Sonatas by Mozart, Liszt & Berg with Bartók's folk dances

“This richly varied selection of works...opens with probably the most powerful of Mozart's two minor-key sonatas and Grimaud's interpretation is suitably involved and full-blooded...Her ardour and romanticism are entirely suited to the Berg and Liszt Sonatas: the technical challenges are effortlessly overcome and the tonal architecture is clearly paramount.” --International Record Review, December 2010

“The Liszt Piano Sonata...is given a powerful and fluent reading that gets to the heart of the piece...skip the Mozart, sample the Berg and revel in the outstanding performance of the Liszt and the delightful Bartok.” --Classic FM Magazine, February 2011 ***

“The best is Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances — a pungent coda” --The Times, 20th November 2010 ***

“Mozart's A minor Sonata comes through the Grimaud experience much the best. Her booklet interview gives an intriguing view of the composer...and her way of bringing out the music's dramatic, pre-Beethoven manner convinces strongly...In Liszt's Sonata she deploys her technical command with total fearlessness” --BBC Music Magazine, January 2011 ***

Beethoven & Berg: Violin Concertos

“listening to these wonderful performances side by side is cathartic...The journey is vividly delineated from the outset of the Berg. With Abbado drawing sonorities from his first-rate orchestra, Faust's limpid violin weaves subtly in and out of the music's dark and increasingly sorrowful fabric...The clouds immediately lift for the Beethoven...Faust's first entry is magical.” --BBC Music Magazine, April 2012 *****

BBC Music Magazine
Disc of the month - April 2012

Gramophone Awards 2012
Finalist - Concerto

Gramophone Magazine
Disc of the Month - March 2012

“Each note appears to shine with an inner glow...Under [Faust's] fingers, her Stradivarius produces an astonishingly varied range of sound to meet the demands of Berg’s concerto...The luminous sound of Abbado’s orchestra, a continuing glory, infuses the [Beethoven] concerto with a real sense of joy; I don’t know of any other interpretation that wears such a smile so lightly. Faust is a wonder on this disc, but Abbado is even more so.” The Times, 3rd February 2012 ****

“Abbado’s hand-picked ensemble...produces a sound that is thoroughly apt to the particular world of each piece. Faust’s timbre and spectrum of emotion are similarly judged and communicated with arresting maturity and sensibility. Likewise, she echoes the freshness and depth that Abbado stimulates in the orchestral playing of the Beethoven concerto, finding a mode of expression that is both lyrical and dynamic and contributing to a performance of real stature.” The Telegraph, 3rd February 2012 *****

“seamlessly reconciles intensity with gentle expressivity” Financial Times, 4th February 2012

“The Beethoven and Berg Violin Concertos aren't commonly paired on disc. However, in this case it seems like an inspired piece of programme planning, with an account of the Berg that plumbs its depths of melancholy, setting off a radiant, life-affirming performance of the Beethoven...Outstanding performances of both concertos, then; I'll want to return to them often.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2012

“Faust has already demonstrated her empathy with music from Bach to Jolivet, but her collaboration with Abbado is inspired. Indeed, both find more beauty in this challenging score than most interpreters on disc: Abbado gets sumptuous Middle European textures from his Bologna-based orchestra, also wonderfully transparent and airy in the Beethoven concerto, treated like expanded chamber music....A glorious disc.” Sunday Times, 26th February 2012

“The [Berg’s] expressive range, which includes vehemence as well as delicacy, is fully probed here.” Irish Times, 24th February 2012 ****

“The unorthodox pairing...casts a curious spell in this thoughtful performance...Faust's chaste, pale sound is offset against stained-glass woodwind and serene brass in the Berg, while bassoonist Guilhaume Santana is a glamorous dancing partner in the Beethoven.” The Independent, 4th March 2012

“Faust’s performance is special. There’s something warm and consolatory in her playing. She doesn’t overdo the sentimentality, and there’s as much rapture as regret. None of which would be possible without Abbado’s perfectly judged orchestral support; the violent outbursts in the second movement are rightly brutal and the work’s closing minutes are exquisite…Buy this disc for the Berg – possibly the work’s finest recording yet.” The Arts Desk, 21st April 2012

Schoenberg, Webern, Berg: The String Quartet and the Voice

“The extreme refinement and minutely focused intensity, in recordings to match, make the Webern a singularly beautiful, if somewhat unsettling experience...Marie-Nicole Lemieux's voluptuous pianissimo is perfect for this paradoxically remote-revealing music. She also makes a good case for the vocal version of the finale of Berg's Lyric Suite...as for the Schoenberg: it's good to be reminded how much beauty there is in this astonishing score.” --BBC Music Magazine, August 2011 *****/***

“The Diotima are perfectly at home in this music, cooler than some quartets in the Schoenberg and Berg but wonderful at realising all the teeming detail in both works, and the microscopic gestures of the Webern.” --The Guardian, 4th March 2011 ****

“[Lemieux] is darkly eloquent with the long-suppressed Baudelaire text embedded in the extraordinary finale of Berg’s Lyric Suite.” --Sunday Times, 6th March 2011 ***

“I certainly wouldn't argue for the vocal version [of the Lyric Suite] as a permanent replacement...But in a performance of the whole work as richly characterised and technically assured as this one by the Quatuor Diotima, I'm happy to make an exception. The quartets by Webern and Schoenberg are done with equal flair, and in Schoenberg's Second there's a rare chance to hear the peerless Sandrine Piau in post-Wagnerian vein” --Gramophone Magazine, August 2011

MP3 320 · 141 MB

Berg: Orchestral Works

“Thanks to the lucid conducting of Mario Venzago, the magnificent and fearless playing of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and a Chandos recording which combines clarity and enormous weight, this set represents an outstanding addition to the catalogue…” --BBC Music Magazine, May 2009 *****

“That the suites from Wozzeck and Lulu are the most pressing reasons to hear this set is due in large part to the stature and eloquence of Geraldine McGreevy's contributions, for if she ever sang either of Berg's hapless heroines on stage in the UK, I would beat a path to the opera-house door.” --Gramophone Magazine, May 2009

“The main orchestra works come off extremely well here...the orchestral suites from Wozzeck and Lulu have both intensity and atmosphere. The Three Pieces, Op. 6 have more warmth here than usual, though the finale has a fine sense of impending doom.” --Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

2 CD · MP3 320 · 342 MB