Nicholas Daniel (oboe), Julius Drake (piano)
Chandos · CHAN20295 · 75 minutes
There’s something almost uncanny about how naturally Robert and Clara Schumann’s intimate piano miniatures translate to the oboe — Nicholas Daniel finds a singing quality in these pieces that feels less like transcription and more like revelation. Julius Drake is an ideal partner here, never merely accompanying but genuinely conversing, and together they build a portrait of two composers whose emotional worlds were deeply intertwined. The programming itself is doing real work, weaving Robert and Clara’s voices together so that the disc becomes something closer to a dialogue than a recital.
Awards:
- BBC Music Magazine — November 2024 — Recording of the Month
- International Classical Music Awards — 2025 — Nominated – Chamber Music
- BBC Music Magazine Awards — 2025 — Winner – Chamber
“Played with such warmth and eloquence, the arrangements chosen here often feel as if they were tailor-made for the instrument, while the sensitive programming paints a loving portrait of the…”
— BBC Music Magazine, November 2024,5 out of 5 stars
Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)
Decca · 4853945 · 85 minutes
Schumann and Brahms make natural companions on a single disc — both composers lived inside a kind of aching introspection that asks a pianist to be expressive without ever tipping into sentimentality. Benjamin Grosvenor threads that needle beautifully here, bringing what BBC Music Magazine calls a “marble-statue nobility” to the playing — powerful technique fully in service of the music rather than showing off in front of it. The three Brahms Intermezzos that close the programme feel especially telling, quiet and inward in exactly the way Brahms intended.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 17th March 2023
- Gramophone Magazine — April 2023
- Gramophone Awards — 2023 Finalists — Shortlisted – Piano
- Presto Recordings of the Year — Finalist 2023
“There’s a marble-statue nobility to his playing, a sense of his powerful technique being harnessed to expression, and a seriousness-of-purpose…To end, we hear three of Brahms’s Intermezzos:…”
— BBC Music Magazine, May 2023,4 out of 5 stars(Performance) /5 out of 5 stars(Recording)
Arcadi Volodos (piano)
Sony · 19658879292 · 65 minutes
Schubert’s so-called “Gasteiner” Sonata has this irrepressible forward energy to it — written during one of the composer’s rare moments of genuine optimism — and Volodos seems to understand that instinctively, letting the music breathe and stride without forcing it into something heavier than it wants to be. That Con moto movement in particular can feel like a long walk in fog in the wrong hands, but here it opens up into something genuinely luminous. Pairing it with Kinderszenen is a quietly brilliant choice, and the two works end up in quiet conversation about innocence and memory in a way that feels entirely unforced.
Awards:
- BBC Music Magazine — July 2026 — Instrumental Choice
“With the ‘Gasteiner’ Sonata…Volodos catches the prevailingly up-beat mood of the whole, and also the meditative beauty of the Con moto movement.”
