GRIEG:ORCHESTERSTÜCKE

There have been more than a few excellent recent releases of Grieg’s music for string orchestra, notably on Naxos, including orchestrations of his String Quartet in G minor. The Quartet took a lot of heat when it first came out on account of its acres of double-stops and consequent “orchestral” sound, and truth is that it makes an absolutely terrific piece for larger ensemble, losing very little in translation. Tognetti’s arrangement really is as good as any, and as you can well imagine he has his crack ensemble playing the piece to a fare-thee-well, with all of the passion and drive that one could possibly ask for.

The Naxos releases divided discs between the quartet arrangements (including Grieg’s incomplete Quartet in F major) and all of the remaining works for string orchestra. Tognetti presents a mixture. His arrangement of Erotikk, from the Lyric Pieces, is charming and effective, and rather more sensual than the keyboard original. The Two Elegiac Melodies are touching, fluid, and less heavy in these performances than when played by larger forces; but the highlight of the disc must be the performance of the Holberg Suite.

Even though it has been done to death, this version stands out for the vivacious charm and witty phrasing of its Praeludium (sound sample attached), and for the rustic brilliance of the concluding Rigaudon. In between, the Gavotte also has a welcome spring to its step, and as with the Elegiac Melodies the two slower movements never bog down in excessive sentiment. Mind you, sentiment in this music, and plenty of it, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you are going to use smaller forces, this is surely the way to do it. Sonically, this is absolutely state of the art: clear, pure, and tactile in the best way. If the coupling appeals, go for it.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

To list the various distinctions awarded to the recordings that make up this sumptuous offering is almost impossible; suffice it to say that the entire series received the Grieg Award in 2007, the year of the hundredth anniversary of the death of the composer, as well as a very special commendation by the UK Grieg Society the same year.

During 2003-2006, as the individual discs were released, reviewers all over the world were heaping praise over the series – astoundingly enough, as this is repertoire that at least in part belong to some of the most well-represented on disc. But this did not seem to matter to the critics, who described the performance of the Piano Concerto as one that ‘will make you fall in love with the music all over again’ (American Record Guide) and that of the Holberg Suite ‘so compelling that it simply makes you forget about any other’ (Classics Today.com), deeming the Peer Gynt Suites to be ‘interpretations that rejuvenate even this almost hackneyed, overly familiar music, relieving it of all the ballast of performance history’ (klassik.com).

It was the freshness of the performances by Ole Kristian Ruud and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra that struck most critics – freshness coupled with expertise: ‘Bergen musicians have lived with these scores since their creation and all the performances here have a relaxed, idiomatic naturalness in their virtuosity’ (Gramophone). A second point was the superior sound quality – the result of inspired and painstaking work by the BIS recording staff in combination with the splendid acoustics of the Grieg Hall in Bergen. ‘Sonically this production features demonstration quality both in stereo and SACD multi-channel formats’ wrote the reviewer of Classics Today.com; ‘a fabulous complete cycle, admirably served by the splendid recording technique’ was the verdict in Classica-Répertoire.

The third factor contributing to the warm reception was of course the music itself, the fascination and power exerted by the Piano Concerto and the complete Peer Gynt, the emotion projected in Bergliot and Den Bergtekne, the charm and freshness of the orchestral songs and Lyric Suite – in the words of one reviewer: ‘music that you'd have to be either deaf or dead not to love’. The complete traversal, generally considered a reference point in the Grieg discography, is now available in this stereo-only version at a very advantageous price. (8 CDs for the price of 3)

Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites 1 & 2 / In Autumn / Sakari Oramo Composed by Edvard Grieg / Conductor Sakari Oramo / Orchestra City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. As soon as the strings respond to the flute near the beginning of Peer Gynt's 'Morning' you sense this is a quality production. A bolder Grieg than we're used to hearing, less perfumed than dramatic and with impressive orchestral playing from the Birmingham orchestra.

