"Elements in Arriaga's sole symphony might smack too much of the Conservatoire, but threaded throughout are airy pleasures, Spanish sunshine, and unexpected harmonic kinks - even bigger ingredients in this selection's two overtures ... And throughout the album Juanjo Mena's BBC musicians have little trouble keeping that smile in place ... There are further delights in the fresh, pealing tones of the Norwegian soprano Berit Norbakken Solset ... Mena conducts with the fervour expected from an Arriaga champion and a fellow Basque ... Buy and enjoy"

"The Overture to Los esclavos felices (The Happy Slaves) is all that survives of the very short-lived Bilbao-born Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga's opera, composed when he was thirteen (he died aged nineteen) ... Arriaga's lucid scoring is full of expressive idea for woodwinds ... When Berit Norbakkeen Solset joins the orchestra for Herminie the balance is again immaculate ... The sequence of Recitatives and Arias makes beautiful music and Solset sings the poem eloquently yet never overstates the drama ... Arriaga was a skilled orchestrator, ... his Symphonie à grand orchestre, probably the composer's masterpiece. Juanjo Mena's is a sensitive account with ideally chosen tempos"

"Vurdering: Diapason d'or"

"Editors choices - February 2019: It's immediately apparent from the sunny, bubbling overture to the opera Los esclavos felices (The Happy Slaves) why this teenager was dubbed 'the Spanish Mozart' - its effervescence recalls the overture to Le Nozze di Figaro as well as sharing the spirit of Arriaga's contemporary Rossini - but it's the nascent dramatic instinct on display in the cantata Herminie that really illustrates the potential of a composer who died before his twentieth birthday"