Ulrike Anton, David Parry, Russell Ryan, English Chamber Orchestra - Lost Generation: Ullmann, Schulhoff, Tausky (2013)

Exil.arte is an organisation committed to the restoration and reassessment of the achievement of composers who were labelled as degenerate and proscribed during the Third Reich. This, the fourth Gramola disc it has sponsored, features the music of two composers who are best known for the works they composed while incarcerated in Theresienstadt (Terezin) before being sent to their deaths in Auschwitz in 1944. In fact, only one piece here, the impressive, sometimes rather Schoenbergian Chamber Symphony, which has been arranged for strings from Viktor Ullmann's Third String Quartet, and given a strikingly incisive performance by the ECO under David Parry, actually originated in Theresienstadt. Erwin Schulhoff's Double Concerto for flute, piano and strings and his Flute Sonata both date from 1927 and are couched in a polished neoclassical style that seems closer to Hindemith than to any other composer; certainly it's hard to detect that Reger and (briefly) Debussy figured among Schulhoff's teachers.*** --Guardian, 23/03/13

Of the generation of Czech composers who perished in the death camps, Erwin Schulhoff is the most enigmatic. In David Parry's recording with the English Chamber Orchestra, his tangy Double Concerto is crisply realised. Kenneth Woods' arrangement of Viktor Ullmann's String Quartet No 3 has great depth of sound but loses the harrowing immediacy of the original. Vilem Tausky's "Coventry", written in exile, completes a testament to creative resilience. *** --Independent,06/04/13

Hats off to flautist Ulrike Anton, pianist Russell Ryan, the ECO and David Parry, producer Michael Hass and everyone else responsible for this well-performed programme. First-rate annotation, too. --Gramophone, July'13

Ulrike Anton and Russell Ryan project the music with evident affection: the English Chamber Orchestra under David Parry offers exemplary support.Performances throughout this unfailingly listenable programme are excellent. --IRR,, July /Aug'13