Mesmerising playing from a young pianist who captures the essence of Grieg’s genius

Let me put my cards on the table and say that Katya Apekisheva is a young pianist who has already achieved artistic greatness. Not even Gilels, in his legendary DG Grieg recital, played more magically or, astonishingly, with greater finesse. How thrilled Irina Zaritskaya, Apekisheva’s teacher and my much-missed jury colleague, would have been if she had lived to hear the fruit of her work with this profoundly gifted artist. A sonority of beguiling warmth and refinement and a rare poetic empathy quickly make you abandon paper and pencil and listen mesmerised as Apekisheva captures the very essence of Grieg’s genius. Here, in her mixed programme, she tells you with an often painfully beautiful and unforced eloquence of how Grieg’s romantic temperament was easily clouded by depression and unease, of the way, for example in “Homesickness” and “Vanished Days”, a heartbreaking state of mind is only temporarily modified by memories of happier times. In the Aria from the Holberg Suite she is deeply sensitive to the way Grieg’s love and respect for the 18th century is coloured by a near-Franckian chromaticism and dark introspection. These works and everything else on this beautifully recorded album suggest an artistic fervour and commitment given to very few in any generation.

The sense of the Lyric Pieces as Grieg’s confessional diary is everywhere in Apekisheva’s recital, an inwardness and vision less evident in Daniel Propper’s bracing recording of four books of the Lyric Pieces. Nimble-fingered and musicianly, this Swedish-Viennese pianist, who now makes his home in Paris, shows Grieg’s art evolving from simple beginnings into a world of increasing complexity and harmonic richness. His “Little Bird” (from Op 43) blithely chirrups in a manner far removed from Messiaen’s more spiritual feathered friends, and his way with “Erotic” from the same book achieves a fine sense of how outward contentment abruptly changes to emotional instability. In “Butterfly” he hardly matches Eileen Joyce’s incomparable nuance and vivacity (Testament), yet these finely recorded performances are an admirable antidote to all possible sentimentality.

-- Bryce Morrison, Gramophone [9/2008]

Classical Music

A beautifully packaged box of the complete Grieg piano music on BIS and a fantastic deal at 12 CDs for the price of 3.

There is so much here that one can explore these works for years and never truly get to the bottom of them... a collection of gems that sparkle from any angle.

Eva Knardahl's recordings of Grieg's music for solo piano – here completed with recordings by Love Derwinger of the works unpublished during Grieg's lifetime – have been a milestone ever since they were first released on LP at the end of the 1970s. The Norwegian pianist's interpretations of the music of her countryman blew away decades worth of cobwebs and caused many to reconsider an oeuvre of which one part was so well-known as to risk becoming banal and another was all but unknown. At the time of the first release one reviewer likened Knardahl to ‘an Alicia de Larrocha of the North, who makes her instrument ring out like a cathedral’. When the recordings were re-released on CD, another wrote that her performances ‘suggest that there's a lot more to Grieg's several hundred little pieces than pretty lyricism ... She brings a forthrightness and color to the Norwegian master – even a countrified robustness – that few have suspected is there. Knardahl's performance of the famous Piano Concerto is a rendering full of grandeur, poetry and power. She can really stand comparison with any of her rivals.’

FULL REVIEW

Norwegian-born pianist Eva Knardahl, who died in late 2006, had a very long career. Well-known in her native Norway, she made her debut at the age of 12 performing with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Throughout her life, she recorded a variety of works for piano, paying special attention to the works of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. This box set contains 12 CDs, covering all of Grieg’s compositions for piano.

Knardahl performs on the first ten discs in the set, and Love Derwinger is the pianist for the recordings on discs 11 and 12. This is a repackaging of individual discs that were released over the years, with the Knardahl recordings made between 1977 and 1980, and the Derwinger recordings dating from 1993. It seems unfair that only Knardahl gets her name on the front of the box; Derwinger is credited only on the back. Knaredahly’s recordings were issued first on LP and then reissued on CD in 1987.

The set contains a comprehensive booklet in English, Swedish, German and French, nearly 180 pages long - about 30 pages of text for each language. Fortunately, unlike many other Bis booklets, this one printed in a font that does not require a magnifying glass to read.

Grieg's piano music is one of the monuments of keyboard music, and probably deserves to be regarded much more highly. While not as intense as Beethoven's piano sonatas, or the works of Chopin or Liszt; while not as lofty as the vast output of Bach or that of Mozart, Grieg's piano music combines not only a unique impressionistic approach to the piano, but also elements of folk music from his native Norway. On top of that, many of the tunes in the short pieces are so engaging that you'll find yourself humming them.

