HEINRICH SCHIFF, CELLIST
National Symphony / Minczuk / Shostakovich Cello Concerto No.1
"Fortunately, for its concert last night at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, the NSO brought in Heinrich Schiff, one of the few cellists who can stand comparison with Slava... from the opening bars of the concerto, he showed truly impressive command of and feeling for this music. Schiff made the brusque four-note motif that opens the concerto incisive and driving, launching a first movement filled with rich detail yet charged with momentum...the slower melodies of the Moderato blossomed with unfussy poise in Schiff's hands, and during the long solo cadenza, he made the silences around his soft pizzicato notes as dramatic as his most fevered virtuoso flourishes..."
The Washington Post, November 2007
Netherlands radio Chamber Orchestra / Cerha Cello Concerto / ECM new Series
"Schiff's solo line oozes serpentime charm whether haranguing or racing the orchestra, or sparring with exotic individuals - steel drum, marimba, harmonium."
The Times, October 2007
Recital, St George's Bristol / Bach Cello Suites
"For some cellists, Bach's Six Suites For Solo Cello are part of a daily limbering-up routine; for others the ritual they represent is a form of spiritual exercise. Heinrich Schiff clearly belongs to the latter category. At the second of his two recitals in the series entitled Bach - a Beautiful Mind, Schiff seemed to transmit his Zen-like meditative approach to the audience, calming the senses and heightening perception of the music.
In the Prelude of Suite No 2 in D minor BWV 1008, Schiff established a contemplative mood but, by the Courante, the rhythmic patterns had an almost unruly insistence. Similarly, the Courante of the Suite No 4 in E flat major BWV 1010 succumbed to little adrenaline rushes. Schiff's instinct for Bach's balance of elements is well honed: the bowing of a long phrase to emphasise its carefully sculpted melodic line, the clarity sustaining the illusion of different voices in a polyphonic texture and the chords whose harmony grounds the music, a reminder of the movements' origins in dance forms. While his virtuosity was most apparent in the preludes and the final gigues, for Schiff the emotional core of the Suites resided in the Sarabandes. He delivered them with grace and composure, radiating their purity, particularly heartfelt in his encore of the Sarabande from Suite No 3 in C minor.
The intimacy and immediacy of these suites was intense, but Schiff's demeanour was one of great humility, concerned only to suggest that Bach's is the music of the spheres."
The Guardian, July 2007
Hallé Orchestra / Rory Macdonald conducts Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2/ Schiff Conducts Brahms Symphony No. 2
"Heinrich Schiff was the soloist in Shostakovich's enigmatic Second Cello Concerto. Playing with a delicious, resonant tone throughout, Schiff dominated with some wonderful Cadenze playing … the beauty of this performance was all in the detail. Fanfare from the two horns and the brooding melancholy that underpinned all the work, added to Schiff's sheer presence, made this performance a rewarding one.
Schiff himself finally took up the baton for the second half …Pure lyricism throughout, yearning cellos, a delightful, pastoral Intermezzo and a boisterous finale gave to Schiff as much success as conductor as he had as soloist."
Musical Opinion, January 2007
Belgian National Orchestra / Rumon Gamba / Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1
"The festive concert offered an all-too-rare opportunity to hear Heinrich Schiff in Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1. The superb Austrian guest cellist offered a searing performance of this great work, taking expressive risks … Schiff never lost beauty of tone, especially in the lyrical slow movement, played with great fervour. His technical mastery shone through in the long cadenza played with tremendous concentration, and the finale was a true demonstration of breakneck virtuosity."
The Bulletin, November 2006
"Inviting the exceptional Austrian cellist Heinrich Schiff for a jubilee performance of Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto was a great indulgence for the Orchestre National de Belgique. A highlight of Schiff's history with the concerto is a recording for Phillips with the composer's own son in 2006.
Faced with such perfection, technical mastery and musicality, what can one write? Heinrich Schiff's reading is suffocating, delivered with heart-rending intensity. He brings a necessary harshness and energy to the Allegretto, delivers with mastery and expressiveness a languorously heart-breaking Cantilene in a breath-taking pace, and his Allegro con moto is simply dazzling. Magnificent!"
ConcertoNet.com, November 2006
Conducts CBSO in Eisler and Beethover and leads/conducts in Haydn's G Major Cello Concerto
"[Eisler's Kleine Sinfonie] Sharp-witted, pithy, ironic, it fuses nasty militaristic marches with masterly concision…This is a ghostly work and the woodwind, brass and strings perfectly caught Eisler's mock-gaiety and nastiness to perfection."
The Independent, October 2005
"[Beethoven's Eroica Symphony ] This was pure joy. Those of us hoping to catch the 9.48 [train] … were delighted by his one-in-a-bar gallop through the first movement. Even more importantly, it also worked musically - though Schiff was wise to ease up so that the CBSO's excellent woodwind could inject a little elegance into the movement's later themes.
The funeral march was even better, its relative briskness bringing not blandness but urgency that Schiff intensified with dramatic dynamic contrasts. After that, scherzo and finale acted as a prolonged release of tension."
