Challenge Classics

In his excellent notes Koopman explains that Buxtehude needs a "macho" playing style and this works well as a stylus fantasticus in the virtuoso large-scale works. His interpretations are full... — Gramophone Magazine, October 2007 More…

In the Concerto, van Poucke’s performance is distinguished by its spontaneity and delicacy, her playing of the double-stopped passages in the slow movement especially affecting. — Gramophone Magazine, November 2021 More…

an original, excellently planned programme tracing the links from Romanticism to modernism. Thoughtful playing. — BBC Music Magazine, December 2012, 4 out of 5 stars More…

This selection of mature Brahms piano works is performed with great sensitivity and expression by Peter Orth, who injects every note with just the right amount of colour and emotional power. — BBC Music Magazine, November 2020, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Cecchetti understands Bach's intensely personal rhetoric in the two fantasias, where the music so often resembles heightened speech. Here and in slow movements, he makes telling use of the fortepiano's... — Gramophone Magazine, June 2015 More…

Brownridge wields a strict leash throughout the Appassionata Sonata’s tumultuous first movement, yet the music never sounds rigid or overly driven, due to her wide dynamic range and daring pedal... — Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2016 More…

without doubt, Ghraichy portrays the characteristic dreamy, languid moods of Schumann quite beautifully — Gramophone Magazine, April 2016 More…

Koopman and his Amsterdam forces get the scale of the music just right, providing a compelling example of how less can be more. Voices and instruments...weave a seductive skein of tender music-making. — BBC Music Magazine, February 2014, 5 out of 5 stars More…