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Reviews

• What makes the programme worth considering are the solo pieces and the expert way Josefowicz negotiates them. Salonen's Lachen verlernt ('Laughing Unlearnt') is named after a movement from Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire in which the narrator declares she has unlearnt the skill of laughing and begs Pierrot, the 'horse-doctor to the soul', to give it back to her. In all essentials this is a chaconne which climaxes with frenetic insistence and provides plenty of opportunities both for display (towards the end of the piece) and subtler shading.
  Rob Cowan, The Gramophone, 01 July 2005
• Lachen Verlernt by Esa-Pekka Salonen is more the sort of high-wire act that Josefowicz relishes.
  Philip Clark, Classic fM Magazine, 01 June 2005
• ...rapt concentration and infinitely subtle emotional and dynamic terracing of these performances... Salonen's Lachen verlernt provides an at times bracingly pyrotechnical take on the ancient chaconne... A winner.
  Julian Haylock, BBC Music Magazine, 01 June 2005
• The stand-out item for me was Esa-Pekka Salonen's Lachen verlernt, a marvellous, full-bodied piece, happily given the unfettered treatment it deserves.
  Geoff Brown, The Times, 15 April 2005