Contents
J Listen to extracts from the Recording of the Year and the five other finalists, as well as the Editor's Choice Award-winner and music from the recipients of the Artist of the Year and Lifetime Achievement Awards.
Anonymous 4's charttopping "American Angels", the vocal group delve deeper into the folk music of America. The singers are obviously enjoying themselves enormously, and the arrangements combine a sense of meticulous craft with joyful rhythmic freedom. Life-enhancing stuff. Great to have the four...
Bryn Terfel is always at his best in Mozart, which perfectly suits his bassbaritone's in-built elegance, and shows off its scope without over-stretching (so often the case with his Wagner). This album is an absolute delight, the showman in Terfel revelling in the different characters. Some...
Further confirming his credentials as one of today's most gifted and most interesting Lieder singers, Ian Bostridge is a rare tenor interpreter of these Wolf songs. He and Antonio Pappano (proving, as with so many conductors, an ideal accompanist) have a clear natural empathy with this composer.
Daniel Hope has gained a reputation as a rather cerebral violinist. He's a musician who thinks deeply about his interpretations. The downside is that sometimes, as with his recent Shostakovich disc, that can lead to a lack of raw energy, of passion. Not so here; for Bach, Hope finds an ideal...
There's nothing clever-clever or self-conscious about Finghin Collins's Schumann. This young pianist obviously has virtuosity to burn, but he turns in direct, almost spare performances. For anyone who feels that Schumann piano interpretations have become rather hackneyed in some quarters, this...


