““I thinks this is a mesmerising recital…Ruby Hughes combines classical sophistication with what feels sometimes like a folk singers simplicity and directness…I love the way she works with the words. And in some beautifully affective arrangements…I will be returning to this disc for shear pleasure and contemplation.””
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BBC Radio 3's Record Review with Andrew Mcgregor
Ruby's latest recital disc with the Manchester Collective
End of My Days BIS Records
“Storm Henk was battering southern England with 90mph winds and more, and just when it was easing off Storm Ruby arrived, blowing strong from the platform of Wigmore Hall. It’s Ruby Hughes’s top soprano register that is so powerful...Hughes’s marvellously rounded high notes rang out… ...Wandering at times into blues, lament and vocalise, Errollyn Wallen’s eloquent music generated genuine poetry. Her loose-limbed creations made a fruitful contrast with the tense, hothouse aura of Alban Berg’s Seven Early Songs. Nothing could hide Hughes’s sensitive and shapely phrasing and her fluid progress from one register to another, firepower under firm control. Deborah Pritchard’s two songs from her recent song cycle The World were equally striking, though in a much starker way, with Henry Vaughan’s metaphysical poems lifting us far beyond nature’s earthly wonders into the infinite and beyond.”
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Geoff Brown The Times
“Admire how vocally responsive Hughes is in the Purcell, how fragile and precious she sounds in Errollyn Wallen’s peace on Earth and how much she can communicate with barely a whisper of sound. Marvellous.”
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Jason Vicar Serinus The Arts Desk
Echo
Huw Watkins piano
BIS records
“The cycle as a whole is deeply personal, obviously because of the chosen text, but even more so, due to Hughes’s story telling capabilities. she possesses the rare ability to make the listener feel like they are the only ones in the room.”
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Azusa Ueno The Classic review *Record of 2022*
Echo
Huw Watkins piano
BIS records
“A typically striking recital from Soprano Ruby Hughes…her vibrato light voice is extremely expressive even when her volume is turned low”
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Geoff Brown The Times
Echo
Huw Watkins piano
BIS records
“Hughes’ pure tone and sensitivity shine out, her voice at times almost Ethereal”
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Fiona Maddocks The Guardian
Echo
Huw Watkins piano
BIS records
“Ruby Hughes commands attention throughout – there’s no ‘clever’ underlining, no irrelevant tonal refulgences or prima donna posturings. Intense concentration on text and emotional nuance replace them, and dovetail seamlessly with Joseph Middleton’s similarly insightful piano playing.”
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BBC Music Magazine Terry Blain
Songs for New Life and Love
Joseph Middleton Piano
BIS records
“Hughes’ artistry is even more compellingly conveyed with just piano: she and the excellent Joseph Middleton create a remarkable sound world of intense intimacy, captured by BIS in demonstration-quality sound…Their approach fully lets both poetry and music come across on their own terms, and while there have been more powerful, more gut-wrenching accounts of these songs, there aren’t many so delicately touching or intelligent. The same approach pays dividends in the Ives selections, cleverly programmed around the Grime cycle, as well as in a wide-eyed performance of the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen that glistens with a wonderful dewy freshness – from both soprano and pianist…Huw Watkins’s unobtrusive arrangement of the Welsh lullaby ‘Suo Gân’, meltingly, is an inspired choice to complete the program. An outstanding recital.”
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Gramophone Magazine Editors Choice Hugo Shirley
Songs for New Life and Love
Joseph Middleton piano
BIS records
“It is good to see the song repertoire breaking new ground. Grime’s Bright Travellers tackles a subject rarely seen in song history from the woman’s point of view and the sensibility of the texts is mirrored in her highly expressive music. The intense intimacy of this performance by Hughes and her excellent accompanist, Joseph Middleton, follows through into their Mahler. The two cycles here — Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Kindertotenlieder, picking up the theme of the deaths of children from Grime’s final song — are sung with an inwardness that is both affecting and quite daring. Add in a clutch of Ives’s songs, including his loveable version of “Songs My Mother Taught Me”, and an imaginative recital programme is complete.”
