Reviews
Beethoven Festival, Australian Youth Orchestra. Conductor: John Nelson. Piano: Herbert Schuch. Adelaide Festival Theatre, July 2009
“ (…) Sometimes the desire to show excellence beyond expectation is lessened with maturity and fame, and there is something delightful in the budding talent determined to show its worth. This has surely been the path Romanian-born pianist Herbet Schuch drew, who has cleverly drawn attention to himself by choosing to launch his performance career on the international stage with pieces often attempted only by the world’s most accomplished and acclaimed pianists. His polished performance drew admiration not just from the audience, but from the entire orchestra, which showed its appreciation with the traditional stamping of feet.”
The Independent Weekly, 27 July 2009
Recital of January 27, 2009 in the Herkulessaal in Munich
Advanced pianistic emotion – young pianist gives a highly convincing performance in Munich
"… Herbert Schuch does not misappropriate Beethoven's Bagatelles as warm-up pieces; instead, he uncovers in these highly fragmented miniatures from Beethoven's final creative phase numerous idiosyncracies ranging from the charming to the violent (…) More unusually for a German pianist, Schuch has a fine sense for the harmonic extravagances of Skriabin's late works, his controlled exuberance. And he makes Ravel's 'Gaspard' sparkle and dance elegantly with daring artistry, bringing out unbelievable contrasts. He announces his encore, two of Heinz Holliger's '
Süddeutsche Zeitung, 29 January 2009
"… Herbert Schuch knows what he wants. After all, the 29-year-old of German-Romanian stock placed the seldom-played Bagatelles op. 126 by Ludwig van Beethoven at the beginning of his programme in the Herkulessaal and demonstrated in every bar how much weight he gives intense reverberation from Beethoven's last three piano sonatas. Clarity, precision, brilliance of touch and the ability to mould every phrase in such a tangible manner, imbue notes with such sensitivity, were the young pianist’s hallmark (…) Here again [in the Ravel] pianistic virtuosity was never a means to an end; instead, there was a sense of controlled detonations, of always unexpected explosions. It was courageous of him that Schuch then played two of the three wonderful nocturnes by Heinz Holliger after the Elis poems of Georg Trakl; … "
www.klassikinfo.de , 29 January 2009
Beethoven Piano Concerto no. 5 with Real Filhamonía de Galicia under Christoph König,
on November 20 at Santagio de Compostela – Auditorio de Galicia
(…) “La segunda parte
Mientras Schuch iba desgranando la célebre Campanella de Liszt que dio de propina -y qué pedazo de propina, y qué soltura y qué naturalidad la del pianista – pensé que a este joven seguramente le aguarda una carrera exitosa.”
www.mudoclasico.com , Alfredo Lopéz-Viviér Palencia, 26 November 2008
Beethoven Festival, Australian Youth Orchestra. Conductor: John Nelson
Piano: Herbert Schuch. Adelaide Festival Theatre, July 24-26
(…) “Just as wonderful was the 29-year-old Romanian pianist Herbert Schuch. He was the ideal soloist in this project, deeply impressive in his maturity and technical prowess.
His performances in Piano Concertos One, Four and Five were steeped in poetry. Surrendering to nobody's musical instinct but his own, Schuch is a young artist whose picture of Beethoven is full of insights. There was a particular delicacy about his playing, where he would pull dynamics down to a whispering pianissimo, before ripping into the next idea with gusto.” (…)
The Australian, 29 July 2008
Ludwig with brio and joy
(…) “Then came the concerto. Pianist Herbert Schuch is a talent of international proportions. Deft, dramatic, flawless fingers in a blur just as Beethoven intended when he penned this to announce he’d arrived on the scene in 1800. Keep an ear on Schuch – he’s becoming an international headline.” (…)
Grieg A minor Piano Concerto with the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen
under Heiko Mathias Förster in Recklinghausen, Gelsenkirchen, Papenburg and Kamen
(...) “His appearance with the Neue Philharmonie of Westphalia proved a triumph of expressive inspiration.” (...)
