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Pianist Alessio Bax creates “a ravishing listening experience” with his lyrical playing, insightful interpretations, and dazzling facility. “His playing quivers with an almost hypnotic intensity,” says Gramophone magazine, leading to what Dallas Morning News calls “an out-of-body experience.” For his latest solo recording with Signum, Alessio Bax returns with a programme of rich and evocative works for piano by Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Scriabin. ★★★★★ Brilliantly Delivered - New Zealand Herald An exemplary clarity and musicianship - Gramophone A massively enjoyable disc - Music Web International Bax guides us through the familiar catalogue with plenty of skill - Sinfini Music -
Pianist Malcolm Martineau brings together some of the UK’s finest singers for the first release in a new series charting the complete songs of French composer Gabriel Fauré. This series follows Martineau’s well-received series of The Complete Poulenc Songs.
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London Early Opera follow up their debut release with a treasure trove of music by George Frideric Handel, as well as his contemporaries Thomas Arne and John Hebden, centered on the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens – a carnival of music and entertainments that entertained visitors for nearly 200 years. The booklet notes features images and expert commentaries of the Vauxhall Gardens by author David E. Coke and conductor and musicologist Bridget Cunningham. ★★★★★ Revelatory - a superbly performed, thoroughly enjoyable disc - Choir & Organ A treasure trove... highly recommended - The Northern Echo Bridget Cunningham's re-imagining of the first part of a typical evening's entertainment puts George Frideric centrestage, and sets the scene delectably with the flirtatious bustle of the Sinfonia to Acis and Galatea - BBC Music Magazine An attractive potpourri... bright, lively sound - The Observer A perfectly sensible and enjoyable approach to imagining what a typical night at Vauxhall might have sounded like. There is a charming ebba and flow to this hypothetical entertainment - Gramophone Most decorously sung and played by London Early Opera, conducted by Bridget Cunningham - Financial Times -
A trio of leading British solists perform a sumptuous selection of chamber music by the Romantic composers Brahms, Chopin, Schubert, Schumann and Strauss. The programme is centred around Schubert’s iconic The Shepherd on the Rock – written for the esteemed soprano Anna Milder- Hauptmann, it was to become virtually the final complete work that Schubert composed before his tragic death at 31.★★★★ There are some lovely performances on this disc, with Tynan, Bliss and Glynn combining to make some real magic in the Schubert and Strauss - Planet Hugill ★★★★ They offer arrangements with the clarinet by Julian Bliss and Lieder with a delicious evening feeling, like in the light of candles - Ritmo -
BBC Music Magazine Award-winning choir Tenebrae perform a sumptuous selection of motets by Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner. Choral Recording of the Year: Performance ★★★★★ Recording ★★★★★ A beautifully balanced programme - BBC Music Magazine ★★★★★ Complex, rich and beautiful... performances are everything we have come to expect from Tenebrae, likewise Signum's recorded sound - Classical Music ★★★★ Richly Expressive - The Observer Tenebrae score on all counts. They submit with impressive stamina and unfailing intonation to Bruckner’s instrumental scoring and phrasing - Gramophone The dense harmonies suit this well-established professional choir perfectly - The Guardian Beautifully performed, seraphic sequence - The Sunday Times -
Recorded in 2014 at the begninning of a series marking his 85th birthday season, Christoph von Dohnányi leads the Philharmonia Orchestra in a rousing live performance of Bruckner’s monumental Ninth Symphony, which stands alongside the other epoch-defining Ninth symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler. [A] beautifully prepared account... Dohnanyi's new recording is distinguished by the clarity with which it presents Bruckner's score as well as the excellence of its sound - Gramophone Dohnanyi's is a considerable performance in its own right. The Philharmonia plays very well for a conductor who they clearly and rightly esteem - MusicWeb International The recording is everything you'd wish from a Bruckner recording. You'll get the grand and the detail all in silky sound. Very highly recommended - Audiophilia A wonderfully passion-filled performance by the Philharmonia in Salzburg and an excellent CD edition of this occasion - North East Music Magazine The performance is as devastating an experience as it should be, and one of the most powerful that the whole literature of music can provide - BBC Music Magazine Maazel's Seventh is very decent...the clangorous coda is fantastic - The Arts Desk A wonderfully passion-filled performance by the Philharmonia in Salzburg and an excellent CD edition of this occasion -NE:MM -
Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Huw Watkins continue their duo partnership with a new recording of works by two trailblazing composers from France and Poland respectively - Reynaldo Hahn and Karol Szymanowski. Waley-Cohen's playing is radiant and soaring, and Watkins's pianism a model as always of sensitivity - The Sunday Times An intelligent recital disk...all played with verve and style - The Guardian It is the sheer melting beauty in the opening pages of the final movement that makes Hahn's sonata so affecting, especially with Waley-Cohen's hushed tone... an enjoyable recital - BBC Music Magazine Tamsin Waley-Cohen produces a beautiful, soft, creamy tone in the lyrical passages, and throughout the recital we're treated to a remarkable palette of tone colours. Huw Watkins is able to match this range most effectively - Gramophone [Waley-Cohen] has a potent rhetorical style, moving neatly from dramatic flourishes and cadenzas into gentle lyricism... a fine performance - The Strad -