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Richard Fairman Financial Times
Songs for New Life and Love
Joseph Middleton Piano
BIS Records
“To these Ives songs Hughes responds with extraordinary delicacy, memorably heart-easing in the poignancy of ‘The Children’s Hour’ and the childlike simplicity of ‘Songs my Mother taught me’. Spinning the finest silk thread, Hughes will move you to tears each time you hear these songs. And as a night cap, she adds Huw Watkins’s classy arrangement of the Welsh lullaby ‘Suo Gân’… It’s a serious and thought-provoking concoction entitled Songs for New Life and Love, to which Ruby Hughes and Joseph Middleton fashion utterly beguiling performances that will surely make for one of this year’s most rewarding and repeatedly played recordings”
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David Truslove Opera Today
Songs for New Life and Love
Joseph Middleton piano
BIS records
“The British soprano Ruby Hughes made her recording mark in 2020 with an outstanding recital on the theme of Clytemnestra (BIS), which invited us to rethink this demonised figure from Greek mythology through music by Mahler, Berg and Rhian Samuel. In her new album, Songs for New Life and Love (BIS), Hughes returns to Mahler (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Kindertotenlieder), adding songs by Charles Ives (including Songs My Mother Taught Me) and Helen Grime, with a traditional Welsh lullaby arranged by Huw Watkins. As the album title indicates, birth and motherhood come into the all-embracing life themes of innocence, love and loss. The starting point for Hughes was a song cycle by Grime, Bright Travellers (2017)…Light-voiced but strong and flexible, Hughes – with Middleton a sympathetic partner throughout – brings out the variety of Grime’s writing, from the mercurial rippling of Brew – “multiplying cells like pearls” – to the darting anxieties of Milk Fever and the grey pain of Council Offices. An imaginative recital, beautifully executed.”
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Fiona Maddocks The Guardian
Songs for New Life and Love
Joseph Middleton Piano
BIS records
“I can’t recall a recent vocal album curated and performed with such care. Its starting point was a 2017 song cycle by Helen Grime powerfully charting the motherhood experience in words and music both poetic and blunt. This led Hughes and her nimble piano partner, Joseph Middleton, to songs by Mahler and Charles Ives (a most fruitful pairing), variously musing over love, new life and its corollary, death. The result is an album not designed for cherry-picking but for splendid absorption as a whole…Hughes feels deeply every word she sings…nothing obscures this glorious singer’s radiant tone and sensitive phrasing or the strong sense of her beating heart."”
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Geoff Brown The Times
Songs for New Life and Love
Mahler Ives and Grime songs
Joseph Middleton piano
BIS records
“Ruby Hughes is increasingly proving to be a key singer of the early 21st century…here she shows herself as an eloquent interpreter of the music of the early and late 20th centuries. And even if a part of the repertoire seems to be very well known, their perspective on the music is so special…Hughes' reading of the songs is exemplary in its clarity, fragrance and intelligibility. One wonders - can I hear Agnes Giebel, Elly Ameling, Pilar Lorengar, Elisabeth Grümmer, Ileana Cotrubas, Elizabeth Harwood, Barbara Bonney, Christiane Oelze, Joan Rodgers?In any case she is one of the finest lyrical sopranos, with tremendously rich and precious qualities both in terms of the range of colors and dynamic shades…The way in which Hughes and the orchestra differ from mezzo-soprano interpretations in 'I lost my world' is miraculous in a completely different way: we hear the closeness to Chausson, to Debussy - but also to Mahler's Fourth Symphony…Hughes is very unobtrusive in the ears of the listener, with the finest piano and pianissimo, also at times blending seamlessly into the orchestra texture as an equal…Steen and Hughes both prove to be specialists in the atonal, Hughes proving to be a legitimate successor to Edda Moser, Juliane Banse or Claron McFadden, with strong dramatic instinct.”
