BBC Proms 2019 - Our Top Related Recordings

'It's the way that James Ehnes closes the opening movement [of the Britten] that most impresses, essaying a gossamer thread of such subtlety it becomes almost transparent.' (The Independent)

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'Her approach to the Tchaikovsky is both full-blooded and sensitive. She rides the first movement’s emotional storms with utter confidence and complete command of old Romantic tricks...The central canzonetta is taken very slowly, yet the flow of feeling never stops, and her magically sustained pianissimos deserve an Oscar.' (The Times)

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'Jansons conducts the first two symphonies with a sense they are youthful works by a composer whose musical depth was still developing. Wisely, there's no searching for angst or profundity that isn't there. Both performances are excellent in their precision and lively spirit.' (Classical.net)

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'The music of Shostakovich must be in Mariss Jansons’ blood...Jansons seems to me to demonstrate a firm grip on the vast, brooding first movement and he appears to have a very good grasp of the structure. He’s helped by superb playing by the orchestra.' (MusicWeb International)

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'Everything's perfectly judged: the scherzo [of the First Concerto] whizzes past, and the finale’s ticking clock has the right amount of dry wit. The end is a treat, Batiashvili and Nézet-Seguin disappearing into the ether, arm in arm…These are technically immaculate, thoughtful performances, handsomely recorded.' (The Arts Desk)

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'Andsnes is a fearlessly secure advocate of the Britten...his playing has an unflustered, aristocratic poise about it, and he never makes an ugly noise, even in the most thunderous bravura passages. His soft tone, too, is ravishing.' (Gramophone)

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'Skelton’s heroic voice is an ideal instrument for the more flamboyant tenor songs, singing with bravado.' (The Sunday Times)

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'Melnikov’s performance of possibly the best-loved of the concertos takes one by the scruff of the neck and gives a good shake – there is nothing nostalgic about his reading...The sound worlds are so different, and yet the calibre of performance is maintained. It is impossible [for me] to fault a splendid achievement.' (Early Music Review)

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'Latry’s characteristic integrity and virtuosic verve illuminate everything he touches – particularly in the lascivious glissando that ends his own arrangement of Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance…when a master organist and instrument collide, what’s not to love?' (BBC Music Magazine)

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The Norwegian lyric-dramatic soprano's debut solo album on Decca will be released on 31st May, and includes Strauss's Op. 27 and Vier Letzte Lieder as well as scenes from Ariadne auf Naxos and Wagner's Tannhäuser.

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'DiDonato approached the work with a bright but flexible timbre and projected its emotional power, as well as the suave surfaces of Berlioz’s vocal writing, with an appealing directness.' (The New York Times)

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'The 1970 Tchaikovsky First (with the Royal Philharmonic) can restore your love for this overplayed warhorse. The grand length of the first movement goes unnoticed, as each piano note is approached thoughtfully and poetically. There is no hurry, everything is sung, things grow into each other naturally. Power, not blind force, steers the music.' (MusicWeb International)

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'Argerich has never sounded on better terms with the piano, more virtuoso yet engagingly human. Lyrical and insinuating, to a degree her performance seems to be made of the tumultuous elements themselves, of fire and ice, rain and sunshine.' (Gramophone Guide)

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'Brabbins’s Enigma is a delight: tempi and tone perfectly judged, a feeling of freshness throughout which is lacking from a number of high-profile recent accounts.' (Classical Music Magazine)

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'One can sense the background – especially the operatic background against which these works were composed. The first solo doesn't simply storm away, fortissimo; one hears distinct emotional traits: the imperious, thundering octaves, the agitated semiquavers, the pleading appoggiaturas.' (Gramophone Guide)

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'There’s nothing cool or gritty about the sounds produced from his Amati cello of 1610. They’re always heartfelt, often as yielding as softened butter, and they shine out of every track...even at the start of his career, nothing masks the authority or technical finesse of his playing...Above all, Kanneh-Mason’s playing radiates love of life, commitment and hope.' (The Times)

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The CBSO's debut album with their Lithuanian music director (who took over the role in 2016, and is the first female conductor to sign an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon) will be released on 3rd May.

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'As a Bruckner interpreter, Nelsons is direct, clear-sighted and spacious, the performance guided with a sure hand and a sense of inevitability but also meticulous in observing tempo and dynamic markings...The warmth and sonority of the playing at the start is enthralling and the performance unfolds with character and excitement.' (Gramophone)

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'His Bruckner is by no means impulsive — though there is tremendous momentum in both scherzos and the “Bewegt” (with movement) finales. But, like most great Brucknerians, Nelsons sees the slow movements as key to the composer’s symphonic mastery and faith.' (The Sunday Times)

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'You feel the love immediately in the orchestra’s quiet warmth, admirably captured in the live recording. There’s also Nelsons’ lyrical phrasing, important for generating the momentum that stops Bruckner’s quirky musical architecture freezing into separate blocks.' (The Times)

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Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Andris Nelsons

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'Connolly’s delivery of the closing lines distils an aching intimacy not matched since Janet Baker’s sublime contribution on Boult’s recording…Davis’s glorious pliant conducting evinces total conviction.' (Gramophone)

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'With a truly beautiful tone, an innate understanding of the music’s structure, flow and emotional drives and a warm, genuine, unaffected way of shaping the phrases, it sounds as if he has a wise head on young shoulders; his playing combines that with the best of a youthful, fresh response to these perennially-loved masterpieces…Let’s hope this will be his first recording of many.' (BBC Music Magazine)

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The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra's second release on Deutsche Grammophon features Qigang Chen's violin concerto The Joy of Suffering (performed by its dedicatee Vengerov) and Wu Xing (The Five Elements) alongside Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, and will be released on 28th June.

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'It’s hard to fault the performances and recordings, which together offer all the pungency, bite and textural subtlety that the music demands, and the ensemble work is tight and engaging across all three instrumental configurations. As with the string quartets this music deserves to be a much more regular feature of concert hall programming.' (The Strad)

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'The perfect civility of Perahia’s playing is a joy, the deeply felt slow movements particularly rewarding...the Haydnesque qualities of the Second Concerto are well captured.' (Gramophone)

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'Haitink’s 1966 Concertgebouw recording of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony had a fine slow movement and outer movements that were swift and classically intent...Forty years on, Haitink takes an altogether more lyrical view of the symphony, with broader tempi and more luminous texturing.'

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Originally recorded between 1963 and 1972, Haitink’s Amsterdam Bruckner cycle was re-released on 10 CDs and Blu-ray Audio to mark his ninetieth birthday this March.

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'Orozco-Estrada’s is an interpretation full of theatricality, with a sure sense of the monumental. It’s all there in the broad sense, in his far-sighted approach to structure and pacing.' (Gramophone)

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'Making her virtuoso credentials clear throughout, Wang dismisses every difficulty with nonchalant ease...this is a talent with a vengeance, the youthful partnership with Dudamel is ideal and both performances, recorded in Caracas, are understandably greeted with storms of applause.' (Gramophone)

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'The voice is rich, generous and vibrant, big but beautifully controlled, impeccably smooth throughout its range. It’s the sort of instrument you could listen to all day, in any sort of repertoire.' (Gramophone)

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