Grieg's piano works are mostly made up of short pieces. His 66 lyric pieces, were composed throughout his career but there are also collections of Norwegian folk songs, peasant dances and other works. With just one piano sonata, and one piano concerto - but what a concerto! - his oeuvre is largely one of miniatures. But the size of these works in no way detracts from their interest and force. One can simply listen to the first of the Lyric Pieces, Arietta, to understand just how subtle Grieg's compositional style is. In a simple-sounding ballad of just over a minute, he manages not only to paint a melancholy picture, but also demonstrates that his harmonies are unique and unforgettable. This is a brief piano piece that is more a song without words than a statement of keyboard music.

The three discs of lyric pieces span his entire career, so listening to them in order offers not just a journey through melody, but also an opportunity to listen to how Grieg's style grew over time. His Op. 4 no. 3, Melody, has an intense, melodramatic sound, as does, for example, Op. 54, no. 1, Shepherd's Boy, which is a dark work. Some pieces have such lightness that one can only smile when listening to them. In a way, however, it is fitting that the final work in this series, Op. 71, no. 7, Forgetting, is a reworking of one of the earliest lyric pieces, Waltz, Op. 12 no. 2. Grieg comes full circle with this last lyric piece, showing the subtle ways in which his music evolved.

While there is pleasure enough in listening to the progression of Grieg's style through the first three discs of lyric pieces, one can start again with disc 4, which begins another examination of Grieg's career in chronological order. While it makes sense to group the lyric pieces on the first three discs - which also corresponds to the original release of these recordings on individual discs - it might have been more logical to reorder all the music so the twelve discs flowed in chronological sequence, rather than having two "sets" within the box.

Beginning with the earliest pieces, his Op. 1, Four Piano Pieces, his Poetic Tone-Pictures (Op. 3) and so on, the set traverses his output. In spite of the different names given to groups of works, Grieg's tone does not vary a great deal. All the pieces cover a range of tones from melancholy to exuberant, from bittersweet to pastoral.

An exception can be found in his sets of Norwegian folk songs, where he arranged the raw material of his country's music heritage for solo piano. These helped gain him greater notice, and are one of the finest examples of folk-music brought into the concert hall. There are dozens of such works, many of them tiny gems, others more substantial.

Grieg also wrote one piano sonata, which is somewhat different, on the surface, from his smaller works. A true romantic sonata, it nevertheless features his now familiar song-like approach to music, especially in its second movement. This sonata was and is often performed, yet it is surprising that he did not write another. He remained more interested in his miniatures though he also wrote orchestral and chamber works. In the same manner, he composed just the one piano concerto, which is an extremely popular and oft-performed work. It is played here by Knardahl, with the original version also performed by Love Derwinger.

One work that stands out is the Ballade in G minor, Op. 24, the longest amongst Grieg's pianistic output at just over 20 minutes in this recording. This comprises a series of 14 variations on a Norwegian folk song. Grieg composed this piece after the deaths of his parents in the autumn of 1875. He was overcome with grief, and that comes through in this densely emotional work Knardahl plays it with her emotions at her fingertips.

Some of the pieces are transcriptions from Grieg's larger orchestral works, such as Peer Gynt, Sigurd Jorsalfar, and the Holberg Suite. Grieg very much enjoyed making piano reductions of these works, and his transcriptions shed interesting light on the larger works from which they derive.

The last two discs contain works not published during Grieg's lifetime. Whether the early version of the Piano Concerto, alternate versions of a few works, or some very early pieces that he never deemed interesting enough for publication, these two discs in essence offer the extras or out-takes of Grieg's piano output.

