Presto Recordings of the Year, Shostakovich (composer)

Ibragimova is the latest to make you think you’ve never heard [the First Concerto] played better, and her intense relationship with Vladimir Jurowski and the current incarnation of Yevgeny Svetlanov’s... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2020, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Powerful and beautifully crafted, this recording – the first from the relationship between DG and the Boston Symphony under Nelsons – is a hugely impressive sign of just what this ensemble/maestro... — Gramophone Magazine, August 2015 More…

The first surprise of this album – which you will absolutely want to hear – is the subtlety and intimacy of Levit’s playing…Only a handful of pianists have scaled the heights of Stevenson’s... — BBC Music Magazine, December 2021, 5 out of 5 stars More…

They make interpretive decisions that are unexpected but none the less to me felt deeply initiative and this passage showcases the gorgeous cello line that has extraordinary shaping in how you... — Building a Library, 21st January 2023 More…

Nelsons keeps a firm grip on the unfolding of the drama [in the 11th]. And here, as in the Fourth, his Boston Symphony Orchestra responds with supreme virtuosity from every section. Whether... — BBC Music Magazine, October 2018, 5 out of 5 stars/4 out of 5 stars More…

Nelsons is spry and precisioned and his insistence on super-keen rhythm pays off big-time...The Fifth Symphony is quite marvellous...and like the Tenth should dominate the catalogue for a long... — Gramophone Magazine, August 2016 More…

Gugnin rivets us in orchestral-sounding climaxes…and the metaphysical twilight zones in between…Gugnin finds surprising poetry in the music...[The Limpid Stream] requires only poetic sensibility,... — BBC Music Magazine, December 2019, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Goerne and the equally probing Daniil Trifonov – a true conversational partner – seem to conceive the whole programme as a brooding mega-cycle on the human condition. — Gramophone Magazine, October 2022 More…

The playing here, disarmingly gentle yet tonally seductive, has a songful use of vibrato that recalls the expressive manners of Pierre Fournier and du Pré herself…A most rewarding CD then, sure... — Gramophone Magazine, March 2018 More…

a highly engrossing experience...the Takács come to the music from a somewhat different angle to their Soviet and Russian counterparts, emphasising closer connections with Western musical traditions... — BBC Music Magazine, June 2015, 5 out of 5 stars More…