Who would have thought the early 17th-century genre of instrumental chanson and serenade, brought to life here on recorder and harp/psaltery, could be so sophisticated and entertaining? Giovanni Bassano, Jacob Van Eyck and their confrères worked in an era that prized free melodic invention, simple rhythms, quicksilver flights and short, contrasting sections. Thorby and Lawrence-King play with evangelical spirit: this is music to warm the heart and delight the senses.
Financial Times -Andrew Clark – 14^th June 2008 - 5 stars

With Pamela Thorby "bending it like Beckham" on the recorder, and Andrew Lawrence-King giving his Baroque triple harp a touch of the Bob Dylans, this Garden of Early Delights is no ordinary view of Renaissance and early Baroque music.

The duo's free-thinking style, laced with ebullient flourishes and mind-bending glissandi throw new light on John Dowland songs, Jacob van Eyck variations, and other delights. Freshness and spontaneity light up every moment. The music rocks; but always in the best possible taste.
The Scotsman - Kenneth Walton – 20^th June 2008

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

...from the first bristling chords, Anima Eterna’s playing held meon the edge of my seat Immerseel’s brook is no ordinary stream but one that flows through a secluded oasis so hushed, cool and shady that one longs never to leave. And that’s as good a reason as any for me to recommend this superbly recorded and handsomely packaged set – even if it’s just so you can visit that rejuvenating sanctuary whenever you like. Iknow I’ll be back there often.
Gramophone - Editor's Choice - June 08 



The Flemish musician Jos van Immerseel leads his Belgian period- instrument ensemble, Anima Eterna, in this richly rewarding cycle of Beethoven symphonies. His progress from the Baroque via the classicalto the early Romantic eras is evident in these elegant performances,which are more for the historical purist than the full-on romanticist.The tempi are measured, the playing delicate, painting a portrait moreof Beethoven the master craftsman than the fiery visionary.
The Observer - AnthonyHolden

CD of the Week - Classic FM 

Disc of the Week - CD Review - BBC Radio 3

These are some of Harvey’s most ambitious and imposing orchestral pieces, two of them, Body Mandala and ...Towards a Pure Land, written for Volkov and the BBCSSO, whose composer-in-association he was from 2005 to 2007. They are parts of a Buddhist trilogy whose centrepiece is forthcoming, and are well contrasted, the first predominantly fast and loud and full of rough-edged exotic sonority that mimics music in Tibetan monasteries, the second more typically Harveyesque in its meditativeness. The mysteriously static Tranquil Abiding is an extreme case of the latter approach. The three-movement Timepieces explores the nature of time, and clocks, with a complexity calling for a second conductor (Stefan Solyom).
Sunday Times - Paul Driver - 20/04/08

"A highlight of 2008...brilliantly proficient." 
The Scotsman

"One of the finest available one-voice-per-part Bach performances."
Independent on Sunday

"The playing and the singing is outstanding. Highly recommended."
The Observer

"Highly recommended indeed."
SA-CD.net

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

Ave Maris Stella, written in 1975 for Davies’s ensemble the Fires of London, a mixed sextet, is one of his profoundest and most luminous works, taking inspiration from Beethoven’s late string quartets as well as from medieval plainsong, his habitual practice. The opening cello line memorably conjures up at once Beethoven’s C sharp minor quartet, Op 131, and the plainsong that gives Davies’s work its title. Fiercely difficult to play though the music is – and it is meant to be unconducted, like true chamber music – it comes over here with an idiomatic ease and brilliance that make the work seem truly classical. Vintage Max indeed. 
The Sunday Times - Paul Driver - March 9, 2008 - 4 Stars

An exciting idea this... And it works! Aftwer all, Bartok greatly admired Scarlatti: he even recorded a couple of his sonatas. Both composers were innovators and combined a strong feeling for rhythm with an audacious sense of hearmony.