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Klassik Magazine Deutschland Dr. Jürgen Schaarwächter
Clytemnestra
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Mahler-Berg-Samuel
BIS records
“On this fascinating and rewarding recording Hughes gives an impressive demonstration of both the beauty of her voice and the sensitivity of her artistry...She starts with an enchanting performance of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder...Hughes’s clean timbre and perfect intonation give them a new dimension – she finds the romantic naiveties in them, suggesting the poignant tragedy of innocence rather than the gloomy lucubrations of experience. The climax of Um Mitternacht brought a lump to my throat, and Liebst du um Schönheit had a warmth and gentleness that was most refreshing...in the Berg again one appreciates the sheer clarity of pitch and diction that marks Hughes’s vocalising, as well as her refusal to sentimentalise the phrasing or make an excessive dramatic meal of the lyrics’ import.”
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The Telegraph Rupert Christiansen
Clytemnestra
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Mahler-Berg-Samuel
BIS records
“Hughes rises to the challenge with bombproof technical strength and control, plenty of firepower where needed, and a thrilling instinct for capturing the persona of this fearsome anti-heroine....They and Hughes also explore the rapturous soundworld of Mahler’s Ruckert-Lieder with mesmerising poise and finesse: I’ve never heard the opening line of ‘Ich atmet2 sung more beautifully...”
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5* Record of the month in song/choral category BBC Music Magazine Malcolm Hayes
Clytemnestra
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Mahler-Berg-Samuel
BIS records
“5*...soloist and composer make Clytemnestra’s wrenching drama something tangible. When Hughes sings of fire, you feel the heat. At the word “weeping”, your heart breaks. Her eloquence is always unfussy and direct.”
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5*The Times Geoff Brown
Clytemnestra
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Mahler-Berg-Samuel
BIS records
“Ruby Hughes identifies with all this in her assumption of the tragic Queen’s role, her anger, cunning and despair a tour-de-force of vocal acting, in a part which makes demands on range, agility and colour commensurate with those made by Berg.”
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Music web international
Clytemnestra
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Mahler-Berg-Samuel
BIS records
“In Clytemnestra (BIS), soprano Ruby Hughes, the BBCNOW and conductor Jac van Steen give new life to Samuel’s powerful, seven-movement work for soprano and orchestra (here coupled with Mahler and Berg)... it explores – with rare insight, passionately expressed by Hughes – the motives that led Clytemnestra to murder her husband, Agamemnon.”
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“Home Listening” picks, The Guardian Fiona Maddocks
Clytemnestra
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Mahler-Berg-Samuel
BIS records
“Alban Berg’s settings of Peter Altenberg, atonal songs that draw directly on Gustav Mahler’s orchestral songs, his Rückert Lieder. Intelligent companion pieces in this recital from soprano Ruby Hughes, and her vocal quality suits them so well, a refreshing clarity and immediacy that’s like a splash of cold water from the mountain spring.”
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BBC Radio 3 Record Review Andrew McGregor
Clytemnestra
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Mahler-Berg-Samuel
BIS records
“...it's Hughes’s performance that carries the whole enterprise: vivid, powerful and superbly committed, bringing a real complexity and vulnerability to the character. She’s impressive in the couplings, too...in a sharply etched account of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder (with an especially fine ‘Um Mitternacht’) and a focused, uncompromising account of Berg’s Altenberg Lieder.”
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Gramophone Magazine, Hugo Shirley
Clytemnestra
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Mahler-Berg-Samuel
BIS records
“5* Interpretation 5* Repertoire ‘A fascinating insight into the world of Giulia Frasi....this disc comes with the highest recommendation... If you haven’t come across Ruby Hughes you should quickly get to know her...’”
