Collaborations (2024)

Deze voor de rest modern-klassiek repertoire bevattende disc sluit af met een door Neil Tennant gezongen popsong ter ondersteuning van Oekraïne, met gitaarsolo van David Gilmour. "Proceedings are launched by two sets of sharply inventive miniatures, Haiku 1: Birds and Haiku 2: Insects, conceived for pianist Clare Hammond and harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani respectively. These in turn frame a touching elegy for solo violin that Berkeley wrote for Madeleine Mitchell on the news of the death of Nicholas Snowman. Likewise, there’s no denying the consummate artistry shown by mezzo Alice Coote (persuasively partnered by Julius Drake) in the song-cycle Speaking Silence, containing darkly intense settings of (among others) Christina Rossetti, WB Yeats and the 16th-century French poet Pontus de Tyard. Not to be outdone, clarinettist Robert Plane teams up with viola player Rachel Roberts and pianist Chris Hopkins for a superbly compelling rendering of The Magnolia Tree." (Gramophone)