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| The Times |
| Dvorak Concerto at the Proms with Sakari Oramo and the CBSO |
| “Interesting to watch people’s mouths drop as they learn — by word or a tacked-up notice — that the concert’s soloist has changed. Heinrich Schiff had been booked by the Proms months ago to play Dvorák’s Cello Concerto: after two famous recordings and many concert outings a work close to his heart, closer still to his fingers. But circumstances intervened. Instead, the man with the cello was Alban Gerhardt. Who? He’s young. He’s German. He’s worked with the BBC through their New Generation Artists scheme. And once he started in on the Dvorák, mouths dropped again, though for different reasons. There was such force and feeling in that opening improvisatory flourish. We were button-holed, powerless in his hands as he wandered through Dvorák’s amiable, loose-limbed allegro. With increased dynamics the tone roughened; pitted in tutti against Sakari Oramo and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, he all but disappeared. Even so, this performance carried an authentic thrill. We were hearing a soloist think each bar afresh, never resting on laurels. Given time, Gerhardt may give us an adagio movement less choked with vibrato. He may also learn to sing out more in difficult acoustical spaces like the Albert Hall. But I wouldn’t want maturity to rob him of that adventurous spirit that turns each sudden bow stroke into a sword’s thrust, and smiles and dances even through Dvorák’s most nonchalant bars…” |
| Geoff Brown, August 21, 2001 |
| “…This programme began with a performance of the Dvorak Cello Concerto in which the young soloist, Alban Gerhardt, revealed a rare tonal beauty and elasticity of line…” |
| Paul Driver, Sunday Times, August 26, 2001 |
| Beethoven Tripleconcerto at Proms w.Scottish BBC, O.Vänskä, S.Osborne, L.Batiasvhili |
| “...The first half of the evening had been a showcase for three soloists from BBC Radio 3’s enlightened New Generation Artists scheme. Beethoven’s Triple Concerto was performed by violinist Elisabeth Batiashvili, cellist Alban Gerhardt (who delighted this year’s Proms in his Dvorák Concerto), and the outstanding British Beethovenian, Steven Osborne. Gerhardt and Osborne already function as a recital duo and, with Batiashvili’s artistry, their performance created vibrant foreground chamber music-making which interacted with an orchestral ensemble infinitely sensitive to the timbres which would set the piano trio into bright and eloquent relief...” |
| Hilary Finch, September 11, 2001 |
| First Shostakovich Cello Concerto at the Proms in London with RSNO and Alexander Lazarew: |
| “...No time and no place for histrionics in the evening's central concerto. This was another act of Proms homage to Shostakovich ; and young Alban Gerhardt approached his First Cello Concerto with deep seriousness and refreshingly understated virtuosity. The work was written for the expansive spirit and stamina of Rostropovich Yet its essential inwardness and its stark economy of means fit it equally well to a more reticent, austere performing personality. Gerhardt delineated the composer's famous signature motif with a bow dipped in acid. And, face to face with the horn, his disturbing Doppelgänger, he withdrew into private meditation before the cadenza's long struggle for the rebirth of song.” |
| Hilary Finch, August 14, 2000 |
| London Wigmore Hall Millennium Concert: |
| “…[the concert] ended, not with post-prandial petits-fours, but with some exceptionally high-fibre playing by Alban Gerhardt in Kodaly’s virtuoso Cello Sonata…” |
| Hilary Finch, January 5, 2000 |
