Antoine Tamestit - Press Reviews

Olga Neuwirth
Photo Rui Camilo

Commission: Olga Neuwirth Remnants of Song… An Amphigory

…spectacular work… a noisy tangle of tweed and punk, solildly worked, but with surprising threads and colours.

Christiane Tewinkel, Tagesspiegel, 2 February 2010

The work is entirely original, astoundingly complex and, ultimately, gloriously rewarding and uplifting.

Larry L. Lash, MusicalAmerica.com, 8 December 2009

Antoine Tamestit played it with virtuosity and a heartwarming tone

Salzburger Nachrichtung, 12 October 2009

Album: Schnittke and Shostakovich

Very occasionally … I hear a recording which moves me to the extent that this one did; a rare exception where the performers transcend the technical to create something truly magical, extending a musical and emotional message to the listener. Exceptional.

Carla Rees, Music Web International

Because of the passion within the music [Schnittke], it must be difficult sometimes to achieve perfect balance between the soloist and the orchestra in works like this, but this performance and recording do just that and more. And the filler on the CD, if you can dare call it a filler, is the sublime Viola Sonata by Shostakovich, performed with the same passion, devotion and spunk.

Jean-Yves Duperron, Classical Music Sentinel

Both here [Schnittke] and in the Shostakovich Sonata, where he is joined by his regular piano partner, the excellent Markus Hadulla, Tamestit exhibits an amazingly wide sound palette, which however never descends into mere noise, even in the wildest Schnittkean excesses. His vibrato is beautifully varied, reflecting the changing moods and harmonies even within a single sustained note. There are several such moments of magic in this truthfully recorded CD, none more so than its very end, with the viola merging into the piano’s overtones in the Sonata’s final C major chords.

Carlos Maria Solare, The Strad

Album: Schubert’s Trout Quintet

This is a marvellous disc, one of the most enjoyable I have heard in a long time… a great line-up of soloists, who seem to know one another very well, or to have clicked miraculously, with results that, in the case of the ‘Trout’ Quintet, are more completely satisfactory than any account I have ever heard of this work.

BBC Music Magazine, July 2009

Album: Bach Ligeti Chaconne

Tamestit’s lively, historically informed manner extends through the earlier movements of the Partita, the rhythmic character of each dance emerging with great clarity. The performance of the Ligeti – a magnificent, enthralling piece that’s already emerged as a peak of the viola repertoire – is extraordinarily clean and accurate.

Duncan Druce, Gramophone, August 2007