CDs
Released February, 2022
Pohádka - Tales from Prague to Budapest
Reviews:
BBC Music Magazine, Hellen Wallace, March 2022
“Laura van der Heijden and Jams Coleman unleash Pohádka’s power with this big-boned reading, with its hair-trigger transitions from dreaming innocence to cataclysm … it’s a treat to hear Kodály’s too-rarely performed Sonata Op.4. These performers bring sonorous depth and mystery to its long-limbed first movement, and spritely wit to its dancing finale.”
Gramophone, Guy Rickards, April 2022
"The players clearly share a tangible musical understanding and rapport, and catch Pohádka’s ambivalent quality very neatly...Their technical prowess comes to the fore in Kodály's Sonata, the two movements of which contain a wealth of expression..."
BBC Radio 3 Record Review, Andrew McGregor, February 2022
“I love the impulsive passion of Laura van der Heijden's cello playing, while Jâms Coleman has a real feel for the fragility and sadness of the piano writing, as well as the combustible quality of some of the outbursts of emotion. The whole recital is beautifully made … proper storytelling in music"
The Strad, Janet Banks, March 2022
“The interesting programming, engaging playing, an empathetic partnership and a convincingly real, immediate sound combine to make this a disc that’s worth seeking out."
Released November, 2021
The Other Erlking: Songs and Ballads of Carl Loewe
Often referred to as ‘the Schubert of North Germany’, it is our hope that this album will show the remarkable versatility of Loewe and might shed some deserved light on his less well-known songs as well as the astonishingly arresting ballads.
Reviews:
Hugo Shirley, Gramophone: “This is a fine and enjoyable debut from an outstanding young pair … Mogg and Coleman capture this world beautifully, with the baritone’s voice - relatively light but reassuringly incisive in timbre - conveying an impressive range and the pianist bringing real drama and virtuosity to the accompaniment ... it’s good to hear these pieces, too seldom represented on disc, and welcome this handsome, intelligent and beautifully recorded debut from two fine young artists.”
- Hugo Shirley (January, 2022)
Martin Cullingford - Nicholas Mogg, One to Watch, Gramophone: “The Leader of Loewe is lesser-known music for many, making Mogg’s advocacy of the composer in his newly released album both a timely and delightful debut. This survey of the ’North German Schubert’ is instantly engaging and communicative… Mogg is joined on the Champs Hill recording by equally impressive storyteller of the piano, Jâms Coleman.”
Natasha Loges, BBC Music Magazine (****): “Coleman and Mogg deliver, especially in the dramatic numbers. Mogg is comfortable across the enormous range and demonstrates much of the timbral flexibility these songs need. Coleman’s playing is outstanding, with thrilling variety in the shimmering piano textures of ‘Erlkönig’; similarly, ‘Herr Oluf’ and ‘Die wandelnde Glocke’ inspire huge variety and imagination at the piano … There’s much to admire here”
Claire Seymour, Opera Today: “Mogg’s baritone is free and true, and, relishing the colours and contours of the German texts, he projects richly at the bottom and with ease and clarity at the top. Mogg is a natural and engaging storyteller who allows himself, like one of Dickens’ narrators, to be enchanted by his own tale, slipping into his characters’ emotions as he relives their conversations or recounts their experiences. He’s not afraid to embrace the hyperbole and sentimentality in which Loewe, again recalling Dickens, is prone to indulge, and rightly so since they fuel the dramatic and emotional surge of the songs. Coleman, too, appreciates the bravura of the piano’s scene-setting introductions, and is an agile, adaptable accompanist when the singer-actor takes the limelight; in the piano postludes, he deftly brings the sung stories to swift and assured conclusion.”