“Fragrant and luxuriant”: The Prince Consort’s debut at Cheltenham Festival

Performing a programme of love songs recently recorded for Linn Records, The Prince Consort have been receiving excellent reviews for their Cheltenham Music Festival debut. Jill Bacon describes the programme as “sensitive and rapturous…light yet expressive”, finding that “the vocal blending was strong and the tone colour excellent” (Gloucester Echo). Similarly, Stephen Pritchard, writing in The Observer, cautions that “A health warning should be slapped on the vocal group the Prince Consort. Anyone feeling even vaguely troubled by matters of the heart should avoid their programme of fervent love songs or the vapours will surely ensue.” Commenting on the “febrile passion” invested in Brahms’s Liebeslieder Op 52 and Neue Liebeslieder Op 65, Pritchard is especially struck by the group’s “affecting” performances of Stephen Hough’s Other Love Songs, describing “Jacques Imbrailo’s creamy baritone” and the “superb support at the piano from Alasdair Hogarth and Philip Fowke”. In particular, he finds the programme’s “glorious conclusion” - Brahm’s Neue Liebeslieder - to be “as fragrant and luxuriant as a rose in full bloom” (The Observer).

Read the full reviews here.