Recording reviews
Recent reviews of AAM recordings can be found here. For more reviews, visit individual recordings in Recordings.
Sunday 29 July 2012
Christopher Gibbons — Motets, anthems, fantasias and voluntaries
"Son of Orlando, Christopher Gibbons lived through Cromwell’s slapdown of church music, and posterity has ignored him. This Academy of Ancient Music selection of his anthems, organ voluntaries and string fantasias (none recorded before) is a personal crusade by Richard Egarr and shows what we’ve been missing: harmonic twists and word-painting almost as daring as Gesualdo’s; lilting refrains that suggest Monteverdi; quicksilver mood changes. The organ pieces, knotted with ornamentation, are perhaps the sort that appeal only to organists but the string music is deftly and expressively played." FOUR STARS
THE TIMES
"These pieces have been extracted by Richard Egarr from libraries in Oxford and London, and none has been recorded before. Egarr describes him as the "missing link between the pre-Commonwealth world of Williams Lawes and the Restoration baroquerie of Henry Purcell", and the beautifully played and sung sequence he has devised for the Academy of Ancient Music and its Choir alternates anthems and motets with organ voluntaries (performed by Egarr) and fantasias for two violins, bass viol and organ. The instrumental pieces are wonderfully imaginative, but it's the choral works that stand out with their startling modulations and expressively charged vocal lines. The finest of them starts the disc: the eight-part Not Unto Us, with its building layers of counterpoint, seems to open out into a musical space so vast it's hard to believe the whole anthem lasts fewer than five minutes." FOUR STARS; CD OF THE WEEK
THE GUARDIAN
"Unlike his renowned father Orlando, Christopher Gibbons (1615-76) was until recently little more than a footnote in musical history — his output barely noticed, still less researched and performed. We owe Egarr our thanks for this sampler — a selection of gently expressive choral anthems, organ works and instrumental fantasias that establish him as a far-from-negligible precursor of Blow and Purcell." THREE STARS
FINANCIAL TIMES
"Newly recorded by Richard Egarr, his Verse Anthems are a bridge between those of his famous father, Orlando Gibbons, and his famous pupil, John Blow. AAM's vocal consort is distinctly hoary but the instrumental playing – of two Fantasy-suites for violins, bass viol and organ, and a flamboyant selection of Organ Voluntaries – is divine." FOUR STARS
THE INDEPENDENT
Monday 19 December 2011
Handel — Messiah (Hogwood)
25th greatest recording of all time - BBC Music Magazine"Stodge no more. In Christopher Hogwood's hands, Messiah was no longer a ponderous and portentous work, but something tightly sprung and which demanded your attention. The period instrument specialist was spring-cleaning well-loved pieces even as his pioneering contemporary Roger Norrington had barely launched the London Classical Players."
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Saturday 03 October 2009
Handel — Trio Sonatas Opp.2 & 5
“The interplay between the AAM is Baroque chamber-playing of the very highest order: sincerely conversational, emotive and finely nuanced. Egarr and Crouch are an outstanding continuo team, providing attentive yet uncluttered support to the two upper instruments. Brown and Beznosiuk play together with touching eloquence.”
GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE
“The subtleties and nuances of the playing, coupled with the sheer variety of Handel’s fertile imagination, never pales during over two hours of continuous listening. These are outstanding accounts with impeccable intonation and consistently warm tone at every dynamic level, and excellent balance across a wide stereo spectrum.”
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Sunday 07 June 2009
Handel — Solo Sonatas Op.1
“A delightful double-disc set. Minus bowed bass, Egarr's harpsichord accompaniment is free and expressive. The soloists slide easily from austerity to opulence, and Brown's dewy-toned recorder is enchanting.”
THE INDEPENDENT
“The soloists here are stylish and imaginative. Decorations are a delight in slow movements; the Adagio from No. 8 (oboe) is positively dripping with them. The playing is highly expressive; Rachel Brown opens the Largo of No. 9, the weightiest of all the sonatas, with heart-rending pathos. Fast movements are so technically secure that they retain a sense of spaciousness, though there are sparkling moments of virtuosity.”
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Saturday 12 September 2009
Handel — Organ Concertos Op.7
“The ultimate raspberry to anyone who says baroque music is predictable. Soloist Richard Egarr gleefully bites into the gamiest and most raucous registrations, contrasting what sounds like a supernaturally possessed carousel organ with the Academy of Ancient Music's searing strings, plump bassoons and sensual oboes.”
THE INDEPENDENT
“A pleasure throughout. None of the other recordings I have heard of these pieces are as creative as Egarr is with the instrument's registers. The echo effects and contrapuntal dialogues that abound in them rivet your ear with their character and wit. No listener who likes Baroque music is surprised when the Academy of Ancient Music plays well, but they really outdo themselves here.”
BANGKOK POST
JS Bach — Brandenburg Concertos
“I'm here to tell you that the new Egarr-AAM Brandenburgs really blow. In a good way. They blow centuries of library dust off these pieces, and they blow fantastic horn and trumpet lines. Egarr & Co. are in it to win it. Whew. The first disc had hardly played 10 seconds when I was grabbing for the remote control to play again the most amazing horn parts I have ever heard—wild, outdoorsy, jazzy, almost bebop horn parts. As the six concertos unfolded, there was no sense of letdown, just continuing pleasant surprises.”
STEREOPHILE
“This new recording, one-to-a-part, seems from a different world, not just in terms of improved technical command of period instruments — the excellent soloists here include violinists Pavlo Beznosiuk and Rodolfo Richter, flautist Rachel Brown and trumpeter David Blackadder — but also in terms of the interpretative imprint put on it by its director/harpsichordist, Richard Egarr.”
GRAMOPHONE