We are delighted that two of our artists appear in the short-list for the prestigious Gramophone Classical Music Awards, whose winners will be announced on 27 September 2012.
René Pape has been short-listed in the Recital category for his contribution in a disc of Wagner scenes with Plácido Domingo and the Staatskapelle Berlin conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Gramophone magazine praised Pape’s “eloquent ardour” and said that “when it comes to sheer vocal refinement and the purest Wagnerian gravitas, René Pape is hard to beat.”
Following on from the success of the Brahms Symphonies series, Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s second recording of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem – in which Matthew Brook features as a soloist – has been short-listed for the Choral category. Matthew Brook’s performance in this disc was praised by the critics, who said that his “dark-hued baritone is excellent for the role” and that “he opens ‘Herr, lehre doch mich’ with a simple eloquence that is very persuasive…The combination of an unaffected solo baritone and period woodwind at ‘Ach, wie gar nichts sind alle Menschen’ is extremely effective…”
