“… Williams sings artfully … Iain Burnside provides sensitive pianism, and the recorded sound is full and natural…”

“A perceptive, deeply considered and poetically sung interpretation.”

“… The Chandos recording is ideally sensitive to the openness in Williams’s youthful baritone, which can shift eloquently both to a disarming clarity in his middle register to a haunted, veiled quality; he charts the miller’s minute dissection of ‘she-loves-me, she-loves-me-not’-type observations with deadly accuracy, and in his higher voice his light, flexible vibrato is immensely expressive… All this works powerfully in the pivotal songs, from ‘Pause’ (XII) to ‘Die böse Farbe’ (XVII), in which he teases out the millers amazement, jealousy and loss with unswerving insight, and the intertwining imagery of fate, flowing water and the colour green reveal how thoroughly both artists have understood the cycle’s poetic and emotional arch, gathering to a quietly devastating close. Burnside’s role at the piano is equally subtle, as he makes the distinction between confrontation and reflection with artless directness, and the recording ensures that the piano’s retreats never sound artificial… The Williams-Burnside duo is seriously sympathetic, with the sort of imagination that ensures there is something new to hear after many hearings of this fine release…” *****

Performance ****      Recording *****

“… Sublimely poignant; poignantly sublime.”

“… Williams sings intelligently, thoughtfully and beautifully, and both he and Burnside give the impression of having rethought and re-examined every song; they are also unusually faithful to Schubert’s markings. Williams’s bright, liquid baritone has arguably the ideal youthfulness and vulnerability for Die schöne Müllerin. Chandos’s recorded sound is superb, too…”

“Many discriminate music-lovers will have been waiting a long time for this – Roderick Williams’s interpretation of Schubert’s masterpiece in song. This issue deserves a place in any lieder collection, for Williams understands fully the ethos of these twenty songs … Throughout Williams is exquisitely partnered by Iain Burnside and it is a tribute his range and flexibility that he is able so perfectly to accommodate himself to this noble singer’s profound artistry. The recorded balance is exemplary.” *****