— BBC Music Magazine, July 2026,5 out of 5 stars
Tabea Zimmermann (viola), Javier Perianes (piano), Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello)
Harmonia Mundi · HMM902789 · 73 minutes
Brahms wrote the Op. 114 trio with the low-voiced instruments very much in mind — the clarinet part was conceived alongside a viola alternative, and that dark, autumnal blend of viola and cello sits at the heart of what makes this piece so achingly beautiful. Tabea Zimmermann brings exactly the kind of emotional range it demands, and Gramophone’s description of a dynamic palette stretching “from a whisper to a wail” tells you she’s not holding anything back. Perianes and Queyras match her every step of the way, making this a genuinely rare three-way conversation rather than a solo turn with accompaniment.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — June 2026 — Editor’s Choice
“With a dynamic palette that ranges from a whisper to a wail, the viola player and her superb, sensitive pianist Javier Perianes take us on an emotionally wrenching journey in just over five…”
— Gramophone Magazine, June 2026
Maria João Pires (piano)London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Eliot Gardiner
LSO Live · LSO0765 · 79 minutes
There’s something almost conversational about the way Maria João Pires approaches the Mendelssohn piano concerto here — she never forces a phrase, letting the music breathe with a naturalness that feels almost unrehearsed, even when the passage work is technically demanding. Gardiner and the LSO match her perfectly, keeping the orchestral textures lean and responsive rather than opulent. The Schumann on the flip side carries real emotional weight too, making this a disc that earns its runtime across every one of those 79 minutes.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 20th October 2014
- Gramophone Magazine — January 2015 — Editor’s Choice
- Presto Recordings of the Year — Finalist 2014
- Presto Favourites — Recommended Recording
“[Pires] has the enviable ability to make everything sound fresh but natural, and her tone is enchanting…The definition on [the Blu-ray] is superb and the camera work actually helps the viewer…”
— BBC Music Magazine, February 2015,3 out of 5 stars/5 out of 5 stars
Stephen Hough (piano)City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons
Hyperion · CDA68099 · 73 minutes
Dvořák’s piano concerto has always been the slightly awkward cousin at the family reunion — wonderful melodic ideas dressed in orchestration that can feel a little ungainly — but Hough finds a way to make it feel inevitable, his fingerwork nimble yet grounded. Nelsons and the CBSO push the drama without steamrolling the quieter moments, and the balance between robustness and lyrical breathing room is genuinely satisfying. The Schumann sits alongside it beautifully, two Romantic concertos that share a certain restless emotional energy, and Hough understands that language deep in his bones.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 1st April 2016
- Presto Recordings of the Year — Winner 2016
“Hough joins forces with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons for a robust, grand reading that nonetheless leaves room for lyricism and introspection…[but it’s in the…”
— BBC Music Magazine, May 2016,4 out of 5 stars
Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cédric Tiberghien (piano)
Hyperion · CDA68354 · 71 minutes
Schumann’s violin sonatas live in a strange, beautiful tension — the piano and violin pulling at each other like competing inner voices, which is exactly what makes them so rewarding when the partnership is truly matched. Ibragimova and Tiberghien have that rarest thing: a chamber rapport where neither instrument leads and neither follows, but both seem to be thinking the same thought at the same moment. The Sonata No. 2 in D minor in particular crackles with the kind of emotional urgency that reminds you Schumann was always writing from somewhere very deep inside.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — March 2025 — Editor’s Choice
- Gramophone Awards — 2025 Shortlist — Chamber
- Diapason d’Or de l’Année — 2025 — Musique de Chambre
- BBC Music Magazine Awards — 2026 — Shortlisted – Chamber
“Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien are well established as a formidable, finely poetic duo, and this set of performances shows them at their vibrant best. On a purely practical level, the…”
— BBC Music Magazine, March 2025,5 out of 5 stars
Matthias Goerne (bass-baritone), Daniil Trifonov (piano)
Deutsche Grammophon · 4862452 · 79 minutes
Pairing Goerne’s deep, weathered bass-baritone with Trifonov’s searching pianism turns what could be a pleasant sampler of Lieder into something far more unsettling and unified — these songs about longing, grief, and the interior life feel like chapters in a single dark novel. Wolf’s compressed intensity sits right alongside Shostakovich’s bitter irony and Brahms’s autumnal weight, and somehow it all coheres, as if these composers had been in conversation across the centuries. Trifonov isn’t accompanying here so much as co-authoring, his touch alive to every shift in the text.
Awards:
- Presto Editor’s Choice — June 2022
- Gramophone Magazine — October 2022 — Editor’s Choice
- Presto Recordings of the Year — Finalist 2022
- International Classical Music Awards — 2023 — Nominated – Vocal Music
“Goerne and the equally probing Daniil Trifonov – a true conversational partner – seem to conceive the whole programme as a brooding mega-cycle on the human condition.”
— Gramophone Magazine, October 2022
