Like Britten, [Williams] uses the cello’s expressive palette to the full: slap pizzicato, stopped harmonics, scurrying sul ponticello – the works. Williams’s cello music is fortunate to have such a convincing champion as Wallfisch, technically expert enough to meet its considerable demands, and able to adapt his tone to its myriad mood shifts.

Janet Banks – BBC Music Magazine

Call me cynical, hard-bitten or whatever, but usually I wouldn’t expect to be gripped quite so deeply by new works from a comparatively little-known British contemporary composer, though Adrian Williams’s (b.1956) music certainly hits the spot decisively throughout this excellent disc. The late Sir John Betjeman wrote of Williams “I can imagine him on those hills plucking sounds from the air”. And indeed, after hearing this disc, it’s easy to appreciate the composer’s own observation that “my inspirational catalyst is the nearness to open spaces, to physical place and landscape…” Williams himself partners cellist Raphael Wallfisch in his Spring Requiem, Quatre Cantilenes and Images of a Mind. These are highly communicative and spontaneous works, most beautifully played and recorded. I found the solo cello sonata worked best, possibly because of its more regular and predictable structure, but these are impressive additions to the modern cello repertory. Highly recommended.

Michael Jameson – Classic CD

… the best recording of the Walton Cello Concerto yet … strongly recommended.

The Strad

… a triumphant debut for what seems destined to become one of the legendary recording projects of the decade.

BBC Music Magazine

This account of the Rococo Variations is the one to have: it presents Tchaikovsky’s variations as he wrote them, in the order that he devised and including the allegretto moderato con anima that the work’s first interpreter, ‘loathsome Fitzenhagen’, so high-handedly jettisoned … Raphael Wallfisch’s fine performance keeps the qualifying adjective ‘rococo’ in mind – it is not indulgently overromantic – but it has warmth and beauty of tone in abundance.

Gramophone Classical Good CD Guide 2004

… if Wallfisch is not a major talent, then this reviewer has never heard one. His tone is gorgeous and his phrasing and pacing are supremely eloquent.

Fanfare Magazine

Raphael Wallfisch, tireless champion of the British cello repertory, plays it with deep feeling.

Gramophone

On this superbly recorded two-CD set, cellist Raphael Wallfisch, pianist John York, conductor Martyn Brabbins, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra make the strongest possible case for the worth of the Moderato and Adagio; indeed, Wallfisch all by himself makes the strongest possible case for the worth of Shostakovich’s complete cello works. Always an extremely expressive cellist with a big tone, a fabulous technique, and a winning interpretation, Wallfisch gives better than his best with playing of consummate musicianship and interpretations of immense depth and tremendous compassion. Wallfisch seems to do more than perform the music here; he appears to inhabit it, to incarnate it in interpretations of emphatic understanding. Conductor Brabbins is a sympathetic accompanist and he leads the BBC through performances of blazing intensity. Pianist York is a powerful partner and he drives as much as he supports Wallfisch. Taken all together, most listeners would probably agree that, at least in these performances, all six works constitute Shostakovich’s complete cello works. Nimbus’ sound is exemplary: clear, close, and direct in the cello and piano works and big, clean, and vivid in the cello and orchestra works.
www.allmusic.com

What makes the collection especially exciting is the rarity of having the composer accompany a world famous soloist. One now almost certainly knows that this is how the music is meant to sound.

The Sonata is the main work on the disc … [it] falls into three unconventional movements and is, in my view, a stunning work. Certainly, as Calum McDonald admits, right from the start you feel the presence of Shostakovich.

As for the performance it is very powerful. I am sure that all performers would admit that there is no such thing as a perfect technique and the composer certainly stretches the cellist’s skills. This is at times almost beyond the possible. This is true particularly in the upper register and even the great Raphael Wallfisch would agree.

The recording is first class and I must add how much I always like Nimbus’s house style of booklet photography.

Gary Higginson – MusicWeb International

Lionel Sainsbury’s vibrant concerto of 1999 is heart-on-the-sleeve music, painted in bold colours, and could hardly find more enthusiastic interpreters than Wallfisch and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The soloist’s role here is one of an extrovert leader and Wallfisch, recorded well to the fore, brings vitality amd a range of emotion to the part, his beautifully focused sound taking on an urgency in its high reaches in the first movement and soaring eloquently in the intese slow movement. [John Fould’s Concerto] is full of attractive melodies. Wallfisch’s sound is not recorded quite so prominently, but his cadenza in the finale, brilliantly executed, takes his cello through virtuosic heights of double-stopping.

Janet Banks, The Strad, July 2012

If you respond well to tonal, melodious, well-written music, you will probably respond to this, especially in such an authoritative performance as this one from Raphael Wallfisch, a cellist to whom many a composer has reason to be grateful … I don’t think either of these concertos is an undiscovered masterpiece, but both are serious and satisfying works, worthy of our attention. Wallfisch is the natural choice as soloist. He plays with supreme authority in both works, devoting the same energy and care as he would to thegreatest works in the repertoire. Martin Yates, too, has shown his willingness to explore these musical backwaters, and the two orchestras play marvellously well under his direction.

William Hedley, International Record Review May 2012

I can think of few cellists better suited temperamentally to this repertoire than Raphael Wallfisch. He has a warmth of tone that I find very appealing and his playing is always deeply musical. He also wears his technique rather more lightly than some of his more abrasive, higher-profile rivals …

Gramophone

Rózsa – Concerto for Cello and Orchestra op.32
Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Cello and Orchestra op.29

… this brilliant performance, which has nothing to fear from memories of the work’s dedicatees [Heifetz and Piatigorsky]. They achieve chamber-music like intimacy in their closely intertwined parts, while sacrificing nothing in soloistic performance.
The Strad September 2006

Raphael Wallfisch plays as if he had an electric current running through him. He gobbles the music up – not politely, but with irresistable zest. Philippe Graffin’s contribution to the Sinfonia Concertante is cut from the same cloth. Could it be that Heifetz’s spirit took him over? All music making should be so exciting.
International Record Review September 2006

Raphael Wallfisch clearly has an affinity with these splendid works and the BBC Concert Orchestra are on great form. Philippe Graffin partners Wallfisch adroitly in the Sinfonia concertante … in excellent sound … for this unique pairing this newcomer can be warmly recommended.
Gramophone October 2006