Helen Charlston
-
Special offer. Handel: Messiah
Hilary Cronin (soprano), Helen Charlston (mezzo), Alexander Chance, Nathan Mercieca (countertenors), Guy Cutting (tenor), Frederick Long, Edward Grint (bass-baritones), Irish Baroque Orchestra & Choir, Peter Whelan
My spirits were uplifted almost throughout the recording. A current of gentle zephyrs refreshes every bar of the music...Complementing the instrumental vitality is the invigorating choral singing... —
Awards:
-
Gramophone Magazine, April 2026, Editor's Choice
-
BBC Music Magazine, May 2026, Choral Choice
-
-
Charlston's mezzo is as dark and full-bodied as a good claret, and she offers highly expressive readings of the texts, plumbing their depths with cut-glass diction and a glorious range of colours... —
Awards:
-
Presto Editor's Choice, May 2022
-
BBC Music Magazine, August 2022, Choral & Song Choice
-
Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2022
-
BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2023, Winner - Vocal
-
Gramophone Awards, 2023 Winners, Concept Album of the Year
-
-
Special offer. John Eccles: Semele
RecommendedAnna Dennis (Semele), Richard Burkhard (Jupiter), Helen Charlston (Juno), Aoife Miskelly (Ino), William Wallace (Athamas), Héloïse Bernard (Iris); Academy of Ancient Music Julian Perkins
Cast, band, director and sound are all top-notch, restoring Eccles’s score to its full glory...Thanks to Perkins’s deft casting, each principal’s vocalism and dramatis persona are wonderfully... —
Awards:
-
BBC Music Magazine, March 2021, Recording of the Month
-
Opera, April 2021, Disc of the Month
-
Gramophone Magazine, April 2021, Editor's Choice
-
Record Review, 30th January 2021, Record of the Week
-
Gramophone Awards, 2021, Shortlisted - Opera
-
Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2021
-
-
Responsive to Schumann's elaboration of the postlude as a means of commenting or emotional elucidation, Werner hitches an extinguishing coda to the last song that dovetails exquisitely into... —
-
Jan Ladislav Dussek: Messe Solemnelle
RecommendedStefanie True (soprano), Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano), Gwilym Bowen (tenor), Morgan Pearse (bass), Choir of the AAM, Academy of Ancient Music, Richard Egarr
The work is fluent, imaginatively orchestrated with impressive contrapuntal writing…This enjoyable, well recorded rendition, with lovely solo singing, has clear passionate advocacy; notwithstanding... —
Awards:
-
Presto Editor's Choice, October 2020
-
Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2020
-
The Times Records of the Year, 2020
-
Gramophone Awards, 2021, Winner - Choral
-
BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2022, Shortlisted - Choral
-
-
Special offer. If the Fates Allow - Music By Purcell and His Contemporaries
Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano), Sounds Baroque, Julian Perkins
She is someone who acts fully with her vocal armory, and we can see this in the way she does not only project her voice with prettiness and fluency...Helen Charlston is a special singer. The... —
-
Isolation Songbook
RecommendedHelen Charlston (mezzo-soprano), Michael Craddock (baritone), Alexander Soares (piano)
The results are varied, from comic miniatures to distilled dramas and contemplative outpourings, but together add up to a recital that’s hard to resist, at once fresh and profoundly familiar. —
Awards:
-
Presto Editor's Choice, March 2021
-
Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2021
-
-
Yulefest!
Christmas music from Trinity College Cambridge
Trinity College Choir Cambridge, Stephen Layton
All the popular selections…sound notably relaxed and idiomatic, the choir's stylistic versatility confidently demonstrated. —
-
New. Bach: Mass in B Minor
Katherine Watson (soprano), Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano), Iestyn Davies (countertenor), Gwilym Bowen (tenor), Neal Davies (bass); Trinity College Choir Cambridge, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Stephen Layton
[Iestyn Davies] discharges a beautifully inflected ‘Qui sedes’, impeccably warmed and coloured by a discreet vibrato that instinctively knows its expressive place…Watson’s soaring soprano also... —
Purchase product
2 Vinyl Records
$40.25 -
There are many lovely things about this album including some delightful instrumental playing, but some of the solo work and chorus vocal balance could be tighter. —
