Gramophone Magazine

November 2007

“Maxim Rysanov's viola has an inward, lamenting quality that Yuri Bashmet's more conventionally projected manner misses. And it feels as though the chorus and orchestra (from Latvia's third city) are living and breathing every note… Crucially, the acoustic of Riga's Dome Cathedral has a rich resonance, wonderfully captured. The texts of Styx consist of a succession of names ad words, all of profound and intimate significance to the composer. This performance made me really feel that significance. The extraordinary qualities of Latvian choral singing - fullness of tone, legato and intense stillness - have been often extolled. In The Myrrh-Bearer there is the added advantage of the kind of basso profundo richness that I would imagine Taverner can only rarely have found in the UK.”

BBC Music Magazine

October 2007

****

“Rysanov yields little to Bashmet in terms of intensity of expression and the capacity to sustain an atmospheric melodic line.”

Gramophone Classical Music Guide

2010

“Maxim Rysanov's viola has an inward, lamenting quality. And it feels as though the chorus and orchestra (from Latvia's third city) are living and breathing every note. Crucially, the acoustic of Riga's Dome Cathedral has a rich resonance, wonderfully captured. The sound stage is as wide and deep as the music demands. Expressive extremes register as more abrupt, more startling and more challenging – harder-edged in their ecstasy. The music first transfixes, then scalds, and when consolation intervenes it feels multifaceted and somehow palpably wise. The texts of Styx consist of a succession of names and words, all of profound and intimate significance to the composer. This performance makes one really feel that significance.

The extraordinary qualities of Latvian choral singing – fullness of tone, legato and intense stillness – have been often extolled. In The Myrrh-Bearer there is the added advantage of the kind of basso profundo richness that one would imagine Tavener can only rarely have found in the UK.

Whether his piece is perhaps a little too reliant on those subterranean tones, and whether the pairing with Kancheli reveals a slight thinness of invention, are suspicions that may either firm or fade with further acquaintance. In the meantime, all that seems important is to surrender to the urgency and fervour of another extraordinary performance.

In short, here is a disc to blow the mind of anyone already in tune with these composers, and possibly one that may even lead a few sceptics towards a Damascene conversion.”