Across the 787 minutes of this set, I have to confess to a preference for Grieg's shorter pieces over the piano sonata, concerto and Ballade. From almost any time in his career, from his lyric pieces to the Norwegian folk songs, from his "short pieces" to his transcriptions of his own songs, dipping into this astounding range of work is never disappointing. In the same way that Schubert rarely wrote a mediocre lied, Grieg has very few weak piano pieces. You can dip into these works at any time and the gods of shuffle will pull out an interesting juxtaposition of pieces that, in spite of when they were composed, fit together organically. There is so much here - again, the comparison to Schubert's lieder comes to mind - that one can explore these works for years and never truly get to the bottom of them. While the last two discs contain some works that are, perhaps, minor, the remainder of this set is a collection of gems that sparkle from any angle.

The recording quality of these discs is excellent, and the piano sounds present without too much reverb, though the Derwinger recordings are a bit hollower than the Knardahl discs. The recording hall adds a different type of reverb, and Derwinger plays a Steinway to Knardahl’s Bösendorfer. For an interesting recording, you might also want to listen to Leif Ove Andsnes' selection of Lyric Pieces played on Grieg's own piano. Given the price and completeness of this set, and the quality of the performances, there is little reason for you to hesitate. Even if you've only sampled Grieg's works in the past, this budget set is a fine reason to discover the full range of his piano compositions. Should you not want all this Grieg, however, the individual discs are still available from BIS, and the three CDs of Lyric Pieces would be a great purchase.

-- Kirk McElhearn, MusicWeb International

The music chosen for this tour of Norway is by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, taken from his many Lyric Pieces, short piano pieces that reflect the culture and life of Norway.

Includes work(s) by Edvard Grieg. Ensemble: Malmö Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Bjarte Engeset. Soloists: Inger Dam-Jensen, Palle Knudsen.

A Musical Journey - Norway

The Places
The legendary Norwegian figure Peer Gynt is widely known through Henrik Ibsen’s play that follows Peer’s unscrupulous adventures, a work that enjoys still further fame through the incidental music written for it by Edvard Grieg. Parts of the Norwegian countryside are identified with some of Peer Gynt’s adventures.

The Music
Greig collaborated with the greatest of Norwegian dramatists, Henrik Ibsen, in his music for the play Peer Gynt, from which he drew two orchestral suites. Grieg also worked with Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, providing incidental music for the historical play Sigurd Jorsalfar.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 54 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Choices, choices! Ole Kristian Ruud’s superb Grieg box on BIS was and remains a reference for this music, and it is just a smidgen more technically polished than these otherwise excellent performances. However, Engeset has a couple of points in his favor that may weigh significantly with collectors who don’t want to lay out the funds for both eight-CD sets (I did, and I don’t regret it). First, Engeset features even more orchestral music than Grieg actually wrote. To be fair, everyone does. The Norwegian Dances, for example, were orchestrated by Hans Sitt, and there are other short works scored by everyone from Anton Seidl to Johan Halvorsen.

Engeset, however, offers two welcome novelties: three of the Slatter orchestrated by Oistein Sommerfeldt, and most interesting of all, the massive Ballade for piano arranged for large orchestra by 20th century Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt. This massively scored transcription really brings out the music’s tragic power, and it’s very intensely performed by Engeset and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The other advantage that Engeset has over Ruud is a finer soloist for the piano concerto in Havard Gimse. Noriko Ogawa, on BIS, is perfectly fine as far as she goes, but Gimse goes quite a bit farther in terms of imaginative phrasing and tone color.

Otherwise, the two sets are very equally matched. Both conductors sound equally at home in the music, with versions of the Symphony, Norwegian Dances, Old Norwegian Romance with Variations, and Symphonic Dances that are equally persuasive and equally well performed. The Peer Gynt incidental music comes complete on both sets, and is played, sung, and spoken to the hilt. Vocal soloists (Inger Dam-Jensen in the Six Orchestral Songs) are fully involved and fully comparable. In most of the shorter pieces, direct comparison often reveals timings within a few seconds of each other (Bell Ringing is an exception, with Engeset notably slower than Ruud). What the heck, just get both.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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Classical Music

This release, seeing the light of day for the first time in this mid-priced series (the actual recording date isn't given), contains a selection of music from Grieg's Peer Gynt culled by Temirkanov from the complete score. You get all of the music from the two suites, plus such rarely heard numbers as Peer Gynt and the Woman in Green, Peer Gynt at the Statue of Memnon, the Whitsun Hymn (with chorus), and The Dance of the Mountain King's Daughter. The performances are very persuasive, with Termirkanov adopting some unusually expansive tempos (in Morning Mood) but also not stinting on the excitement (Peer Gynt's Homecoming and In the Hall of the Mountain King). The chorus sings very well and makes some effort to characterize its part, while Inger Dam-Jensen is something of a Solveig specialist. She sounds lovely.


