The SCO's ensemble-playing was alluring and enthralling. And of course principal conductor Robin Ticciati's stylish, understated and economic direction, which eschews exaggerated expression, magnetically draws the ear to the music rather than its presentation.

But what mattered on Friday was the fact that Ticciati and the SCO, in these works from composers all in their thirties, revealed in the Weber the seeds of German Romanticism from which so much grew; and in the Schumann, with its playfulness and expressivity, the uniqueness of this composer, so different from his near-contemporaries ; and in Berlioz's anti-concerto, the blindingly-original conception of this Gallic magician who accepted no-one's templates or structures and forged his own path, as monumentally influential as it was seminal.

This wasn't merely a powerful concert: it was a lesson to all of us who love music; I loved every minute of it, from the thrill of the performance to its provocative impact on the mind. *****

Michael Tumelty, The Herald, 8 April 2013

"conductor Robin Ticciati, with a generosity and wisdom beyond his 29 years, raised this orchestral masterpiece to the universal level it deserves. Elgar’s "friends pictured within" trod air and revealed every aspect of their often shy, beautiful souls." The Arts Desk

"Nowhere were Ticciati’s talents more apparent than in the Second Symphony of Sibelius, a well-known score that for all its familiarity can still easily come across as a string of disconnected episodes in the wrong hands... Time and again in the symphony, the conductor, leading from memory, managed to draw together ranges of seemingly disparate elements and fuse them into cohesive, hard-hitting musical arguments."

Cleveland.com 25 10.2012

"He drives the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with a wonderful sense of dramatic lightness, allowing the period instruments to determine the natural pace. But he can be assertive, ensuring that the recitatives move with theatrical energy." Rupert Christiansen,Sunday Telegraph June 2012

"There was real sophistication to Ticciati's interpretation. Using every textural possibility that the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment afforded him, he revelled in the musical detail, emphasising psychological nerviness by bringing out chromatic instabilities." The Arts Desk, June 2012

"The reveries at the start are aptly shrouded in a brooding atmosphere; the ebb and flow of dynamics, tempo and temperament as the movement progresses are handled in a masterly manner... The clarity, coordination and spectrum of colour in the orchestra are spot-on for Berlioz." Gramophone, May 2012

"It is an awesome performance. Ticciati doesn't go for the jugular, nor does he wring the neck of Berlioz's wonderful masterpiece. He's a man for detail and, with the SCO in formidable shape, this account of the symphony is detail upon detail, revealing new perspectives at every turn." The Herald, April 2012

"He has been at the helm of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra since 2009, and this first collaboration on disc captures all the energy, the finesse and the sheer panache with which he invests his live concerts." Telegraph, April 2012