Dejan Lazin wastes no time in establishing his credentials as a Scarlatti player. He opens the programme with a somewhat militaristic-sounding C major piece, K420, and already it's all there - the light, resilient touch, the crisp (and often free) approach to rhythm, nimble passagework and an obvious appreciation of subsidiary material. The last of that particular Scarlatti trio, a filligree piece in F, segues beautifully with the first of Bartok's Three Rondo's on Slovak Folktunes (in C), the principal common denominator here, as so often elsewhere, the dance element.Lazic has a very individual Bartok style; he's no literalist, as illustrated by his emphatic handling of the syncopated main motif of the last Rondo. Again the segue from Bartok (third Rondo) to Scarlatti (the processional D major Sonata K491) is imaginative.

You reach the journey's end eager to start al over again - or maybe work out another Scarlatti- Bartok sequence. The potential is limitless and I sincerely hope that this first volume of a series called "Liasons" doenst preclude a second Scarlatti-Bartok sequence.
Gramophone - Rob Cowan - A short interview with Dejan Lazic accompanied this review.

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

+++ 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.

Most composers ignore the valuable resource of British church choirs. Not James MacMillan ( above), who has been composing since he was a precocious schoolboy the sacred vocal music that the excellent Edinburgh-based ensemble Cappella Nova sings here.

The Strathclyde Motets comprise an ongoing devotional canon written for a student choir. Sometimes the lower voices outweigh the treble, obscuring the tune, but if the beautiful writhing counterpoint reflects contemporary spiritual wrangling, then Mark O’Keeffe’s seraphic trumpet in In Splendoribus is absolutely certain of its faith.
The Times - Rick Jones - 3rd November 2007

The contemporary composer who writes music for use in churches faces the challenge of keeping the music simple enough for amateur choirs without sacrificing or compromising musical interest. (British composers have an advantage in this area because there are so many excellently trained British choirs.) James MacMillan is the most prominent Scottish composer working around the turn of the millennium, and as a devout Catholic, devotes a significant part of his creative output to church music. This CD, which includes music written over a thirty-year span, shows that MacMillan is capable of writing music of the highest quality for choirs of varying skill levels. Although none of these pieces would be considered easy, some are within the grasp of the disciplined church choir, and the most difficult aren't beyond the abilities of the very fine British choirs for which they were written. The Scottish choir, Cappella Nova, conducted by Alan Tavener, sings with extraordinary discipline, precision, and passion, and their choral blend is gorgeous. Linn's sound is clean but nicely resonant.
Allmusic.com - 5/5

This is a wonderful release, coupling three of Rimsky-Korsakov’s greatest orchestral scores in piano duo arrangements made by the composer himself and by his wife... Of all the orchestral arrangements made for piano that I’ve heard, these are certainly some of the most successful. They are often comparable in richness to some of the great four-hand works of Ravel, but they are also to my mind almost preferable for the absence of complex passagework and virtuosic display, allowing the musical substance to shine through at all times. With detailed and informative notes by Peter Avis, and a truthful and realistic recording quality, this is a very welcome release.
International Record Review - Nicholas Salwey - November 2007

Dvorak’s great Cello Concerto of 1894-95 was written in New York, but breathes the air of the composer’s native Bohemia. It was premiered in London in 1896, at the height of his international fame, and ever since has occupied the prime position in the repertoire of leading cellists. The Dutchman Pieter Wispelwey, renowned for his work on the baroque cello, plays a beautiful “modern” Guadagnini of 1760 on this live recording from Budapest, and banishes Dvorak’s doubts about the “nasal sound of the high notes” and the “droning . . . of the bass”. Just listen to his exquisitely shaped reprise of the great horn melody from the orchestral introduction to the opening movement - cello playing of incomparable technical and musical accomplishment. Wispelwey, abetted by Fischer and his superb orchestra, takes a rhapsodic view of this glorious work, unafraid of a flexible approach to tempi that brings out the great expressive contrasts of the music. The slow movement sings and the finale dances, yet even here there are lovely moments of introspection. A dashing account of the brilliantly orchestrated Variations makes the disc even more desirable.
The Sunday Times - Hugh Canning - Classical CD of the Week