The Mozartists continue their recording cycle of the complete operas of Mozart with Il Re Pastore – a youthful work that shines with the richness of its orchestration, its inexhaustible melodic inspiration and its dazzlingly ingenious score.Disc of the Month: A major reason for the success of the series to date is the strong sense of ensemble Ian Page creates among his singers, with many of whom he works regularly...beautifully paced and sung, the ensemble is both directed and sung to near perfection - Opera Magazine Effortlessly entertaining...so much zip and zest from the players - BBC Radio 3 CD Review Classical Opera [treat] this work seriously on its own terms, and they reveal its many beauties with a touch of love - Music Web International Performed with energy and spirit by Ian Page and his lively forces - The Sunday Times Wonderful music so beautifully performed - Early Music Review Mozart's delightful early opera comes up fresh as new paint in this fleet, beautifully recorded new set - Classical Music Magazine It is hard to imagine hearing another performance as convivial and life-affirming as this - Gramophone -
Rebecca Miller leads the Royal Northern Sinfonia in performances of three Haydn Symphonies. This new release follows Miller’s acclaimed recording of the works of CPE Bach with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. There is much to praise here - Early Music Review The grandeur of the work seems to suit Miller's imaginative approach, with some especially effective phrasing... These admirable performances make a worthwhile addition to the catalogue of the often-neglected middle-period symphonies - Gramophone The grandeur of the work seems to suit Miller's imaginative approach, with some especially effective phrasing - Gramophone -
Norwegian boy-soprano Aksel Rykkvin has quickly built a reputation as a rare talent, combining an intelligent musicality with a beautifully resonant treble voice. On his debut recording he is accompanied by The Orchestra of the Age on Enlightenment under Nigel Short (leader of award-winning chamber choir Tenebrae), in a selection of arias by Mozart, Handel and JS Bach. Many of the arias performed are considered too technically demanding for boy singers in the present day – in particular Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate which was composed for the castrato Venunzio Rauzzini, and several of Bach’s Cantatas which were written at a time when singers often maintained their treble voices until the ages of 16 or 17. Freakishly good, with a musical assurance and richness of tone that are almost superhuman - Financial Times Widely praised for his richness of tone and instinctive, innate musicality - BBC Music Magazine It's a remarkable performance - pure, technically perfect and hauntingly beautiful - Classic FM This is totally extraordinary. For the sheer joy in performing, this CD would be hard to beat - Cathedral Music Magazine -
The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin are Ireland’s leading collegiate choral ensemble, and for their first recording on Signum they perform an enchanting and ground-breaking collection of traditional and Celtic-inspired choral music, led by their director Desmond Earley.★★★★ Blending 'folk' voices with choral precision and tight harmony isn't easy, but Desmond Earley has a passionate stake in both and doesn't put a foot wrong - Choir and Organ Bright young things - The Irish Times -
Seasons combines Vivaldi’s timeless concerto cycle The Four Seasons, performed with flair by the Trafalgar Sinfonia and soloist Kerenza Peacock, with a new contrasting composition by British composer Oliver Davis. Inspired by the same set of poetry upon which Vivaldi based the The Four Seasons, his new work Anno is a beguiling composition for orchestra and solo soprano, performed by Grace Davidson. Album of the Week: Davis's music has a pulsating rhythmic energy not a million miles away from Vivaldi's - Classic FM Album of the Week: Vividly played by solo violinist Kerenza Peacock... most pleasing - The Mail on Sunday ★★★★ The rhythmic vitality and neo-Baroque style of Davis's writing lends the cycle an easy instant accessibility - Early Music Review This is an appealing disc and an imaginative one. If the combination of Vivaldi's iconic concertos with a modern setting of his original poems appeals (and it should), then do not hesitate - Planet Hugill Soloist Kerenza Peacock's playing exudes sprezzatura, her tone light and incisive, her ornamentation authentic yet imaginative...her collegiate joy evident in every dance step she takes with the wonderful Trafalgar Sinfonia under Ivor Setterfield - Gramophone An uplifting, searing quality - The Lady An innovative view... worth adding to collections - AllMusic -
Joseph Nolan follows his five internationally acclaimed volumes of the Complete Organ Symphonies of Charles-Marie Widor with a collection of the composer’s other works for solo organ. The disc includes his Trois Nouvelles Pieces, March Amèricaine and Marche Nuptiale and Memento – a collection of transcriptions of works by J.S. Bach. This release completes a collection of 6 CDs that span Widor’s complete solo organ works, performed by Nolan on period Cavaillé-Coll organs from the French churches of St Sernin, Toulouse, St. François-de Sales, Lyon and La Madeleine, Paris. In April 2016, Joseph Nolan was made a Chevalier (Knight) in the Order of French Arts and Letters for his services to French Music. This recording is a must for all organ devotees and especially Widor fans - MusicWeb International Joseph Nolan follows his five acclaimed volumes of the complete organ symphonies of Charles-Marie Widor with a collection of the composer’s other works for solo organ - Northern Echo -
A beautiful collection of songs, Only a Singing Bird features Michael Head’s best-known works, The Ships of Arcady and The Little Road to Bethlehem, as well as his beautifully-imagined, nostalgic song-cycle, Snowbirds. NYCoS National Girls Choir is joined by its patron and world renowned mezzo soprano, Karen Cargill for this incredible new recording. -
Alexandra Dariescu makes her concerto recording debut on Signum with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Darrell Ang, pairing this with Mikhail Pletnev’s concert suite of arrangements from The Nutcracker.Alexandra Dariescu has garnered an impressive repution for her outstanding solo recordings and concert performances, and was recently named as one of 30 pianists under 30 destined for a spectacular career in the International Piano Magazine. -
Wells Cathedral Choir under Matthew Owens explore and celebrate the life and works of the late British composer Sir John Tavener (1944- 2013), in a new programme centred around his Missa Wellensis The disc features several world-premiere recordings of works commissioned especially for the choir, including his Preces and Responses and They are all gone into the world of light.