Reviews

'Bicket’s cast, too, is crammed with Handelian talent. Soprano Lucy Crowe sings the title role, always brilliant in precision and expressive power ... Iestyn Davies, as her “dead” husband Bertarido, invests every word, every note with intensity ...'

'Järvi brings a modern view to the scores, revealing their multifaceted genius without diminishing the power. Quite an achievement!'

'If the Bach dynasty has gone down in history, the Rameau dynasty has remained in the shadows. Justin Taylor sheds light on this subject with ... this magnificent essay in musical genealogy.'

Top 10 classical albums of 2021: 'Expressive performances from an excellent cast do justice to the composer’s strongest opera ... Harry Bicket and The English Concert’s Handel opera specialists have lost none of their vigour.'

'The precise reading and reproduction of Miyoshi by Kuniko Kato created a sound that was at times strong and at other times delicate. It is not often that one encounters Akira Miyoshi of this calibre.'

Recording of the Week: 'Iestyn Davies and Lucy Crowe heading up a uniformly excellent cast who deliver that winning combination of virtuosity and eloquence in spades.'

'The result is a thoroughly impressive work that, with almost 30 minutes of performance time, does not spare the performers, but from the first note really sounds like Strauss.'

'This fills a real gap in the repertoire for trumpet and piano, where neoclassicism is not very widely represented. In short: a challenging but very rewarding task.'

Recording of the Month: 'The performances of the concertos alone would make this a highly desirable disc. Add in what has now become my yardstick recording for the Second Piano Trio and you have a real winner.'