[…] the Beethoven and Brahms emerged with an invigorating freshness of approach thanks to the direction of the Milanese conductor Alessandro Crudele.

Helmchen and Crudele’s account could hardly be bettered. Miraculously, despite a large string quotient, Crudele ensured lightness and transparency from the orchestra.

[…] talking of togetherness, rarely have I heard the unison horns at the opening of the Andante moderato as if just one instrument was playing, just with a different colour to that of a single horn (and surely this is exactly what Brahms intended).

Brahms’ passacaglia masterclass was given just the right amount of space to breathe by Crudele while allowing the music to flow like Brahmsian lava.

But it was Crudele’s careful preparation for the trombone chorale entry that sealed the interpretation. The brass arrived as if we had been expecting them all the time, a moment of the utmost nobility.

Colin Clarke – CLASSICAL EXPLORER, 2024

The Four Sea Interludes from Britten’s “Peter Grimes,” Op. 33a (1945) turn out, under Crudele’s direction, to be a coherent descriptive piece, rendered with a rich and varied coloristic range.

★★★★

Stefano Crise – ARCHI MAGAZINE, 2024

The Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Alessandro Crudele succeeds superbly in a convincing rendering of these magnificent orchestral pieces.

The recording quality is also excellent. This will definitely bring a tear to your eyes on a rainy Sunday morning.

9/10

Frank Hougee – LUISTER, 2024

The Britten is a foolproof work, needing only incisive playing and alert direction, both of which it gets here. There are many good readings of this music. Crudele’s hold its own with them.

THE AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE, 2024

Crudele arrives at this second recording for Linn Records after an earlier and well-received one devoted to the music of Ottorino Respighi. […] it confirms his propensity toward a refined enhancement of the coloristic texture of the scores he tackles […] Above all, the four splendid pictures that Britten dedicates to the North Sea with an orchestration that is breathtaking in places lend themselves to a spectacular and brilliant tour de force that the Philharmonia Orchestra delivers with maximum transparency and naturalness.

Massimiliano Rolando Zegna – MUSIC PAPER MAGAZINE, 2024

Alessandro Crudele […] is the perfect conductor for Respighi.

Listen to how the London Philharmonic responds to Crudele in the glistening first movement of one of Respighi’s most famous pieces, Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome).

Most impressive, to me at least, is the nocturnal, the third movement, “I Pini del Gianicolo” […]

That’s a truly lovely performance, the LPO at their very best. 

So by all means come for the pines, but stay for a trip to Brazil, and to meet Queen Belkis. Remarkably alive performances, carefully sculpted, brilliantly played.

Colin Clarke – CLASSICAL EXPLORER, 2024

Alessandro Crudele animates the Philharmonia Orchestra to a lucid, finely drawn performance, the orchestral colours glow, images emerge, characters come to the fore.

★★★★★

Norbert Hornig – FONO FORUM, 2024

Crudele has the merit of not ignoring the two-faced nature of the Interludes, treating them as pure orchestral pieces, with all the chisel care that goes with it, but without forgetting their inherent theatricality, marking their evocative charge. […] It is indeed a happy encounter between Alessandro Crudele, who narrates the page in great detail, and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

★★★★

Paolo Locatelli – CLASSIC VOICE, 2024

Also very good is this performance by Crudele, geared to capture the contrast of colors among the four panels with capillary accuracy and an admirable sense of expressive atmosphere, being able to rely on an orchestra of unquestionable value and the remarkable quality of the sound recording.

★★★★

Giuseppe Rossi – MUSICA, 2023

The “Moonlight” third movement is very beautiful, and notable for its delicacy.

Crudele’s flinking movements are his finest. The fragility of “Dawn” balanced the robust “Storm”. And listen to how, in the latter, Crudele highlights Britten’s many, many felicities of scoring.

Crudele again finds a multitude of touches in the score that so often go under the radar.

Colin Clarke – CLASSICAL EXPLORER, 2023

The alternating poetry and drama of ‘Dawn’ are memorably captured […].

★★★★

Malcom Hayes – BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE, 2023

The depth, clarity and balance achieved here are impeccable and the conclusion is wonderfully released and cacophonous. […] the homogeneity of the string sections and the sonority of the brass are especially impressive but every section of the orchestra is flawless. […] I cannot imagine it better played.

Ralph Moore – MUSIC WEB INTERNATIONAL, 2023

The violin and the orchestra offer a noble sound and a tendency towards symbiotic fusion […] in a sympathetically unagitated and orchestrally transparent manner, until Crudele knows how to let the pack off the leash at the right moment in the finale.

Sven Kerkhoff – MUSIK AN SICH, 2023

It’s an excellent recording, you don’t miss a detail… it’s a warmer Sunday morning than some but the storm still has vicious teeth.

Andrew McGregor – BBC RADIO 3, 2023

Crudele already impressed last year on LINN with an energetic Respighi album, and he does not disappoint this time either. His feel for contrasts and his talent for strong effects show him once again to be a very good conductor in the succession of Riccardo Muti […].

Matthias Käther – RBB KULTUR, 2023

All of this is beautifully portrayed by London Philharmonic Orchestra under the young Italian conductor Alessandro Crudele […] The result is exotic, intoxicating and daunting.

★★★★

Thomas Michelsen, POLITIKEN, 2022

A cascading energy and brilliant darts of light suffuse conductor Alessandro Crudele’s view of the Villa Borghese… Textures are light yet pulsating alive, with hyper-alert responses from the London Philharmonic players.

‘Pines of the Janiculum’ has a lissome sensuality, … and in ‘Appian Way’ Crudele cleverly makes the approach of the consular army just as interesting as its arrival, the procession evolving pleasure, not a mindless decibel assault.