Cellist Pieter Wispelwey and conductor Ivan Fischer both have a reputation for musical radicalism, so it comes as no surprise to discover that their recording of Dvorak's Cello Concerto, taped live in Budapest, is an iconoclastic affair that forces you to rethink the piece from scratch. In his sleeve note, Wispelwey makes much of the fact that Dvorak was an international star by the time the Concerto was written in 1895, and the performance, done on a colossal scale, is a proud, epic, even arrogant account of a work often perceived as sentimental and low-key. His playing is at once supremely lyrical and furiously intense, while Fischer's conducting combines great finesse with high Romantic grandeur. Its companion piece, unusually, is the Symphonic Variations for Orchestra, dating from 1877 and taking its theme from one of Dvorak's own part songs for male voices. It is pivotal stuff that sometimes glances back to Smetana and sometimes flashes forward to Janacek, with its occasional moments of harmonic strangeness. It's also a tour de force for the Budapest Festival Orchestra, who play it to perfection.
The Guardian - Tim Ashley - Friday 9th November 2007

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

"Admirable are Richard Tunnicliffe’s performances… [he] combines stylistic discipline with a refreshing freedom of expression. An excellent pair of discs" 
The Journal Culture Magazine

"Garth's concertos will bear comparison with anything of the time from Mannheim or Vienna, and are a real gift to cellists. They should be much better known. The concertos are beautifully played by Richard Tunnicliffe, very stylishly accompanied by a one-to-a-part group — for which three cheers! I strongly recommend these highly enjoyable discs." 
Early Music News

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

The Amsterdammers, one of the foremost quartets using period instruments, will soon embark on what must be one of the most rewarding marathons for a chamber ensemble: the performance of all 68 of Haydn’s string quartets. This, then, is a sneak preview of that huge project. The three works selected here span Haydn’s maturity as a quartet composer, opening with the turbulent G minor work (No 3) from the Opus 20 set, widely regarded as the father of string quartets. Fast-forward to the C major (No 1), from Opus 74, and the G major (No 1), from Opus 76. The Amsterdammers are delectably spry in the opening allegros and witty in the finale. These quartets are full of musical surprises and sound fresh-minted as played here.
The Sunday Times - 26th Aug 07 - Hugh Canning -  4/5 stars

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

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

Sixty this year, Howard Skempton has moved gradually from the margins of the British musical mainstream, at a time when it was stylistically far more doctrinaire, to somewhere much nearer the centre in these less restrictive times. The simplicity of his music, and its tendency to brevity - there are eight works in this collection, the longest of them an 18-minute suite of ballet music - are all deceptive; what one gets within the smallest frame is something totally memorable, perfectly crafted and, in its way, unutterably strange. Skempton can use the tritest musical device, yet cast it in a new light, invest a melody with a haunting sense of nostalgia or regret, or turn a dance rhythm against itself. Each of these pieces, whether the four written for ensemble or those for chorus (settings of Shelley, Flecker, Drinkwater and the Song of Solomon), manages to do something exquisite and totally personal; how Skempton always does it with such economy is a wonder in itself.
The Guardian - 31st August 07 - Andrew Clements

Bach's complete works for solo cello and solo violin are transformed in Nigel North's luminous performances of these arrangements and transcriptions for lute. The natural sustain of this delicate instrument adds special emphasis to the counterpoint in these beautiful pieces, played with real intelligence and charm by today's foremost lutenist. The sweetness of his tone and the facility with which he approaches the most technically demanding of the partitas inspires admiration and respect in equal measure. An excellent opportunity to acquire this reissued landmark recording at budget price.
Observer -  26^th August 2007 - Stephen Pritchard

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

Mozart’s huge output includes a number of works that for various different reasons were left in an incomplete state at the time of his death. The best-known, of course, are the Requiem and the Mass in C minor, but as this fascinating and beautifully recorded disc demonstrates, his output of keyboard music contains much of substance that unfortunately survives in a fragmentary state.