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WDR Westdeutcher rundfunk
“With her limpid purity of tone, immaculately even coloratura and graceful sense of style, Hughes is in many ways ideal for this repertoire. ... The gentle beauty of Hughes’s voice, deployed with unfailing taste, can hardly fail to give pleasure, the music – not least the Queen of Sheba’s valedictory ‘Will the sun forget to streak’ - often touches the sublime, while the non-Handel items will come as delightful discoveries to many.”
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Gramophone Magazine Richard Wigmore
Handel’s last Prima Donna
Giulia Frasi in London
Chandos records
“Performances are excellent; the recording sumptuous – you can't wait to ge to the next track.”
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BBC Radio 3's Record Review with Andrew MacGregor & Simon Heighes
Handel's last Prima Donna
Giulia Frasi in London
Chandos records
“A truly exceptional Soprano...her voice is not smooth or demure. It is clear, highly expressive with a marvellous timbre...this is an exhilarating record that is quickly addictive.”
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SWR Germany
Handel's last Prima Donna
Giulia Frasi in London
Chandos records
“Hughes’s honeyed tone is balm on the ears: there’s never a hint of shrillness and her impeccable diction means that you never have to refer to the texts. The Handel excerpts are wonderful, taken from Susanna, Theodora, Jephtha and Solomon...The rarities make this disc a mandatory purchase. Not just for baroque buffs: this is one of the most thrilling vocal recitals I’ve heard in ages.”
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The Arts desk Graham Rickson
Handel's last Prima Donna
Giulia Frasi in London
Chandos records
“The Muses were highly generous with Ruby Hughes: gifted with a graceful voice, flexible and never forced, and the always elegant phrasing....a sweet and clear voice giving all the restrained emotion required by these arias...a magnificent album where everything is about beauty, humility, subtlety and dialogue”
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France Musique
Handel's last Prima Donna
Giulia Frasi in London
Chandos records
“congratulations!”
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Heroines of Love and Loss, Ruby's latest release for BIS records has been awarded a prestigious Diaphason d'or in France and is Editors choice in the Gramophone Magazines July issue.
“Hughes sings the famous lament from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with a delicacy scarcely ever heard before, as if the desperate queen had already taken the poison or a dagger to her heart[…] Francesca Caccini was celebrated for the fine beauty of her voice in performances of her own music. Ruby Hughes is worthy successor to Caccini in her performance of this piece. It is quite simply meltingly beautiful.”
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Opernwelt
Heroines of love and Loss
BIS records
“A Diapason d'or award? An contradictory accolade for a recital without sunshine or luxury, where dark trouble and subtlety reign. 'Udite amanti' shows Ruby Hughes capable of great heights even in the shadows, conjuring lugubrious melismas that never drown out the text...The youthfulness of the timbre within the tormented songs of love give this album a unique atmosphere and aura, even amongst the many laments recorded in the last decade... How we love to suffer with the music, and with them!”
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Diapason d’Or Magazine
Heroines of Love and Loss
BIS records
“Soprano Ruby Hughes has just released an album of 17th-century songs by and about women, showing off her virtuosity and subtlety as a performer and unlocking the deeply personal, soulful heart of this rarely performed music. Hughes seems able to direct a winding, melisma-strewn phrase with total conviction and uncanny humanity. Her phrasing is full of delicious surprises: a little glissando, a whispering pianissimo, a diminuendo on an upward scale, a touch of breath to highlight the text’s sensuality.”
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Andrew Mellor Opera Now Magazine
Heroines of Love and Loss
BIS records
“...Ruby Hughes brings interpretations of aching beauty, every song so personable and communicative. She has a warm, almost mellow voice, well suited to this enterprising selection of 17th-century songs...the striking feature of the disc is the array of powerful pieces by Italian women composers. Barbara Strozzi’s L’Eraclito amoroso...her Lagrime mie is similarly dramatic, incorporating recitative and arioso....Hughes brings an exemplary understanding and stylishness. In the anonymous last piece, the words attributed to Anne Boleyn, cello and lute imitate a tolling bell: marvellous!”
