Browse: Building a Library

There's a sense of Podger and her players examining and analysing every note in their preparation, deciding on its role, and placing it carefully back into context, without ever disturbing the... — BBC Music Magazine, April 2015, More…

Faust's tone is both lean and exquisitely sweet, combined with consistent stylistic elegance which reaches the heights of eloquence in the slow movement of the E major Concerto. — BBC Music Magazine, Concerto Choice More…

The [Goldberg] Aria sings without affectation as if to emphasise that what follows isn't about the theme but what happens to it...Unstarchy too is Levit's approach to Beethoven's Diabelli Variations...As... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2016, More…

dynamic and dramatic readings, faithful to Brahms's intentions. Powerfully conceived, they are rhythmically alert, without an ounce of undue sentiment and never for an instant losing sight of... — BBC Music Magazine, December 2013, More…

This crack squad of first-rate period-instrument musicians gives lithe, polished and devoted performances that make a convincing case for a one-to-a-part "orchestra". Indeed, so full-bodied is... — Graham Rogers, bbc.co.uk, 30th November 2010 More…

Dynamic ranges are wide, with Ravel's crescendos not underplayed in any mistaken attempt at classicism, and rubatos are applied with tactful expressivity. — BBC Music Magazine, November 2008, More…

Bavouzet relishes the high-octane energy of the outer movements of the first two concertos but through his imaginatively varied use of colour manages to avoid the trap of making Bartók's percussive... — BBC Music Magazine, October 2010, More…

listening to these wonderful performances side by side is cathartic...The journey is vividly delineated from the outset of the Berg. With Abbado drawing sonorities from his first-rate orchestra,... — BBC Music Magazine, April 2012, More…

Anja Harteros can boast both the high-octane tone and the necessary level of dramatic expression to make Aida credibly three dimensional…[Ekaterina Semenchuk makes] many subtle observations pertinent... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2015 More…

Britten was writing personally for three muses who had all shared the wartime experience...His incandescent commitment to pacificism and horror at the failure of humanism blazes forth...As you... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2012 More…