“’Songs of Renewal’ are songs of rebirth. That is to be understood in two senses of the word: On the one hand, the album documents the occupation of contemporary British choral music in the sense of a rejuvenation of a tradition, on the other, the music deals with the spiritual question of what awaits us […]

“Every one of the seven choral composers on this CD is represented by their most fascinating and attractive music. Well-known names like Judith Weir whose opera background comes through in her piece ‘a blue true dream of sky’, or Cecilia McDowall’s instantly attractive ‘Standing as I do before God’, use soprano soloist Elizabeth Cragg soaring […]

“First recordings of two sets of piano pieces by Arnold Bax and Harriet Cohen (his charismatic muse and lover) adorn this latest helping of home-grown fare from the excellent Mark Bebbington. Cohen’s four Russian Impressions prove a charming find, the first two especially winning Bax’s approval. Bebbington lends them atmospheric and deftly affectionate advocacy, as he […]

“Emma Johnson is in fine form. The [Beethoven Septet’s] serenade-like slow movement is graceful and the alla marcia finale’s acceleration into a full-tilt presto is irresistible. Joseph Küffner’s Introduction, Theme and Variations (once attributed to Weber) is a jolly piece in which Johnson is joined by bassist Chris West and the Carducci Quartet. Clarinet and […]

“[Peter Donohoe] appears to take early Beethoven as his interpretative trajectory with a gloves-off spontaneity that imbues these magical scores with a compelling vitality and freshness. Donohoe’s radiant cantabile — captured to perfection by producer Siva Oke and engineer Paul Arden-Taylor — illuminates event the most workaday of sequential passage-work. It’s underpinned by an uninhibited […]

“this recording reappears on Somm 20 years later, tying in with José Serebrier’s 80th birthday. Its main points of interest concern the conductor’s splendid orchestrations of the three piano Preludes. The first stands out for Serebrier’s witty and unpredictable use of brass instruments and his ingenuously varied cymbal fills when the main theme recapitulates. … […]

“Plenty of charismatic playing here, in a programme clearly planned to entertain. … This sequence was taken live from a concert in 2017 and the audience’s delight in it is audible… [a] splendid time…is clearly being had by all. … Johnson’s reimaginings of the two closing Strauss numbers are as frothy as a glass of […]

“Peter Donohoe imagines the choice of Mozart’s solo piano works for his latest recording on SOMM will surprise many, although it is a project evolved over a lifetime, as well as being triggered by a snap decision. ‘I realise that I tend not to be associated with this repertoire, partly because I have tended to […]

“As a chorister in the 1960s I can still remember the lines of the British Legion who would parade up to the village church and the war memorial to hear the names of the dead read out. My memories of those chilly, solemn November Sunday mornings are still vivid. They were occasions charged with deep […]

“Gems abound on this third and final volume in what has been a most enterprising survey, and I’m happy to report that, as on previous instalments, Sarah Fox and Roderick Williams are at the top of their game throughout. … We are offered no fewer than nine settings of poems by Parry’s fellow student at […]