Making this release even more attractive, Temirkanov includes lively and colorful performances of the four Norwegian Dances Op. 35, in the rarely heard contemporary orchestration by Danish composer Robert Henriques (Hans Sitt's are more commonly chosen). Per Dreier also used this edition in his pioneering recording of the complete Peer Gynt, but of course only included the first three, which found their way into subsequent productions. Having the complete set here is entirely apt and welcome. Johan Halvorsen's orchestration of the Bridal Procession from the piano solo Scenes from Country Life Op. 19 (No. 2) also partakes of the same spirit, making this disc an enjoyable and in some ways unique proposition. The sound also is very good, perhaps a touch studio-bound, but easy on the ear and well-suited to the music. No texts or translations are included--a cheap move, but one that does not detract from the disc's purely musical appeal. [6/28/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

A recital of Edvard Grieg's lovely Lyric Pieces for piano, transcribed for solo guitar. Guitarist Peter Fletcher wrote the transcriptions for this recording. Mr. Fletcher is in demand as a performer in cultural venues throughout the United States. '... strong technique, a consistent tone, and a bold interpretive imagination... ' - American Record Guide.

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Classical Music

Another BIS first. Not the music this time but the way it is packaged. BIS breaks new ground by offering the public the first surround-sound version of Grieg's justly popular Symphonic Dances. Like all our hybrid SACD releases, this disc is compatible with all CD players but will also provide a surround-sound performance - at no extra cost - to those who are equipped with the relevant hardware. This highly atmospheric music, which so easily removes the listener to the lonely beauty fo the Norwegian fjords, gains especially from the striking realism of a musically balanced surround-sound recording. Further enticement is added by the inclusion of both the Norwegian Dances and the Lyric Suite on this disc. The performances are by Grieg's own orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ole Kristian Ruud. This disc follows the recently released SACD1191 containing, among other works, the famous 'Piano Concerto' in our Grieg-Bergman PO - Ruud cycle.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.


If you want Grieg's complete Peer Gynt with dialogue, this is the set to own. It really does represent a new standard, musically, dramatically, and technically. Let me say up front that ordinarily I'm not a fan of music with dialogue, but these actors are so involved, and their participation is so skillfully integrated into the acoustic framework and the musical flow, that the sound of idiomatically spoken Norwegian becomes a sort of quasi-musical counterpoint all on its own. Of course, it helps that the actual music, as realized by Ruud and his Bergen forces, also is outstandingly played and sung. His interpretation has all of the necessary freshness and energy that Grieg's score requires. It's theatrical and exciting but also sensitive; rustic without being crude.


High points are almost too numerous to list: there's Ruud's ebullient overture and his perfectly judged accelerando at In the Hall of the Mountain King; the rush of excitement when Peer Gynt is being hunted by the trolls; the characterfully grotesque Dance of the Mountain King's Daughter; the effortless flow of Morning Mood; Anitra's sexy little belly dance; a wonderfully urgent Peer Gynt's Homecoming; a terrifying shipwreck that happily avoids tacky sound effects; and it's all capped by the beautiful vocal contributions of Marita Solberg, who sings a particularly earthy, warm-toned Solveig. As with all the participants in this performance, she seems not just concerned with getting the notes right, but she's also fully involved with the text and in communicating what the music means, almost as if it were new. The chorus also characterizes its part with enthusiasm, avoiding that "churchy" feel that sometimes dogs performances with voices (except, of course, in the Whitsun Hymn, where it's called for).


