Chosen by Times critics as one of the best Classical albums of 2020

“This is a fascinating, very well sung, difficult program. Both the vocal and piano parts are exceptionally demanding, and both of the performers are well up to the task… This outstanding release is complemented by a significant booklet essay, and texts with good English translations.”

“Louise Alder’s recording presence moves into a considerably higher gear with this release … distinctively curated to further tap into her intelligence, remarkable linguistic range and emotionally vibrant instincts …”

Performance ****      Recording *****

“… Mesmerising.”

Album of the Week

“… the soprano Louise Alder has devised a fascinating programme … her artistry is such that she deploys a wide-ranging colour, and her linguistic skills embrace Swedish settings by Sibelius, German ones by Grieg and Medtner, and Tchaikovsky’s French songs for Désirée Artôt. With Joseph Middleton her sensitive pianist, Alder is as compelling in poetry of loss and despair as she is in Tchaikovsky’s airy Rondel or Grieg’s carefree Lauf der Welt, her tone always as lovely as her diction is clear.”

“… she [Alder] has a beautifully clean, even and shining lyric soprano that projects with crystalline clarity, as well as a warm and attractive stage presence. More than that, she engages emotionally with what she sings, shaping vocal lines with rare sensitivity and a wide range of colours… Inspired by her mother’s ancestral roots in Odessa, Alder and her marvellously resourceful and imaginative pianist, Joseph Middleton, have devised a strikingly original programme that travels through Russia and Scandinavia with songs both familiar and unfamiliar by Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Medtner and Britten…” *****

Classical Album of the Week

“Here’s a really lovely disc from two of classical song’s brightest artists… Alder is in glorious voice, her soprano fresh and untethered; the assurance of youth and the doubt born of experience come across equally convincingly. Her high notes gleam, and her words are direct and communicative, whether in Russian, Swedish, German or French.  Middleton’s playing fills in everything those words can’t say, perfectly calibrated to support Alder but huge in its expressive scope… a disc you will want to play again right away.” *****

Recording of the Week

“…Alder’s easy facility with the various languages encompassed by the programme was another slightly unexpected delight for me, having heard her mainly in Italian-language roles until now: her incisive German was already a known quantity thanks to a mettlesome Sophie in Glyndebourne’s Der Rosenkavalier a few years ago, but she’s equally responsive and idiomatic in Russian, French and Swedish (listen to her expressive use of consonants to evoke the rustling reeds in Sibelius’s Säv, säv, susa whilst maintaining immaculate legato and you’ll see what I mean)… Alder’s partnered by the superb young song pianist Joseph Middleton, who seems to have a special affinity with light lyric sopranos … There’s certainly plenty for Middleton to get his teeth into here, especially in the Rachmaninov songs, where the intricate filigree of Daisies sparkles with beguiling clarity … He’s also a born story-teller, anticipating shifts in atmosphere before it’s spelled out in the texts when required, and conjuring up whole aviaries of birdsong worthy of Messiaen in Grieg’s and Britten’s depictions of nightingales. Shot through with glimpses of spring around the corner, this imaginatively-programmed and gloriously performed recital is the perfect companion for a long winter’s evening: if it gave me one or two ‘sleepless nights’ of my own, it was only because its many beauties continued to run through my mind well after lights-out.”