FRANZ SCHUBERT

“These gifted young Germans get the scale of the music just right, with the playing mostly light and intimate. The final track, Schubert’s later Rondo Brilliant, proves to be an ideal addition.”

Geoff Brown

“It is particularly refreshing that Julia Fischer, one of the younger generation of world’s most promising string players, has not only taken these works to heart, providing a scintillating account of the Rondo Brilliant by way of an encore, but also given them the best possible new lease of life by making a persuasive and invigorating case for their continued promotion and enjoyment among violinists and audiences alike. She is aided in no small measure by the young pianist martin helmchen, who is enjoying a flourishing career as a soloist and also, on the evidence of this new PentaTone release, as an accompanist of stature…..If the second volume in this series is as good, it will be worth the wait."

Richard Evans

“These well-recorded performances by Fischer and Helmchen (I listened to them in stereo mode), as distinctive—in their own way—as those by Andrew Manze, not only provide a pleasant hour of music-making at a very high level but offer what almost amounts to an alternative, cleaned, and restored view of Schubert’s works—one without outré mannerisms or timbres. If this weren’t enough, the volume appears to be Vol. 1 of a complete collection—with the Sonata in A Major and the Fantasy in C apparently on the way. But why wait, since this first volume deserves to be urgently recommended in itself.”

Robert Maxham

“This issue is billed as Vol 1; I eagerly await its successor.”

Duncan Druce

“The collaboration with Helmchen is one of seamless understanding and fluidity. Helmchen’s touch is as sensitive and graceful as Fischer’s, and the two together produce an entirely beautiful soundscape filled with moving dynamics, precise articulation, and sublime balance…. PentaTone’s sound is spacious and inviting, and those listening in multichannel mode will enjoy the sensation of sitting right between Fischer and Helmchen.”

Mike D. Brownell

“Julia Fischer and Martin Helmchen are here at their best, and the perfect osmosis of the two instruments allows the famous composer’s music to blossom into a unique play of colors, with exemplary phrasing to match. This is a musical wonder, in short…”

Jean-jacques Millo

                Performance*****      Recording*****
“I began to listen with mild feelings of resignation, but the playing is so spontaneous, invigorating and fresh that, though I wouldn’t want, on the whole, to listen straight through, I found it constantly enjoyable.”

Michael Tanner