Pianist Anthony Goldstone has done a sterling job in realising, reconstructing and completing these fragments, as well as performing them with great musical sensitivity. The most famous example here is the D minor Fantasy, where Goldstone’s conclusion, which returns to the opening brooding arpeggios, seems far more convincing and compositionally satisfying that any other alternatives. Likewise, the improvisatory Präludium in C major, which binds together two separate fragments, sounds extremely cogent and stylistically idiomatic.

A more controversial ploy is Goldstone’s realisation of two complete piano sonatas assembled form movements that were not necessarily intended to be performed together. Although purists will no doubt object to Goldstone’s idea of transcribing the G major Variations for Piano Duet so as to form the Finale of the “G minor Sonata”, that will be to ignore the fact that Mozart himself was perfectly prepared to adopt this strategy if it suited his purposes. Performance ××××× Sound ×××××
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE (Instrumental Choice, October 2007) - Erik Levi

...The playing is unfailingly thoughtful, undemonstrative, observant of the varying stylistic demands. Tempos are convincingly chosen, though in rapid movements passages with the smallest note values are sometimes smudged. Slow movements are poised, by turns lyrical, poignant or more dramatic, and the music in dance meters is neatly phrased. The recordings, which were made in a church acoustic, entirely lack the often encountered drawbacks of such a location; the sound is fresh, clear and free of the excessive resonance familiar from numerous recordings made in empty churches. This is a fascinating and significant issue.
Peter Branscombe (Intenational Record Review)

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

‘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 (****)

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

On Wenlock Edge and Ludlow and Teme share more than just the poetry of AE Housman. It was hearing Vaughan Williams's song cycle in 1919 that inspired Ivor Gurney to compose his own settings of poems from A Shropshire Lad, using the same accompaniment of string quartet and piano, though making an entirely different selection of texts. A year later Gurney followed Ludlow and Teme with a second Shropshire Lad cycle, The Western Playland, and the two works are among his finest achievements.

Hearing On Wenlock Edge and Ludlow and Teme together, it's the echoes in the Vaughan Williams of Ravel (with whom he'd just finished his studies) that set it apart from Gurney's much less knowing approach, which is arguably closer to the sensibility of Housman's poems. The tenor, James Gilchrist, catches those different emphases superbly. He is equally vivid in evoking Peter Warlock's The Curlew, whose four settings of WB Yeats, with its accompaniment of flute, cor anglais and quartet, are woven into a miniature symphonic poem and inhabit a very different and rather un-English world.
The Guardian - Friday June 29, 2007 - Andrew Clements

Sooner or later, all high quality British tenors add On Wenlock Edge to their recording catalogues. Now it's the turn of James Gilchrist to breathe new life into this most English of song cycles. Vaughan Williams wrote it in 1909 after a spell in Paris studying with Maurice Ravel, but it is English to the core. Ivor Gurney wrote after hearing it for the first time: 'England is the spring of emotion, the centre of power and the pictures of her, the breath of her earth and growing things are continuously felt through the lovely sound.'

And lovely sound is at the core of this recording. Gilchrist sings with a gossamer tone that floats effortlessly through these settings of six AE Housman poems from A Shropshire Lad. Unusually for the time, Vaughan Williams chose a piano quintet to accompany the songs. Later this was expanded for full orchestra, which adds extra lustre, particularly at the opening to 'Bredon Hill', where the music hangs in the still air like the smell of new-mown hay. In this recording, with only single strings and piano, the texture is altogether different, though all the more interesting for the detail that is exposed. The post-industrial, rural tranquility of Housman's idealised Shropshire is perfectly captured.