"Schiff had also packed a rarity in his suitcase: Hanns Eisler's 1932 Kleine Sinfonie. It really is a little symphony, too - just 11 minutes long, but bristling energy, strident orchestral brilliance and facetious but memorable parodies of popular idioms (the wah-wah brass solos are as sardonic as anything in Shostakovitch). Those who know Eisler only through his Marxist worker's songs might be pleasantly surprised."
The Times, October 2005
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Aberdeen/Dvorak
"Heinrich Schiff made his cello sing out, alternating tenderness and passion that projected a warmth normally limited to intermit vocal performances….Schiff earned a thunderous response from the audience."
The Herald, Glasgow, October 2005
Alban Bert Quartet / Schubert String Quartet in C
"Confined to only one recording, my vote would go to the Alban Berg Quartet with Heinrich Schiff, a performance that reconciles romantic expressiveness with a classical sense of architecture."
The Daily Telegraph, September 2005
Hallé, Mark Elder / Elgar
"In the Cello Concerto, Heinrich Schiff penetrates to the morose disillusion of the work's ruminative episodes but also revels in the opportunities for virtuosic musicianship….this sensitive appreciation."
The Sunday Telegraph, March 2004
"….Heinrich Schiff's magisterial playing of the Cello Concerto, which never wears its heart on its sleeve, and whose stoic nobility is totally convincing."
The Guardian, March 2004
Queen Elizabeth Hall / Recital with Zimmermann
"Neither player over-looked the need for tonal beauty, but both were more interested in musical truth - and they undoubtedly found it….Zimmermann and Schiff were perfectly attuned to the questing tone of this extraordinary music."
The Times, December 2003
Edinburgh Festival/Brahms, Beethoven, Debussy
"Schiff's grasp of musical grammar is a joy….he makes great music beautiful and animates it as well."
The Scotsman, August 2003
BBC Proms/Schumann
"Schiff's phrasing was always a thing of beauty, but his perfectly tuned chording in the slow movement an object of wonder."
The Guardian, August 2003
Northern Sinfonia/Casken
"With Schiff's cool, mellifluous account of the Cello Concerto at its centre, this Casken retrospective is a must for any new music devotee."
The Independent, July 2003
"The Cello Concerto, ravishingly played by Heinrich Schiff, oscillates between Lutoslawski-influenced astringency and English sweetness: a craftsman's delight."
The Financial Times, July 2003
"The score is full of glinting, glowing sonorities, and the writing for the solo cello (beautifully fashioned here by Heinrich Schiff, who also directs the Northern Sinfonia) is allusively intense."
The Guardian, July 2003
HEINRICH SCHIFF, CONDUCTOR
Conducts CBSO in Eisler and Beethover and leads/conducts in Haydn's G Major Cello Concerto
"[Eisler's Kleine Sinfonie ] Sharp-witted, pithy, ironic, it fuses nasty militaristic marches with masterly concision…This is a ghostly work and the woodwind, brass and strings perfectly caught Eisler's mock-gaiety and nastiness to perfection."
The Independent, October 2005
"[Beethoven's Eroica Symphony ] This was pure joy. Those of us hoping to catch the 9.48 [train] … were delighted by his one-in-a-bar gallop through the first movement. Even more importantly, it also worked musically - though Schiff was wise to ease up so that the CBSO's excellent woodwind could inject a little elegance into the movement's later themes.
The funeral march was even better, its relative briskness bringing not blandness but urgency that Schiff intensified with dramatic dynamic contrasts. After that, scherzo and finale acted as a prolonged release of tension.
Schiff had also packed a rarity in his suitcase: Hanns Eisler's 1932 Kleine Sinfonie. It really is a little symphony, too - just 11 minutes long, but bristling energy, strident orchestral brilliance and facetious but memorable parodies of popular idioms (the wah-wah brass solos are as sardonic as anything in Shostakovitch). Those who know Eisler only through his Marxist worker's songs might be pleasantly surprised."
The Times , October 2005
EMI Schubert String Quintet Recording with Alban Berg Quartet
Confined to only one recording, my vote would go to the Alan Berg Quartet with Heinrich Schiff; a performance that reconciles romantic expressiveness with a classical sense of architecture. As ever, the Alan Berg are ultra-scrupulous in their balancing of voices and their adherence to Schubert's markings. The famous theme in the first movement is truly pianissimo, with the first violin flickering like a will o' the wisp above the dulcet cellos. The adagio is as ethereal as Schubert can have envisaged, the scherzo is magnificently rugged, while the finale's hazy floating episodes have never sounded more magical.
The Daily Telegraph, September 2005
In recital with the Alban Berg Quartet / Schubert C Major String Quintet
"…The expressive power with which he invested the pizzicatos in the slow movement was extraordinary…"
The Guardian, May 2005
Orchestre National de Lyon & Daniel Harding / Elgar Cello Concerto
"…The Austrian cellist took every possible risk in a highly charged reading which had at its core great richness of sound and was imprinted with a touch of lyricism that belied Harding's conducting … the pairing [of Schiff and Harding] exalted Elgar to new and sumptuous heights…"
Le Progrés, October 2004
Vienna Chamber Orchestra
"Schiff's conducting style: gentleness in combination with those working on stage, clear directions, mature beat technique with well conducted tempo modifications and sense for one large, vivid, dynamic amplitude."
Weiner Zeitung, March 2004