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Gramphone Magazine EDITORS CHOICE
Heroines of Love and Loss
BIS records
““Here we are transported into a world of female love, sorrow and pain. The outstanding singer Ruby Hughes gives sensual luster to the whimpering, sobbing and sighing music by Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Lucrezia Vizzana and Claudia Sessa. All is lost but love anyway!””
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Dagens Nyhetter 5*
Heroines of Love and Loss
BIS records
““For all its apparent thematic interest, his CD is really a showcase for the vocal skills of Ruby Hughes, and these turn out to be considerable indeed. In these songs accompanied by lute and cello there is no place to hide, but Hughes’ impeccable technique and expressive imagination take us on a rewarding tour of this lovely repertoire. Her opening Purcell air from Bonduca ‘O, lead me to some peaceful gloom’ establishes the air of melancholy which will prevail, but also lays out Hughes’ credentials as she demonstrates a rich palette of vocal colours. These truly come into their own later in Hughes’ intense account of Dido’s Lament. Amongst the tragic heroines we also have fine music by 17th-century women composers Barbara Strozzi, Claudia Sessa, Lucrezzia Vizzana and Francesca Caccini. The CD ends appropriately with a riveting account of the anonymous ‘O death, rock me asleep’, the words of which are attributed to the tragic Anne Boleyn"”
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The Early Music Review
Heroines of Love and Loss
BIS records
““We have here a very beautiful, coherent CD with a lot of delicate and truly moving singing by Ruby Hughes””
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Pizzicato Magazine 5*
Heroines of Love and Loss
BIS records
““Hughes manages to make this world so much her own. I love the flexibility of her voice, the chameleon quality. Even within this disc she goes from operatic extremes to an intimate chamber place very effectively…. she gets the operatic dimensions of the music beautifully. Its so easy to overload emotions (this whole disc is very charged with anguish and abandonment) but she never overcooks it…. Dido’s lament is beautifully sung. Its a young portrayal of Dido and there’s an innocence here which you don’t normally get and which I found intensely moving. This isn’t a performance of grief, its really internalized””
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Record review on BBC Radio 3 with Andrew Macgregor and Alexandra Coghlan.
Heroines of Love and Loss
BIS records
“The songs "Night of the Flying Horses" and "How Slow the Wind" sung by soprano Ruby Hughes with Musica Vitae captured the intensity and richness of Golikov's creation. Lullaby in the first song grew into a wild dance from Hughes, the delicate opening giving way to an irresistible power. An exciting juxtaposition of ancient and modern was portrayed in two songs by Dowland in new string arrangements together with Huw Watkins’ contemporary song cycle "Remember". Dowland's and Watkins's melancholy were equally sensitively interpreted.”
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Helsingborgs Dagblad
Nostalgia
Ruby Hughes and Malin Broman
Musica Vitae
“A multi award-winner and former BBC New Generation Artist, Hughes is now one of the most sought-after figures on the concert scene. The clarity and translucency of her tone equip her well for earlier music, although her frequent forays into Romantic and contemporary repertoire have also been welcome.”
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London’s most influential people in 2016. The Evening Standard.
Selected for her work in Classical music.
“Hughes’s voice is ravishing, her interpretations wonderfully fresh… her dynamic control, from the whispered opening to the blaze and glory at the close, is breathtaking.”
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Gramophone Magazine
“Highlights include 'The Blessed Virgins Exspostulation' and 'O Solitude' interpreted with exquisite chaste purity by soprano Ruby Hughes.”
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The Telegraph 5*
Purcell Britten realisations cd
“Ruby Hughes has an exceptionally flexible high soprano voice; she can move from an almost toneless sotto voce through to a rich, full sound in the twinkling of an eye. And that hints at her approach to these wonderful songs; she is a natural story-teller, and is always on the look-out for color and drama.”
