Hyperion
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Steven Osborne has long been a Schubertian, and this recording is unmissable. Schubert wrote his A major Sonata, D959 during his final year in 1828, and given the biographical background, it's... —
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Gramophone Magazine, August 2025, Editor's Choice
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2025
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Schubert: Schwanengesang & Brahms: Vier ernste Gesänge
Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)
Finley is never an artist, one feels, to let himself be rushed…and his new recording of Schwanengesang is well worth the wait…The Vier ernste Lieder are possibly even better: noble, refined,... —
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Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2019, Editor's Choice
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Gramophone Awards, 2020, Finalist - Solo Vocal
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These are unusually expansive works, their first movements each close on 15 minutes' music, prolific in their thematic matter and richly developed. They demand playing that shows a grasp of... —
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Gramophone Magazine, October 2003, Editor's Choice
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Hamelin kicks off with the late C major Sonata, H50, nailing his virtuoso credentials firmly to the mast with a mercurial account of its opening movement. Some may prefer Schiff's more measured... —
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Gramophone Awards, 2007, Finalist - Instrumental
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BBC Music Magazine, April 2007, Instrumental Choice
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Boccherini: Music of the Angels
RecommendedCello Concertos, Sonatas & Quintets
Steven Isserlis (cello), Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
in the String Quintet in D minor G280 – the album’s centrepiece – Isserlis and friends entwine Boccherini’s lyrical strands into a felicitous musical conversation: balanced, measured and fully... —
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Presto Recording of the Week, 1st November 2024
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Sunday Times, 20 Best Classical Albums of 2024
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Schubert's two most accessible quartets receive interpretations on this disc which are as near ideal as one is ever likely to hear. In a time of great string quartet playing, the Takács Quartet... —
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Building a Library, October 2009, First Choice
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Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2006, Editor's Choice
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Steven Osborne is perhaps the outstanding British pianist of his generation, certainly one of the most versatile and adventurous…where Osborne excels is in his grasp of structure - if anyone... —
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Sunday Times, 2015, Albums of the Year
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[Shelley] succeeds in convincing one that Dussek’s powers of melodic invention are more fertile than is actually the case… It would be all too easy for Dussek’s Mendelssohnian propensity for... —
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BBC Music Magazine, October 2018, Concerto Choice
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Mozart: Clarinet Concerto & Clarinet Quintet
RecommendedThea King (basset clarinet)
English Chamber Orchestra, Gabreili String Quartet, Jeffrey Tate
The two works on this disc represent Mozart's clarinet writing at its most inspired; however, the instrument for which they were written differed in several respects from the modern clarinet,... —
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Building a Library, September 2006, First Choice
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Building a Library, March 2019, Also Recommended
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The Mendelssohn Variations come over as truly 'sérieuses', on a par with anything by his friend Schumann, thanks to Hough's vivid characterisation and dramatic flair. And if the 'Arietta' of... —
Awards:
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Gramophone Magazine, May 2009, Disc of the Month
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