Challenge Classics

[this] has many fine qualities even if the poised, somewhat cautious music-making eschews Soviet-era rawness…Gaffigan prefers soft-focus glowering, emphasising instead the music’s contemplative,... — Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2016 More…

it's a considerable relief to turn to interpreters who respond first of all to the text in front of them...what one actually hears is a symphony composed in 1824 and not 1884...The adroit members... — Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2012 More…

There is what can only be described as a rightness about [van Zweden's] tempi and the way he connects them through the tension and release of transition. The whole is as spontaneous as it is... — Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2013 More…

…far from being depressing, the programming here, both thoughtful and vividly imaginative, serves to stimulate the senses and lift the spirit. A fresh and unmannered introductory performance... — BBC Music Magazine, February 2010, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Koopman's strings do not seek to overwhelm but rather to beguile, their playing rejecting the kind of fierce ensemble much in fashion these days for a more relaxed, if sometimes slightly less... — Gramophone Magazine, December 2005 More…

It's a performance that resists the tendencies of discontinuity that others find throughout his music, not through the imposition of a seamless legato but with neat tempo relationships that... — Gramophone Magazine, September 2014 More…

freedom from portentousness and unwarranted indulgence...If you are in the market for a chamber-scale performance of these four works in up-to-the-minute sound, you'll not go far wrong with... — Gramophone Magazine, January 2014 More…