Borletti-Buitoni Trust
*****
… [Alec Frank-Gemmill’s] top-drawer playing consistently impresses, with its distinctive, open-throated timbre in slow movements, and fluency and seeming effortless delivery of perilous passagework elsewhere. The finale of K495… highlights the clarity of articulation of his playing throughout this album, while the winsome Romanza preceding it readily brings Dennis Brain’s peerless musicianship to mind…
Michael Jameson, BBC Music Magazine, Christmas issue 2024
… what a lovely legato, the smooth sound of horn player Alec Frank-Gemmill, beautifully matched by the strings of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan… they deliver the joyful spirit of the last movement of all four Mozart concertos with effortless elegance.
Andrew McGregor, BBC Radio 3 Record Review, 16 November 2024
*****
This SACD promises hours of fun, as Mozart’s Horn Concertos are among the most enjoyable music he wrote. British soloist Alec Frank-Gemmill not only plays them with great elan but gives us an extra Concerto; and he is neatly and stylishly accompanied by the Swedish CO. Nicholas McGegan is usually associated with period orchestras but I am glad he conducts modern instruments here, as the slight added warmth really suits Mozart. Usually we get just the famous four Concertos, K412 in D and K417, 447 and 495 in E flat, all with delightful 6/8 Rondos including the ‘Flanders and Swann’ one. But Stephen Roberts has reconstructed the Allegro, K370b, and Rondo, K371, as well as helping Frank-Gemmill adapt a violin concerto slow movement for K412.
Tully Potter, Daily Mail, 9 November 2024
The three E flat concertos receive bold, characterful readings, and one hopes that Mozart would have giggled at Frank-Gemmill’s cheekier additions – try K447’s first movement cadenza, taking in multiphonics and a stratospheric high B flat, or a nicely raucous conclusion to K495. The hunting finales are all superb here, each one a mixture of grit and polish. And do sample K417’s brief Andante, showcasing this soloist’s ability to make the horn sing. Nicholas McGegan’s Swedish Chamber Orchestra provide sympathetic support and BIS’s sound has depth and detail.
Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk, 9 November 2024
Lucie Horsch recorder
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
on Decca
… the vitality and freshness on this, her latest and arguably most ambitious album, is due less to Brüggen’s inspiration and more to the unique circumstances under which it was recorded … Horsch is as sensitive to each instrument’s idiosyncrasies as she is to the demands of the music, her effortless virtuosity and stylish phrasing, articulation and ornamentation a veritable Recorder Fancyer’s Delight.
William Yeoman, Gramophone, December 2024
Lucie Horsch pays a moving tribute to recorder legend Frans Brüggen.
Lucie Horsch did not know Frans Brüggen, yet his widow calls her his ‘musical grandchild’. This is because of Horsch’s way of making music: in the spirit of the recorder player, conductor and early music pioneer who died a decade ago. Like him then, she becomes one with the instrument; her breath becomes music.
Maartje Stokkers, De Volkskrant, 21 November 2024
****
Ten years after Brüggen’s death, [it is his] achievement as an instrumentalist that is celebrated on Lucie Horsch’s disc. More specifically it’s the remarkable array of recorders from the late 17th and early 18th centuries which he collected and played that are in the spotlight here, all of them documented, together with illustrations, in the accompanying CD booklet… Horsch uses 15 different instruments – sopranino, descant, treble and tenor recorders – some of which are now so fragile that she was only able to record a couple of takes on each. There is a mixture of original pieces – by Telemann, Handel, and Couperin, among others – alongside arrangements of Haydn, Marcello and Bach, with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century used for the larger-scale movements. For once it’s the instruments that matter more than the music; anyone remotely interested in recorder playing will find it fascinating.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 8 November 2024
The Art of Fugue Explored on RAI – March to June 2024
Filippo Gorini went around the world to interview artists from all backgrounds for the programme The Art of Fugue Explored. How wonderful to listen to a dialogue between people of such different ages and experiences speak a common language, to search for the meaning of the art of escape, its connection with the author’s life, and in this search to find many paths and the deep meaning of life itself. All this without rhetoric, offering substantial themes, insights and reflections that exude vitality, that speak to the intellect and emotions.
Giovanni Gavazzeni, Il Giornale, 19 May 2024
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 Bach is glorious. He spins out phrases in long, supple, silky threads that seem to bind a movement’s first note to its last, and yet how much detail he finds along the way … Conceptual programmes such as this are a dime a dozen nowadays but Kenney’s actually works, with the various musical elements interacting with and illuminating one another. Bravissimo!
Andrew Farach-Colton, Gramophone, October 2024 (Awards Edition)
Alexi Kenney’s newest recording features a mesmerizing solo violin recital with electronic elements. Bach is interwoven with contemporary works in a unique way that’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before, and feels so timeless.
Aimee Buchanan, WXQR Newsletter, August 2024
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