BBC Music Magazine Choices, BBC Music Magazine - September 2020 Choices

'Overall, [the performances] paint a picture of sovereign technical command, with an upholstered warmth of tone not automatically in the DNA of American orchestras…the Cleveland Orchestra has always been a by-word for the forensic exactitude of its players…But the empathy and expressive latitude Welser-Möst has added actually make you wonder if the orchestra has ever sounded better. '

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'It goes beyond [Hogwood and Norrington], not in the remarkable speed at which it all moves, but in the intensity with which every player invests his part in its fury and wildness…I hadn’t heard Pablo Heras-Casado and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra before, but there is evidently an exceptionally close relationship between and among them, and the effect is devastating…Listen and be amazed.'

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'The solo part – written especially for Wang – it’s the pianist as perfectly as her infamous bodycon dresses. Her flawless technique is ideally suited to the frequent high-octane, galloping passages…Packed full of ear-worms (the simple melody and its improvisatory-like variations in the third section are devastatingly catchy), this work lives up to its title. Adams’s Reichian solo piano piece China Gates (1977) brings stillness after the fiendish excitement.'

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'They launch into the first of Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas with a joyous sense of fresh discovery. They go way beyond generic posturing to give us a sense of unbridled enjoyment that is palpable. Neither player ‘dominates’ in the old fashioned sense of ‘give and take’, but rather they respond organically to the moment, creating a dazzling array of fluctuating internal balances.'

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'For Gerstein this music, like Beethoven and Bach’s, has become part of his DNA, the difference being that with this living composer he can discuss details of performance…This recording makes an exhilarating hour of beauty and strangeness…Gerstein describes In Seven Days as being about the birth of the universe – but for me it’s simply a triumphant cavalcade of delicately glittering and gloriously sensuous effects.'

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'D’Oustrac is dazzling across these various personae, to which she brings not only luscious vocalism but also a blistering intensity. No less impressive is the Ensemble Amarillis…for zest and bustling invention, the band at times outstrips Folly herself. The enjoyment of a refined French enunciation is reason enough to buy this disc. D’Oustrac relishes her words, and squeezes gestures from them.'

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'Noseda and his Danish forces offer a thrilling account of this masterpiece, its all-important orchestral detail meticulously realised… as the prisoner, Michael Nagy is alive to every nuance of the role. Stephan Rügamer caressing voice is ideal for the falsely sympathetic jailer, too…A thrilling disc, splendidly recorded.'

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'Recorded on the back of two intense years touring together, the trio’s playing is not so much in the pocket as in one another’s pocket, Morgan and Royston transcending the rhythm section role to occupy the same space as Frisell in ways that intensity the trio’s sound…Approaching 70, with more than 50 albums as leader, Frisell’s curiosity and capacity for quirky invention continues to amaze.'

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