REVIEWS - 2009

CD: Rossini, The Italian Girl in Algiers (highlights)

Happily, the three men in her [Jennifer Larmore's] life are equally vividly characterised: Alan Opie as her hang-dog admirer Taddeo, Barry Banks a most eloquent Lindoro, and Alastair Miles as the lascivious Mustafa. Fifty years ago there was barely a bass in Europe who could find his way around Mustafa's bumbling coloratura, let alone project the text as Miles does here.

Gramophone, June 2009

CD: Richard Strauss, The Complete Songs Volume 4

It has to be said that with the first sound of Alastair Miles, one is immediately aware of a change, not merely in the quality and nature of the voice, but in its production too. ...Miles impresses deeply, down indeed to the depths of his low D flat.

Gramophone, June 2009 

The bass songs show Strauss once again in predominantly serious vein, and Alastair Miles brings a wonderful gravitas to his readings. Im Spätboot is a sober affair, but all the more affecting for its economy, not perhaps what one would expect from Strauss a year after Salome. The four songs from Op.87 are made up of three pensive and expansive Rückert settings (from 1929 and 1935), leavened with a boisterous, earlier setting of a poem from Goethe'sWest-östliche Diwan, Erschaffen und Beleben. Miles brings the same steady, authoritative delivery and seriousness of purpose to the Rückert, rising to the occasional emotional outbursts magnificently (particularly in the lovely Im Sonnenschein that finishes the disc), while he and Vignoles make the most of the sometimes arch humour of Erschaffen und Beleben.

musicalcriticism.com

Alastair Miles's robust, sensitive bass excels in Im Spätboot, perfectly capturing the eerie dark atmosphere of Strauss's weary boat passenger.

The Times

Mendelssohn: Elias, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

Alastair Miles s'acquittait avec honneur d'un rôle écrasant. Le chant était, comme toujours, probe et les vocalises aisées.

resmusica.com

Alastair Miles campe un prophète de haute stature, terrible ou abattu. Ce familier de l'oratorio Haendelien peut assumer sans peine les vocalises de Ist nicht des Herren Wort, émouvoir dans un Es ist genug au phras?irreprochable.

concertonet.com