to obtain this disc without delay.
International Record Review - Robert Levett – June 2007

A richly enjoyable recital,which deserves to win a high place in the canon of baroque guitar CDs.
MusicWeb-International- 18^th June 2007

Spain was the spiritual home of the baroque guitar but little of its music was written down. An exception was Santiago de Murcia (1682-1732),whose oeuvre draws on contemporary French and Italian idioms as well as Spanish and African folk dances. To recreate it today demands imagination and elaboration. The American guitarist William Carter meets the challenge in a way that showcases the multiple voices of Santiago's music without blurring its intimacy,poetry or seductiveness. With highly charged flourishes and snap rhythms,Folias Espanolas sounds like a template for the whole Spanish musical tradition. Cumbees already embodies the intoxicating influence of the New World. As for Canarios,it's rare to come across subtlety and beauty in such perfect proportion. This is a delightful CD that rewards close attention. The idiom is a synthesis of popular and art music that invites the listener into a sound-world as simple as it is sophisticated.
The Financial Times - Andrew Clark – 26^th May 2007

The performance of guitar music from the Baroque has never been an exact science. As an instrument that enjoyed equal standing in both folk and art music,and whose performers straddled the same conflicting worlds,the tendency was to hand the music down by practical example rather than the printed sheet. The greatest evidence of that came from 17th-century Spain. William Carter,the American-born guitarist and a member of the excellent Palladian Ensemble,has done more than most to explore the truth behind Baroque performance practice on the Baroque guitar. And this disc,with its flamboyant cocktail of Passacalles,Canarios and Zarambeques,is yet another highly enjoyable example.

William Carter,the American-born guitarist and a member of the excellent Palladian Ensemble,has done more than most to explore the truth behind Baroque performance practice on the Baroque guitar. And this disc,with its flamboyant cocktail of Passacalles,Canarios and Zarambeques,is yet another highly enjoyable example.

The music focuses on one of the few Spanish Baroque composers who wrote his music down - Santiago de Murcia. It is high-art music,with transcriptions of Corelli violin sonatas using the same borrowing technique Bach displayed when he transcribed Vivaldi concertos for the organ. This whole disc is an effusion of passion,flavoured with Mediterranean sunshine. From the frothy Folias Espanolas to a bagpipe-inspired Gaitas,you could be in no other part of the world.
The Scotsman,Friday 11^th May 2007 - Kenneth Walton

A lovely,gentle sequence of guitar music from one of the few Spanish Baroque composers whose notated music has come down to us. William Carter has explored performance practice on the baroque guitar. His instrument is mellow,and the whole disc ideal for late night listening. On the other hand,it is fully documented based on Carter's researches into more and more obscure nooks and crannies of early music for his instrument. Although the baroque guitar is small,fragile and limited - with a compass of two octaves only - he has found it rewarding to explore its wealth of colour and nuance in the music of Santiago de Murcia (1682-1732) and there could be no better guide than Carter. Recommended
Musical Pointers.co.uk - Peter Grahame Woolf May 2007

Baroque guitarist William Carter is a member of the outstanding chamber group Palladian Ensemble,and Linn's Santiago de Murcia: La Guitarra Española is his second outing as soloist,though on some tracks Carter is joined on bass viol by Palladian cohort Susanne Heinrich. Santiago de Murcia is considered the last great exponent of the Spanish five-course guitar,an instrument limited to two octaves and played here with finesse and a very high level of artistry by Carter. Though not as well known as Fernando Sor or Gaspar Sanz,de Murcia has not suffered for worthy advocates; Rolf Lislevand,Paul O'Dette,Jakob Lindberg and Richard Savino have all contributed rather substantial programs of de Murcia to the recorded literature. However,this entry by Carter is SUCH a contender — Linn's recorded sound is nothing less than perfect,and Carter's interpretations have such qualities of restraint and emotional depth as to achieve a strong sense of separateness from others. Carter spins out de Murcia's melting Passacalles with sensitivity and flexibility,and his realizations of de Murcia's dances are groovy without being ostentatious. Lislevand may rock the dances harder,but what Carter does here with Susanne Heinrich's help is equally creative,not to mention considerably less idiosyncratic. What Carter achieves on Santiago de Murcia: La Guitarra Española evokes what one admirer said about de Murcia himself during his lifetime; hearing your supreme conceits,they say that you make poetry with your fingers,or that you versify with your hands.
Allmusic.com

“Martin Butler was recently dubbed the English John Adams: a lazy soubriquet that should nonetheless boost sales of this beautifully played recital of works written for the Schubert Ensemble”
Independent

Charm,wit,unpretentiousness-these are not qualities that prevail in much new music that finds its way onto record,but prevail they do in the chamber pieces by Martin Butler featured on his album American Rounds.
Paul Griffths

The performances are as sensitive and assured as one would expect from the Schubert Ensemble,continuing their laudable contribution to British new music,and the sound is a model of chamber balance.
Gramophone