A floral Gramophone Review

My Ensemble Hesperi has received a glowing review from Charlotte Gardner at Gramophone magazine for our latest release, A Gift for your Garden! She writes:

“The young members of award-winning London-based early music Ensemble Hesperi… have brough this carefully considered collection to multicoloured and attractively soft-polished life - think of a playing manner that takes the tack of easy-going, amiably convivial warmth and intimacy rather than super-taut, air-swishing pop, bristle and zing.

Appropriately enough, the Telemann works are particularly happy beneficiaries of this approach: his solo recorder Fantasia No 9 in E, transposed here to calmer G, appears gorgeously dulcetly lyric from Leith, her supremely nimble Vivace included; likewise the first of the ‘Paris’ Sonatas…, where the close-communicating instruments’ sensually poetic voicing and evenly weighted balance produces a showstopper of an Allegro, its radiant exuberance couched within satiny glow; then, while the more madcap virtuosity of his Polish folk-influenced Trio Sonata in G minor (wow, Leith’s rapid Vivace passagework!) comes suitable brighter-hued, there’s still a lovely cantabile nonchalant about the warmth and expressiveness of the strings’ slow-moving, recorder-embellished Largo lines. Such an enjoyable programme. Bravo!”

To read the full review, head to this link:

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/a-gift-for-your-garden-telemann-handel-graun-oswald