It's also worth pointing out the extreme care that BIS has taken over production values. In SACD multichannel format, not only do you get enhanced three-dimensionality with respect to the basic soundstage, but sensitive use of the rear speakers creates atmosphere--for example, at such moments as the scene with the Boyg, or at various places requiring offstage voices--without ever drawing gratuitous attention to the technical side of things. The bottom line is that this production offers an unparalleled experience of Grieg's music in which the technology is placed entirely in the service of musical and theatrical values. The packaging and presentation are also exceptional: you get two booklets, one with notes and texts (Norwegian and English), the other with production stills from the actual play. Clearly everyone concerned with this release has pulled out all of the stops, and it has paid off handsomely. An exceptional achievement. [6/28/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Grieg was the first great composer in the late 1880's to travel around Norway collecting folk tunes from the rural population and these proved to be a genuine source of inspiration to him. For John McCabe, as his original note for these recordings makes clear, Grieg was a far more significant figure than popular appreciation would suggest and these recordings came as quite revelatory in the early 1980's to wider audiences outside of the inner circle of specialists in Norweigian music.

Grieg: Orchestral Music, Vol. 1: Piano Concerto - Symphonic

Grieg, E.: Piano Music for 4 Hands

Grieg is one of the world’s best known composers, but the three Violin Sonatas are a relatively unfamiliar part of his output, despite being among his own favourite pieces. Grieg never wrote a violin concerto, and the foremost Norwegian violinist of his generation, Henning Kraggerud, assisted by Bernt Simen Lund, a member of the Tromsø Chamber Orchestra, has taken up the challenge of creating three new concertos from the sonatas. In these arrangements the solo violin is set against a string orchestra augmented by wind instruments in order to retain the feel of chamber music.

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Classical Music

Having completed his studies at the Brussels conservatoire and won first prizes at several distinguished competitions for young musicians, Matthieu Idmtal quickly became known as a specialist in the music of Alexander Scriabin. His debut on record was dedicated to a sequence of the Russian composer’s Etudes and Preludes, and it won him golden reviews. His Scriabin album was followed by an equally well-received album of the violin sonatas by Edvard Grieg, in company with his regular violin-recital partner Maya Levy. The natural sequel is this focus on the Norwegian composer’s solo output. Grieg composed seven books of Lyric Pieces across the course of his career: songs without words that amount to a diary of his compositional evolution as well as testament to enduring preoccupations such as the artistic transformation of folksong and the evocation of natural phenomena such as sunlight and the movement of water. Idmtal’s sequence ranges across all seven books, and does not shy away from established classics such as the Arietta and Wedding Day at Troldhaugen. However, he also includes several lesser-known and introspective masterpieces such as the Vanished Days and Homesickness from the Opus 57 set. Even by their side, however, the Piano Sonata Op 7 is an almost forgotten masterpiece. Grieg wrote it at the age of 22, recently graduated from the conservatoire in Leipzig, yet even within the first movement’s opening exposition there are shapes and harmonies that instantly identify the composer’s artistic fingerprint. The sonata reflects the ambitions and character of the young Grieg: high-spirited, virtuosic, impetuous, and permeated with brusque mood swings. Cast in a compressed version of the traditional four-movement form, it encompasses many changes of mood, sometimes very abrupt, as if the composer was overflowing with musical ideas and inspiration.

The playing of the Oslo Camerata here is uniformly excellent: vibrant, rhythmically taut, and full of life, though the Holberg Suite really comes into its own when played by a full symphonic string section, as opposed to a smaller group. Stephan Barratt-Due secures swifter tempos than we usually hear from larger ensembles, but at some sacrifice of the music's sheer charm (particularly in the concluding Rigaudon). Barratt-Due also increases the (limited) opportunities for contrast in the primarily slow and quiet remainder of the program by separating the Two Elegiac Melodies Op. 34--a smart move--but he curiously omits the first of the Two Lyric Pieces Op. 68 in favor of Ase's Death from Peer Gynt. Since the disc only plays for a bit more than 51 minutes, there was no earthly reason to leave anything out.

So if you want Grieg's complete music for string orchestra (and I assume everyone has the Peer Gynt music anyway), leaving aside performance issues and the question of price, the reference recording from Bergen on BIS remains the way to go. The fact that it's also an SACD may or may not count as an additional point in its favor. And speaking of missing items, the Naxos booklet includes only half of the notes as well, a printing error I assume will be corrected in due course! Still, if the program suits your fancy, these are recommendable performances, well engineered to boot.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com