Hyperion Records: 20 unmissable recordings
Friday, July 28, 2023
20 outstanding albums from Hyperion Records, all of them Gramophone Award-winners, and all available to stream
As it is announced that recordings by Hyperion are now available on streaming services it seemed like the perfect opportunity to listen again to 20 of the great British independent label's most outstanding recordings, all of them recipients of Gramophone Awards.
Shostakovich Violin Concertos
Alina Ibragimova vn State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia 'Evgeny Svetlanov' / Vladimir Jurowski
Gramophone Concerto Award 2021
'If there’s one factor above all that sets these performances apart it’s the osmosis between soloist and conductor. There’s a musical and intellectual friction going on here and it has to do with the balance between head and heart.'
The Romantic Piano Concerto 27 - Saint-Saëns
Stephen Hough pf City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo
Gramophone Awards 2002: Recording of the Year
'Hough commands the range of the big statements‚ whatever their character‚ as well as sparkle and panache‚ a sense of drama and seemingly inexhaustible stamina; and he can charm.'
Elgar. Beach Piano Quintets
Garrick Ohlsson pf Takács Quartet
Gramophone Chamber Award 2021
'Ohlsson and the Takács are to be congratulated for the warmth of their interpretation and for their ability to encompass the challenging range of Elgar’s complex moods.'
Bach The Cello Suites
Steven Isserlis vc
Gramophone Instrumental Award 2007
'Suffice to say that Isserlis’s Bach is a major entrant into an already highly distinguished field, and a disc many will want to return to again and again.'
Martin Mass for Double Choir
Westminster Cathedral Choir / James O'Donnell
Gramophone's Recording of the Year 1998
'The luminous tone this choir produce in both these inspired and masterly works will ring in your ears long after you have finished playing this splendidly recorded disc.'
Mompou Piano Music
Stephen Hough pf
Gramophone Instrumental Award 1998
'Hough’s command of tonal nuance throughout is ultra-sensitive, he catches Mompou’s wistful moods to perfection.'
Mussorgsky Pictures From An Exhibition Prokofiev Visions fugitives
Steven Osborne pf
Gramophone Instrumental Award 2013
'Here, once more, is an ideal blend of fidelity to the score, with a subtle and distinctive rather than overbearing musical personality.'
CPE Bach Württemberg Sonatas
Mahan Esfahani hpd
Gramophone Baroque Instrumental Award 2014
'The elusive fusion of thematic intricacy, ‘Baroque’ rhetoric and ‘proto-Classical’ Sturm und Drang offered by the instrument are caught perfectly by Esfahani’s supple touch and disarming sense of rhetorical pacing.'
Hildegard of Bingen A feather on the breath of God
Emma Kirkby; Gothic Voices / Christopher Page
Gramophone Early Music Award 1982/3
'Was this really how religious music sounded nearly 900 years ago? I for one am prepared to believe it as I listen to such fine singing of these meandering medieval plainchant lines and the more musically complex Sequences.'
JS Bach Cantatas Nos 54, 82 & 170
Iestyn Davies counterten Arcangelo / Jonathan Cohen
Gramophone Baroque Vocal Award 2017
'The dominant virtue in this fine collaboration between the outstanding Davies and Arcangelo lies in an unsentimental perspicacity, reassuring in its intelligence and deep sensitivity.'
Howells Requiem & other works
Sols; Trinity College Choir Cambridge / Stephen Layton
Gramophone Choral Award 2012
'This is a perfect disc of its kind.'
Janáček The Diary of One Who Disappeared
Nicky Spence ten Julius Drake pf
Gramophone Solo Vocal Award 2020
'A superb achievement by Spence and Drake, in particular, and as persuasive an introduction to Janáček’s songs as you’ll find. Excellent engineering and presentation from Hyperion crown an outstanding release – highly recommended.'
Britten Complete Works for Piano & Orchestra
Steven Osborne pf BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Ilan Volkov
Gramophone Concerto Award 2009
'Osborne and his colleagues make the best possible case for pieces which have tended to be placed on the outer fringes of the Britten canon. The recordings, made in Glasgow’s Henry Wood Hall, have ample depth of sonority and vividness of colour.'
Byrd Infelix ego
The Cardinall's Musick / Andrew Carwood
Gramophone's Recording of the Year 2010
'There is and has been much to praise, and at a time when early music ensembles are finding it increasingly difficult to get concerts or make records, the commitment of singers and label alike is a cause for gratitude, perhaps even optimism. Congratulations to all concerned.'
Victoria Missa Ave Maris Stella
Westminster Cathedral Choir / David Hill
Gramophone Early Music Award 1985
'This is one of the best choral records of its kind currently available. I can recommend it without reservation.'
Cardoso Requiem, Lamentations, Magnificat & motets
Cupertinos / Luís Toscano
Gramophone Early Music Award 2019
'This is the first recording by Cupertinos for Hyperion and it is a pleasure to have a Portuguese ensemble tackle its native repertory.'
The Romantic Piano Concerto 11: Scharwenka & Sauer
Stephen Hough pf City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Lawrence Foster
Gramophone's Recording of the Year 1996
'As magisterial as it is ear-tickling and affectionate, his playing glows with warmth in the third movement Lento and pulses with the most nonchalant glitter in the finale; one guaranteed to strike down less intrepid and fluent spirits with St Vitus's dance.'
Schumann Dichterliebe & other Heine settings
Gerald Finley bar Julius Drake pf
Gramophone Solo Vocal Award 2009
'In close collusion with the ever-sentient Julius Drake, Gerald Finley gives one of the most beautifully sung and intensely experienced performances on disc of Schumann’s cycle of rapture, disillusion and tender regret.'
Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues for piano, Op 87
Tatiana Nikolayeva pf
Gramophone Instrumental Award 1991
'The recording is clear and atmospheric, the booklet detailed and informative, and the playing has power, grandeur, character, intellectual clarity and unforced intensity.'
Godowsky The Complete Studies on Chopin's Études
Marc-André Hamelin pf
Gramophone Instrumental Award 2000
'Rarely can such a gargantuan task - truly a labour of Hercules - have been accomplished with such strength, grace and agility, with an ease bordering on nonchalance.'