These quirky texts have been explored by many British composers but no one can surpass the subtlety of VW's sophisticated approach, amply interpreted here by Gilchrist. He gives 'Is my team Ploughing?' that strange question-and-answer-poem, a real narrative drive, and his 'Bredon Hill' - the core of the cycle - is glorious. On Wenlock Edge inspired others to set Housman to music, among them Ivor Gurney, who produced Ludlow and Teme in 1919 using the same piano quintet accompaniment as Vaughan Williams, his teacher at the time. Gilchrist brings the same plangent tone to these songs, and also revels in Peter Warlock's The Curlew and Arthur Bliss's Elegiac Sonnet. This is an excellent collection for lovers of English song.
The Observer - Stephen Pritchard

Medicine’s loss is music’s gain in the form of this GP-turned-tenor. Here he gives poignant expression to Vaughan Williams’s setting of On Wenlock Edge from A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad, with the Fitzwilliam Quartet providing the burning accompaniment.

At full volume Gilchrist’s tone hardens and loses resonance, but he has a simple warmth and easy beauty, perfect for these songs of loss. The Ivor Gurney settings of Housman share Williams’s pastoral appeal, while Peter Warlock’s rendering of Yeats’s The Curlew is as powerful as any verse song. Gilchrist is very much the poet’s tenor, although Housman’s resentment of any interference by music is entertainingly recalled in the sleeve.
The Times (Knowledge) - Rick Jones

Finally, it seems, people have ceased being snooty about the “cowpat school” of English composers: those early 20th-century figures, such as Ivor Gurney, Vaughan Williams and Gerald Finzi, who persisted in writing lush, melodious music at a time when the progressives were turning gritty and discordant. That such composers are at last getting serious attention is largely thanks to champions such as James Gilchrist. The tenor may be featured at the Proms singing Austrian classics: Haydn’s Seasons (Jul 23) and a Schubert Mass (Jul 25). But it’s his new disc of English song that is winning critical acclaim.

It’s a fine combination. There are two masterpieces – Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge and Warlock’s The Curlew (“unutterably miserable,” says Gilchrist, “but I love it”) – plus some Arthur Bliss and a real revelation: Ludlow and Teme, a Housman cycle by the tragic Ivor Gurney, the young composer gassed in the First World War trenches.

“Ludlow is belittled because it’s obviously inspired by Wenlock Edge,” Gilchrist says. “Gurney heard the latter and clearly thought: ‘Hmm, this combination of string quartet, piano, voice and Housman works’. But it, too, is a fabulous, magical piece.”

This is the third disc of 20th-century English songs that Gilchrist has done. It follows his superb CD of all Finzi’s songs, and a revelatory collection of haunting songs by the little-known John Jeffreys. How does Gilchrist account for the growing popularity of these melodists after decades of neglect? “It may be to do with the wistfulness in this music and poetry,” he says. “In Hardy and Housman, especially, there’s a consciousness of having lost something precious that wasn’t valued at the time. That chimes with our feelings today about the countryside: the sense that our relationship with nature has become flawed.”

Gilchrist is a interesting figure. A boy chorister in Oxford, then a choral scholar at King’s, Cambridge, he put singing aside to study medicine, and worked as a doctor for three years before succumbing to the lure of performance. Ardent and intelligent, he’s in demand. But does he ever regret dumping medicine? “Yes. Hugely, sometimes. In medicine it’s very easy to see that you are doing something valuable and helpful for society. I profoundly believe that art is valuable, too. But you sometimes don’t get that impression in our utilitarian society.” Music-lovers surely won’t share his regret. There are lots of fine doctors. But as an interpreter of English song, Gilchrist is often in a class by himself.
The Times - Richard Morrison

This is a most imaginative and desirable combination of some of the finest English word-setting of the last century, and offers unfailing pleasure throughout.
International Record Review - Piers Burton-Page –July 2007

James Gilchrist's pianist is the excellent Anna Tilbrook who with the Fitzwilliam Quartet and additional players works