Brahms: Fantasies (7 piano pieces), Op. 116

“The whole performance [of the horn trio] has a lightness of touch and an athletic exuberance that are totally convincing.” Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 22nd August 2008 ****

“It's a superb version of the piece by any standard, the slow movements absolutely saturated in intense Romantic melancholy but fleet and agile in scherzo and finale. Faust and Melnikov and scarcely less revelatory in the G major Violin Sonata… Very generous in terms of its duration, this is a disc where one truly feels every note has been given the space to make its effect.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 *****

“Teunis van der Zwart used a natural horn from Lorenz built in 1845. He is an astonishingly accomplished and musical player, and he has a superb supporting team.” Gramophone Magazine, 2008 Awards Issue

"These are superb, intensely involved and involving performances, fit to stand with anything in the catalogue, both musically and pianistically." Piano

“There's much to admire in Groh's playing of these four sets...especially the beautifully judged palette of keyboard colours with which he shades these exquisite pieces. At times the quiet inwardness of the music escapes him - he's more at home, for instance, with the comparative extroversion of the Rhapsodie with which Op 119 ends, than with the delicately pearled intermezzo with which the set opens - and not everything in these pieces unfolds with the naturalness and expressive breadth that they ideally need. But Groh's playing has a musicality and honesty.” The Guardian, 20th June 2008 ***

“Sometimes in the more fiery pieces, such as the capriccios of Op 116, Groh seems limited in his colour range. Yet it is the poetic touch that matters here, and he clearly possesses that in spades, as the opening piece of Op 117, the beautifully gauged dying cadence of Op 116, No 6, the rich colours of Op 118, No 2, and the direct, unhurried simplicity of the first piece of Op 119 all testify.” Sunday Times, 15th June 2008 ***

“Late Brahms that demonstrates the pianist's supreme control and sensitivity.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2008

“Trenchant, focused Brahms from a formidable player . . . . Nicholas Angelich is an American pianist, trained in Paris, whose performances on this disc are of a wholly exceptional drama, sweep and impeccable craftsmanship. Few young pianists have so little truck with flighty, salon-ish alternatives to seriousness, and his Brahms is sufficiently authoritative to make one long to hear him in the piano concertos. . . . . Angelich’s is nonetheless among the finest recordings of Brahms’s formidable masterpiece.” Gramophone

"Inger Södergren shows amazing maturity. Expressed with a naturalness that is the greatest asset, her playing, revealing a fine sense of musical shading, is the best rendering of these, Brahm's final pianistic dreams."Gramophone.