“… The SACD sound quality is all it should be, consistent across the different recording venues. Both Kellerman and Karlsen are thoughtful, creative musicians, and if ever a music program amount to more than the sum of its parts, this is it.”

***** Coup de Cœur

“The London Philharmonic is at its best here, accompanying Kellerman with glorious shimmering textures in a programme centred around Spanish guitar works …” ****

“…Even in Rodrigo’s courtly Concierto de Aranjuez, the spirit and sometimes the substance of flamenco are never far away...Kellerman, Karlsen and the LPO treat the Rodrigo as new music. There is room for neither sentiment nor sentimentality, not even in the Adagio. The relationship between soloist and orchestra is the dialectic of the bullfight. This quality is accentuated in Francisco Coll’s Turia..”

“There has been a surprisingly modest number of recordings of this most popular of all guitar concertos in the surround sound medium, so it’s particularly good to greet this new one by Jacob Kellermann – and the fact that this new reading is as sensitive to the nuance and the colour of the piece as one could wish … The balance between guitar and orchestra – always tricky in the concert hall – is handled here most adroitly … Rodrigo’s work is the perfect opening to Kellermann’s and Karlsen’s project, intended to conjure up Spain ‘as if through a prism – as a concept rather than a place’.”

“The recording of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the Swedish guitarist Jakob Kellermamnn and under the direction of the Swedish conductor Christian Karlsen is one of the most interesting that has come out in recent years. This becomes particularly noticeable in the magnificent BIS recording, which perfectly reproduces the transparent orchestral playing. The sound is well balanced, perfectly three-dimensional in width, depth and height. The soloist’s richly ornamented performance is just as striking as the great colourful accents, especially of the woodwinds in the orchestra. The Rodrigo Concerto has definitely not often been heard in such colourful form… Turia is an exciting work, very demanding both soloistically and orchestrally, and immediately gripping in its rhetoric. Two atmospheric interpretations of de Falla’s and Albeniz’s pieces lead to Pete Harden’s Solace and Shimmer which the British composer describes as an impressionistic ode to the dry heat of southern Europe.  Similarly flickering sounds have been heard in Western film soundtracks describing the vast desert steppes of western America. In any case, Harden’s music is very evocative and kind of a musical film scene.” *****