SOMM’s Ariadne release of George Szell & the Cleveland Orchestra’s The Forgotten Recordings album received a Diapason D’Or distinction in the July/August 2021 issue! “The recordings which come to us from SOMM were made in 1954 and 1955 for the Book of the Month Club, a subscription mail-order service. They demonstrate that the Cleveland Orchestra… […]
“Vocal lines serve the verse… In the ongoing recorded collaborations of tenor James Geer and pianist/musicologist Ronald Woodley… this collection most clearly gives an alternative view of 20th-century British music. The literary factor here is extremely high and diverse. … Arguably, Clarke’s songs are the most distinctive on the disc, including her ‘Cradle Song’, whose […]
George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra — The Forgotten Recordings is a Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice for Re-issues/Archives in the June 2021 issue: “newly released in an expert Lani Spahr transfer by SOMM as part of a two-disc programme of Szell/Clevland recordings… Two items could as well serve as benchmark examples of Szell’s art, Smetana’s […]
George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra — The Forgotten Recordings receives a five-star review and the Historical Critic’s Choice distinction in the June 2021 BBC Music Magazine: “…it’s fascinating to hear the partnership when their much-vaunted precision was well in progress, if not immaculate. … The stereo recordings… show how far the orchestra had come… […]
The May 2021 issue of Gramophone Magazine has a wonderful new review for Roderick Williams, James Way, and Andrew West’s recording of Stanford’s Songs of Faith, Love and Nonsense: “Here’s yet another valuable instalment in Somm’s exploration of Charles Villiers Stanford. …the commanding partnership of Roderick Williams and Andrew West distilling a keen dramatic instinct […]
“it’s worth reiterating just what a debt of gratitude lovers of British music owe to SOMM and the Dante Quartet for their commitment to Stanford’s chamber music. Listening to this vibrant new recording, what struck me was… the freshness, the spontaneity, the instinctive ‘rightness’ of Stanford’s writing for strings. This might be the most satisfying […]
Gramophone Magazine’s January 2021 issue features a review of Leon McCawley’s Haydn Piano Sonatas Volume III: “In McCawley’s vivid realisations …Each sonata emerges as a succinct, self-contained drama, with airtight plot and an endless variety of characters. In the exquisite Adagio of the A flat Sonata (HobXVI:46), for instance, McCawley is all artful simplicity, letting Haydn’s eloquent […]
Gramophone Magazine’s January 2021 issue features a rave review for James Gilchrist and Nathan Williamson’s first volume of One Hundred Years of British Song: “James Gilchrist’s contribution is past praise in its probing range of expression and unfailing sensitivity to the text. What’s more, he enjoys immaculate support throughout from Nathan Williamson, who also provides […]
BBC Music Magazine gives Simon Callaghan’s George Dyson: The Open Window recording a four-star review: “even with the fingering is simple and the length very brief, Dyson usually packs in plenty of substance, with tricky rhythms, surprising harmonies that belie his conservative image and considerable authentic charm. …in the Open Window set of 1920, Dyson […]
Gramophone Magazine’s David Threasher reviews Hoffmeister’s Magic Flute, Vol. One from Boris Bizjack, Lana Trotvšek, and the Piatti Quartet in the November 2020 issue: “In a recent blog for the Gramophone website, Bizjak writes that this music ‘is well composed, flows so well and has such freshness and originality’. Certainly the Quartet that opens the disc revels […]