Recklinghaeuser Zeitung, 14 April 2008
One heart and one soul
“Herbert Schuch, currently one of the few pianists of the younger generation who can command such international interest, has discovered the work for himself anew and freed it of all its baggage. He played it virtuosically, with a primal freshness and youthful daring that infected both conductor and orchestra. And so the audience experienced the performance as one of those memorable occasions with Schuch, Förster and the Neue Philharmonie, who inspired and outdid one another and were one heart and one soul.” (...)
Ruhr-Nachrichten, 15 April 2008
Mozart Piano Concerto K595 with the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland Pfalz
under Mario Venzago in Mainz, Ludwigshafen, Munich and Kaiserslautern
Sound’s finest secrets
(...) “Born in Timisoara in Romania, Schuch’s poetic lucidity conjured up the transcendental merriment that enlivened the final act in Mozart’s life. The chains of motifs after the main theme shone out in their playful lyricism, the cadenzas never sacrificed depth to virtuosity or mobility to familiarity.” (...)
Süddeutsche Zeitung, 15/16 March 2008
(...) “Between these poles, the Romanian pianist Herbert Schuch amazed us with an almost shy, fragile, lucid and yet remarkably varied interpretation of the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 27 in B major K595 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.” (...)
FAZ, 11 March 2008
“The boy is good. Really good. (...) Schuch’s touch is a marvel of clarity. Astoundingly, one could describe him as lean-limbed and power-packed at one and the same time.” (...)
Mannheimer Morgen, 12 March 2008
Recital of 21 January 2008, Tonhalle Zurich
“He presented himself in the “Série jeunes” in Zurich’s Tonhalle with an original and intelligent programme. Whereas most young pianists relish the 19th-century evergreens, Schuch made his entrance with the far from easy listening of Sergey Prokofiev’s Eighth Piano Sonata. (...) The second half of the evening was devoted to something completely different. Without a break, Herbert Schuch offered three compositions by Robert Schumann, Heinz Holliger and Maurice Ravel on the subject of night. (...) The pianist attained tonal nuancing of the utmost refinement. (...) What Schuch added to these three pieces in characterization was masterly.
To add such technical brilliance to a work considered among the most difficult in the piano
literature left even the critic lost for words.”
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 24 January 2008
Recital of 3 November 2007, Conservatorio Superior de Córdoba
(...) “Aunque no para Schuch, porque su dominio del piano es total. Extrae de su instrumento las sonoridades más variadas, desde pasajes aterciopelados de mucha suavidad, hasta explosiones de virtuosidad impresionantes. Todo con una musicalidad que traspasa el escenario para llegaral corazón del público. (...)
Diario Cordoba, 05 November 2007
(…) “Ante la lógica ovación al acabar, la interpretación del endiablado arreglo de Arcadi Volodos de la «Marcha Turca» de Mozart, ya fuera de programa, no sirvió más que para desatar el delirio entre los allí presentes, concluyendo así un recital que esperemos no haya dejado excesivamente alto el listón para los próximos.”
ABC, 05 November 2007
Concerts of 31 August and 1 September, Mittelrhein Musik Momente
As if Beethoven’s five piano concertos were completely new
“From one season to the next you attend dozens of classical concerts, now more, now less interesting, moving, or exciting. Then comes one that gives you the feeling after only a few bars: This is going to be something out of the ordinary. Something that even passionate concertgoers experience only once every few years. The tingle down the spine, astonishment, surprise, such that one can no longer trust one’s own ears – such were the flashes of genius vouchsafed by the two-part closing marathon of the Mittelrhein Musik Momente in the pilgrim church of Vallendar with Ludwig van Beethoven’s five piano concertos. (...) You hear Herbert Schuch, and understand why the classical-music grapevine has been buzzing for the past two, three years about this German pianist from Romania. His dexterity is phenomenal. The way he treats his hands as two independently operating tools is enthralling. Whether rippling runs, weighty peals of chords or whispered single notes: the young man shows supreme virtuosity in working with the tools of his trade.” (...)
Rhein-Zeitung, 3 September 2007