Decca

The best things here are the singing of Birgit Nilsson and Carlo Bergonzi, classic accounts. But Solti's conducting is tense in the wrong way, fidgety and over-emphatic. — BBC Music Magazine, July 2007, 3 out of 5 starsMore…

There's some dazzling pianism on display here, but also a rare sensibility that enables Nelson Freire to plumb the depths of Beethoven's slow movements without ever sentimentalising them. — BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2007, 4 out of 5 starsMore…

…Ashkenazy's…Beethoven style if more forthright and sharply contoured than in the past, with no loss in pianistic clarity and bravura, as the supple, winged 10th variation and the blazing, powerfully... — Gramophone Magazine, October 2007More…

Saint-Saëns's… piano concertos are fascinating works on many fronts, but not least for the balance they seem to hold between the wild Romantic and the contained Classical composer. Thibaudet... — BBC Music Magazine, December 2007, 5 out of 5 starsMore…

Most of the madrigals on this CD come from the Seventh Book of 1619, very much a watershed in Monteverdi’s output. In many instances they are for virtuoso singers and make a break with the past... — Penguin Guide, 3 out of 4 starsMore…

The Evening Hymn is radiantly done, and so are many of the less well-known airs which regularly bring new revelation. Excellent recording, if with the voice forward, given striking extra presence... — Penguin Guide, 3 out of 4 starsMore…