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MusicWeb International. Record of the Month
Nocturnal Variations recital disc
“Her singing is exceptional for its consistency... a perfect instrument of its kind.”
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BBC Music Magazine Record of the Month, Performance: 5* / Recording: 5*
Nocturnal variations recital disc
“...an inspiring performance of Duruflé’s Requiem, with the soprano Ruby Hughes exquisitely poised and passionate in "Pie Jesu".”
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The Telegraph. Geoffrey Norris
BBC Proms. The Royal Albert Hall
Duruflé Requiem. BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
“...with the fine soprano Ruby Hughes capturing the devout Polish timbre of the texts and singing from the heart in the three songs of sorrow that make up the symphony, this was a rapt occasion.”
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The Guardian. **** Martin Kettle.
BBC Proms The Royal Albert Hall
Gorecki Symphony of Sorrows. BBC Symphony Orchestra
“...Hughes got to the heart of everything with unfailing potency and point.”
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The Irish Times. Michael Dervan
Monteverdi arias and duets, Concerto Copenhagen
West Cork Chamber Music Festival
“Ruby Hughes is a fantastic soprano who communicates wonderfully with the sound of the orchestra as well as the rarely heard psaltery... her voice fits perfectly into the sound structure and concept, blending marvelously with the baroque violins... varying a tasteful vibrato with straight tone in an ideal way; stylistically and vocally sublime...”
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Bernhard Morbach. Kulturradio.
Venetian Christmas, Arte dei Suonatori. BIS records.
“The four soloists seem to really hit their mark, in particular soprano Ruby Hughes who's voice has a spine tingling clarity.”
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Manchester Evening News
Mozart Requiem, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Manchester International Festival.
“Great praise is due to all the soloists, who sing several parts, in particular, however to Ruby Hughes, who appears first as an attractive Titania in a long, bright red coat. Her beautiful, clear soprano voice radiates through the hall and almost moves the audience to tears in the 5th act as the role of the black-clothed, lamenting, weeping Laura. For me, this was the vocal climax of the performance.”
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Kulturradio vom RBB (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg)
Purcell
The Fairy Queen
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
RIAS Kammerchor Rinaldo Alessandrini
conductor Berliner Philharmonie
“Outstanding here was soprano Ruby Hughes, who shaped with moving intensity the great lamentation aria 'O let me weep'.”
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Neue Merkur Wien, Ursula Wiegand
Purcell
The Fairy Queen
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
RIAS Kammerchor
Rinaldo Alessandrini conductor
Berliner Philharmonie
“The soprano soloist for the finale, Ruby Hughes, has the pure, youthful sound it was surely meant for... the gentle blend of voice and orchestra was near-perfect at the end.”
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Manchester Evening News, Robert Beale
Mahler Symphony no. 4
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Jésus López Cobos conductor
“The second half was devoted to Samuels’ Clytemnestra, a rich, substantial piece from a composer plainly at ease with both her material and her own voice. Hughes sang beautifully; by turn, chilling and heartrending in short, poetic imagery and longer melismatic lines.”
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Steph Power, Wales Arts Review
Rhine Samuel
Clytemnestra
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Tecwyn Evans conductor
“Here, suddenly was a burst of sunlight, with thundering timpani and blazing brass heralding Ruby Hughes’ Himmlische Leben. Her singing was beautiful in timbre and impressive in characterization of the text... a fitting end to an excellent evening.”
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Backtrack, Rohan Shotton
Mahler Symphony no. 4
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Jésus López Cobos conductor
“In Remember, the highly evocative cycle of four songs for soprano and orchestra - sung by Ruby Hughes and conceived for her - the second setting, Thomas Hardy’s poem Shut Out That Moon, Hughes’s expressivity together with Watkins’s authoritative writing for strings conveyed huge emotional intensity.”
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Ryan Evans, The Guardian
Huw Watkins, Composer portrait
Remember BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Gary Walker conductor