SACD, Purcell (composer)
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the result is coherently put together, with Hughes's resourceful vocal imagination and use of tone, plus the subtlety and careful placement of her decorations, drawing the ear again and again. —
Awards:
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Gramophone Magazine, March 2026, Editor's Choice
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the most striking aspects of Podger’s playing throughout this recital (compared to most 20th-century ‘golden-agers’), is her enhanced range of tone and articulation, her vastly more flexible... —
Awards:
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Presto Editor's Choice, October 2022
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2022
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BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2023, Recording of the Year
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BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2023, Winner - Instrumental
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Opus Klassik Awards, 2023, Winner - Solo Instrumental
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Gramophone Awards, 2023 Finalists, Finalist - Instrumental
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Victorious Love - Songs by Henry Purcell
RecommendedCarolyn Sampson (soprano), Laurence Cummings (harpsichord & spinet), Elizabeth Kenny (archlute / theorbo), Anne-Marie Lasla (bass viol), Sarah Sexton (violin I), Andrea Morris (violin II) & Jane Rogers (viola)
Her tone is extraordinarily beautiful: natural, warm and unforced, with almost superhuman vocal athleticism —
Awards:
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Building a Library, February 2014, Top Recital Recommendation
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Gramophone Magazine, December 2007, Editor's Choice
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Penguin Guide, Rosette
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The art of vocal duetting is exemplified at its best in this recital by two of today’s finest British singers, working with an accompanist of equal merit…each singer has solo items…Yet the most... —
Awards:
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BBC Music Magazine, Choral & Song Choice
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Gramophone Magazine, November 2017, Editor's Choice
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Gramophone Awards, 2018, Shortlisted - Solo Vocal
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Heroines of Love and Loss
vocal chamber music from the 17th century
Ruby Hughes (soprano), Mime Yamahiro Brinkmann (cello) & Jonas Nordberg (lute / theorbo / archlute)
Ruby Hughes’s soprano has an effortless beauty: pliant, subtly expressive, never forced. She captures the chaste fervour of the sacred works…Brinkmann and Nordberg proffer aptly spontaneous... —
Awards:
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Gramophone Magazine, May 2017, Editor's Choice
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The virtuoso violistes of Hespèrion XX underscore the stark melancholy of Purcell's fantasias in these intense, poetic readings from 1994. —
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If the Fates Allow - Music By Purcell and His Contemporaries
Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano), Sounds Baroque, Julian Perkins
She is someone who acts fully with her vocal armory, and we can see this in the way she does not only project her voice with prettiness and fluency...Helen Charlston is a special singer. The... —
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Watkins’s cycle shares Britten’s ability to meld text and musical gesture with an acuity seemingly effortless, almost plucked ready-formed out of the air...An exquisite release touched with... —
Awards:
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Presto Editor's Choice, November 2022
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BBC Music Magazine, February 2023, Recording of the Month
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this is a thoughtful, evocative and confident debut. —
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Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
Original 1973 quadraphonic recording by Philips Classics, remastered in 2015
Josephine Veasey, Helen Donath, Delia Wallis, Elizabeth Bainbridge, Gillian Knight, Thomas Allen, John Shirley-Quirk, Frank Patterson
Academy of St Martin in the Fields & John Alldis Choir, Sir Colin Davis