Crudele again impresses by giving soloists room to express themselves while also firmly marshalling the big ensemble moments. In Belkis these come in the ‘Danza guerresca’ and ‘Danza orgiastica’, where the LPO dispatch the complex syncopations with bracing accuracy.

★★★★

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE, 2022

[…] it is the writing qualities of the Pini, Respighi’s refined Roman poem, that suggest a reading of incisive beauty. Without rhetoric, without yielding to easy “ponentine impressionism”; rather with an attention to the so different hues in each number and the original authorial instrumentation. Original in that it never ceases to suggest unexpected perspectives to performers who, like Crudele, know how to read it with humble but mature and precise expressive tension and poetic levity.

Angelo Foletto – SUONARE NEWS, 2022

Here, then, is Alessandro Crudele’s debut disc, at the helm of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which, besides being a great listen, goes some way towards filling a gap. And above all, it does so with great class. Crudele’s Respighi is colourful and virtuoso, imaginative and iridescent. […] This is helped by the orchestra, which has flexibility and plenty of quality to spare. And what you hear is thus a Respighi who combines a lucidity of radiographic analysis with a springy discursiveness.

★★★★

Paolo Locatelli – CLASSIC VOICE, 2022

Here, Alessandro Crudele is a truly expert administrator who works with a sure instinct and resists the temptation to run after the flashy effect by applying too much colour.

Sven Kerkhoff – MUSIK AN SICH, 2022

Italian conductor Alessandro Crudele knows this soundworld inside out. With his skillful London orchestra, he never slips into the easy spectacle, so as to showcase all the colours and feelings which this music provides.

★★★★

LA VOIX DU NORD, 2022

Brazilian Impressions is given a persuasive reading, the slithering clarinets and bassoon eliciting a shudder in the central movement, which depicts the collection of venomous snakes Respighi encountered on a visit to the Instituto Butantan in São Paulo.

GRAMOPHONE, 2022

Crudele elaborates the quiet, sensual and exotic aspects of this music better than Muti, more convincingly. […] Thanks Linn for this fine album!

Matthias Käther – RBB KULTUR, 2022

You might want to sample a new recording of Ottorino Respighi from the London Philharmonic conducted by Alessandro Crudele. Respighi’s Pines of Rome is the big hit here, but the other two pieces are major reasons to investigate I think – comparative rarities: Brazilian Impressions and Belkis, Queen of Sheba, one of Respighi’s last major works for enormous forces. The four-movement suite from Belkis draws outstanding playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Alessandro Crudele.

Andrew McGregor – BBC RADIO 3, 2022

Mozart’s Horn Concerto proved to be […] a balm for the corona-afflicted soul. The Orchestra and Alessandro Crudele gave the soloist every space to unfold.

The Württembergische Philharmonie had already shown itself to be flexible in the Czech Suite.

The orchestra presented itself full of temperament here, with first a glowing entry of the cellos.

After many Rubato and Stretta-developments, the whole thing came to a convincing end, lived out in dance contrasts and once again pulling out all the registers in terms of sound.

Christoph B. Ströhle – REUTLINGEN GENERAL-ANZEIGER, 2021

Alessandro Crudele was convincing with his elegantly moving conducting.

With Zoltán Kodály’s “Dances of Galánta”, the orchestra showed that it has not lost passion for playing. Under the baton of Alessandro Crudele, the Hungarian dances, which alternate between suspenseful calm, expressive wind solos and wild ecstasy, became an orchestral feast of shimmering rhythms and colors, crowned by a furious finale.

Susanne Eckstein – SÜDWEST PRESSE, 2021

Crudele conducted with generous impetuous and an elegant gesture, calmly humorous.

Achim Stricker – SCHWÄBISCHES TAGBLATT, 2021

Delight for the ears of the historically-informed performance lovers

Was it because of the hall? Was it because of the conductor? The orchestra that we well know sounded differently, as if it had jumped to a higher level.

Gottfried Meyer – THÜRINGER ALLGEMEINE, EISENACH, 2020

Long cheers of applause for the soloist, the conductor and the Orchestra ended this Operngala, charming in all aspects.

Horst Gröner – THÜRINGER ALLGEMEINE, GOTHA, 2020

Sometimes some concerts win us over from the first beat. Such a case occurred at the last concert of the Radio Television Symphony Orchestra of Serbia, conducted by Italian conductor Alessandro Crudele. […] The orchestra clearly responded well to the Italian conductor, who, especially from Bottesini and Dvorak’s units, managed to create striking and eminently edgy ensembles. It was a successful concert with two prominent soloists, a well-rehearsed orchestra and an outstanding young and talented conductor.

Srđan Teparić – RADIO BEOGRAD 2, 2019

With clear gestures of his left hand he showed the musicians what he wanted. This resulted in beautiful interpretations. […] The tranquillity in the second movement of the symphony [Brahms 4th], the fire in the third, revealed him as a master of his field. […] Alessandro Crudele conjured up a beautiful Mozart with historic reminiscences.

Horst Gröner – THÜRINGER ALLGEMEINE, EISENACH, 2019

… and this, all the more with this charismatic conductor on the podium! It was a truly astonishing interpretation – and yet without any trace of showmanship.

Horst Gröner – THÜRINGER ALLGEMEINE, GOTHA, 2019

In the second part of the concert, Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony No. 5 (1830), […] turned out to be another gem of this musical evening. […] Alessandro Crudele also took the most powerful, and at the same time, the most sensitive features of the RTS Symphony Orchestra, appealing to both dimensions equally.

DANAS, 2018