Reviews

Ruth Calloway, The Chamber Review

April 2026 ★★★★★

on Night Songs

“Night Songs is that rare duo record on which nobody accompanies anybody: Brun and Hale play the Debussy like two people finishing each other's arguments, and the Fauré like an apology neither will make out loud.”

The engineering keeps them close — you hear bow hair, pedal felt, one intake of breath before the Poulenc finale — and the closeness is the point of the record.

The Poulenc is the surprise. Its Cavatine is usually played as a beautiful interruption; here it is the centre of the record, unhurried to the edge of stubbornness, and the Ballabile that follows lands like a joke told at a wake — in the best way, which is Poulenc's way.

The Élégie, placed last, is done in one long exhale. A record to play at midnight, which is plainly when it was made.

“Brun played the Elgar as a homecoming rather than a farewell — the Averill strings leaning towards her like a family listening to news from abroad.”
— Fermata, Douwe Merten (Elgar Cello Concerto, Sallow Hall)

“A cellist of unusual candour: nothing is generalised, nothing is for show.”
— The Listening Post

Harriet Voss, The Weekly Stave

October 2025

recital with Tomas Hale, Ludlow

“The Long Room recital confirmed what the records suggest: this duo treats a sonata as a conversation that started before the audience arrived.”

The Fauré D minor opened mid-thought, its first Allegro urgent without being loud, and the slow movement was daringly plain — a long line laid down and left alone.

In the Poulenc, Brun and Hale allowed themselves the comedy most duos iron out, and the room, full on a wet Tuesday, laughed where Poulenc wants laughter. The encore was announced only as 'the piece we argue about'. They played it twice, differently, and declined to say who had won.

“In the Kodály she holds the hall with nothing in reserve; the double-stops at the summit of the first movement are not survived but inhabited.” ★★★★
— The Chamber Review (on Alone in a Room) November 2024

“The most honest Elgar on record this decade: Brun and the Averill make the case that the concerto belongs to whoever needs it most.”
— The Northern Register (on the Greyline Classics recording) August 2019