Borletti-Buitoni Trust
Trio Sōra piano trio
on La Dolce Volta (double disc set)
****
From the élan of the youthful First [Piano Trio] through to the heady final trio written in old age, this set of works positively glows thanks to the warmth of this intimate recording. Trio Sōra have a delectable evenness of tone, playing and seemingly breathing as one.
Michael Beek, BBC Music Magazine, August 2024
Technically, Trio Sōra are extremely impressive. Their ensemble has Boulezian precision, the strings’ intonation is close to faultless and they clearly take great care of matters of articulation and balance… I especially appreciate how sensitive they are not only to Brahms’s markings but also to the music’s changing harmonic colours.
Andrew Farach-Colton, Gramophone, June 2024
Alexi Kenney violin
on Bright Shiny Things
Kenney’s arrangement of [Joni] Mitchell’s Blue offers an excellent piece of music that strays away from the original to offer an enlightening new take … there is much to applaud here as a showcase of Kenney’s handling of a wide range of repertoire.
Freya Parr, BBC Music Magazine. August 2024
There’s something about the sound of a solo violin that’s so beguiling, especially when that instrument is in the hands of a talented performer such as Alexi Kenney.
WRTI Sunday Classical, July 2024
BBT co-commission with Orchestra of the 18th Century
World première 23 May 2024
Tivoli Vredenburg, Utrecht
Lucie Horsch will leave you breathless listening to a Vivaldian fever dream … [Lucie Horsch] sings elongated quotes from Sovente il sole in the second movement, until the tension is released in a percussive final section. A wondrous and successful work that you will want to listen to more often.
Marnix Bilderbeek, NRC, 24 May 2024
Recorder stars are thin on the ground worldwide, but in the Netherlands they pop up every now and then to enrich musical life with the force of a comet with superior virtuosity on this surprisingly versatile instrument … The irresistibly pure and passionate musician Horsch managed to win over all hearts not only as a recorder player but also as a singer. The orchestra bravely resisted and let her frolic above a solo orchestral part, resulting in a magical experience for the audience.
Wenneke Savenije, De Muse, 27 May 2024
Composer Reza Namavar cleverly exploits the sparkling wit of recorder prodigy Lucie Horsch. What makes [her] special, besides her stunning virtuosity, is the way she communicates with her audience … Horsch is also a mezzo-soprano (and pianist, though not tonight) and an interesting programmer … she put together an evening of Bach and Vivaldi and asked composer Reza Namavar to write a recorder concerto for her and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century … First, the recorder flutters above unruly trembling and pounding strings. In the middle movement, a theorbo gently drips while Horsch sings snippets from Vivaldi’s aria Sovente il sole. Finally, the plucked cellos and double bass excite the recorder player to play faster and faster and higher. The wriggling figure at the end is a nod to Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps.
Jenny Camilleri, Volkskrant, 26 May 2024
Ema Nikolovska mezzo-soprano
Sean Shibe guitar
Wigmore Hall, 14 May 2024
Bath Festival, 23 May 2024
… if I say that the experience felt like being awake in a vivid dream, I do so as a compliment. … Some might call this eclecticism with a faint whiff of eccentricity. Others, me included, would salute the sheer imagination it takes to pull off a programme such as this… it had a wonderful continuity… their shared artistic purpose and daring made it gel, along with the melding of Sean Shibe’s endlessly nuanced playing and the expressive beauty of Nikolovska’s voice.
I adored Cassandra Miller’s Dream Memorandum (It Reminded Me of the Truth), which riffed on the idea of biography. Over gentle guitar musings and recorded vocal harmonies Nikolovska narrated the voice notes she’d sent to Miller during the creative process. It could have been self-indulgent, but it entered a space in which time seemed to float, giving us a moving glimpse of the performer’s inner life.
Rebecca Franks, The Times, 24 May 2024
A Gardener’s World
Flower songs by Chausson, Elgar, Gustavino, Muriel Herbert, Mendelssohn, Poulenc, Schubert, Clara & Robert Schumann, Toldrà, Haydn Wood and
Flanders & Swann
Alessandro Fisher tenor
Anna Tilbrook piano
Rubicon Classics RCD 1087
A marvellous recital, both in terms of programming and of execution. Congratulations to recording engineer Oscar Torres and Producer Peter Thresh for capturing the Wigmore acoustic so successfully. This disc is a real triumph for all concerned, full of freshness, full of discovery.
Colin Clarke, Classical Explorer, March 2024
Alessandro Fisher’s debut recording is not so much a garden posy as a whole estate, within which he and his pianist Anna Tilbrook plant a programme that elegantly blends the familiar with the lesser know…. Fisher is in fine voice … a commandingly English tenor with a burnished upper register … ‘Flowers reveal the feeling of the heart’. And, in Fisher and Tilbrook’s horticultural recording, much else besides.
Christopher Cook, BBC Music Magazine, April 2024
The lightness and flexibility of Alessandro Fisher’s tenor is a joy in all of these things… It’s a tenderly expressive recital and a sensitive publisher. A Gardener’s World turns out to be a beautiful place to lose yourself for a while.
Andrew MacGregor, BBC Radio 3 Record Review, 24 February 2024
I’m inclined to rate Sibelius’s six Op 88 song as this recital’s pièce de résistance. Whether it be in the spine-tingling moment when the vocal line rises to a top B flat in that noble ode to the neglected thorn (The Thorn), the heartbreak conveyed in The Flower’s Fate, the trilling of the lark in Blue Anemone or the tranquil The Two Roses, the words battered and broken, delivered half-spoken, this is an interpretation of rare insight …
I’d suggest that not since Martin Isepp accompanied Janet Baker on that bargain Saga long-player from many moons ago has a British singer made a more auspicious recital debut on record.
Adrian Edwards. Gramophone, March 2024