an essential recommendation for any collection. These are performances which seem to present a Beethoven 'for the ages', a distillation of a long interpretative tradition, without concern for... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2012 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…

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…

Brimful of intrepid character and interpretative incident, this is surely one of the most stimulating Beethoven symphony cycles of recent times. As Harnoncourt himself states in the booklet:... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Interpreters of the late quartets have to convey what at times sounds like a stream of musical consciousness while respecting the many written markings. The Takács do better than most. For openers,... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Those who are searching for perfection can stop here...this set, the first solo recording from Russo-German pianist Igor Levit, sets a new standard that will be very difficult to surpass...I... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2014, More…

…the most stimulating and fascinating accounts of the Beethoven violin sonatas I have heard in many years. Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov bring out the full quirkiness of the earlier... — BBC Music Magazine, October 2009, More…

The Takács do a fine job here: controlled, well paced and impeccably balanced.
They manage to balance the music's vertical and horizontal aspects beautifully, long-breathed contrapuntal lines... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Another absorbing set, with Nikolaus Harnoncourt bringing his impeccable, historically-informed sensibilities to the modern instruments of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. The Eroica is mightily... — James Longstaffe, Presto Classical More…

They play with extraordinary strenuousness, very unlike the Alban Berg Quartet with whom they studied. The Belceas re-enact the creative torments of the composer to a degree where you feel their... — BBC Music Magazine, February 2013, More…