Press
Concert & Recording Reviews
Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger and British percussionist Colin Currie offered a virtuosic and highly polished performance....
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Behold the greatest trumpeter on earth. Hardenberger's tone ranges from growl to howl, from blazing bullfighters' fanfare to muted nightclub sleaze .... |
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Press Quotes
"Trumpet legend Håkan Hardenberger took care of the Austrian premiere of the “Divertimento macchiato“ for Trumpet and Orchestra by Kurt Schwertsik, once a hornist with the Tonkünstler Orchestra. After the Entrance March, Hardenberger’s tone blossomed out and the soloist, famed for his technical perfection, really got going. The more insistent moments enabled the soft passages of this work full of generic allusions to work fantastically."
Wiener Zeitung, 2nd April 2008
"Then came Håkan Hardenberger with his unbeatably virutuoso trumpet, which he put at the service of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s profound incantations, constructed over the popular spiritual “Nobody knows de trouble I see”. Composed over half a century ago, the 15 minute-long piece, which interweaves jazz idiom and twelve-tone technique, has lost none of its suggestive power. Especially when Hardenberger performs it, highly concentrated yet at the same time with a nearly improvisatory freedom. Although the difficulties are staggering, they seemed to be completely absent for him. Hardenberger played elegantly and soared unchallenged above them. […] His trumpet excited the saxophone quintet assigned to it to frenetic outbursts into the jazz region. With his electrifying work, Zimmermann explodes all the artfully raised old boundaries. Janowski and the RSB stand full of devotion at his service and that of his soloist."
Berliner Morgenzeitung, 19th February 2008
"Janowski built up the Trumpet Concerto stringently so that Håkan Hardenberger’s trumpet could float over it in a free, expressive and almost endlessly colourful rendering."
Berliner Zeitung, 19th February
"When the excellent solo trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger subsequently meditated on “My Funny Valentine”, intimately, lost from the world outside, it did not feel like an encore but an extension of Zimmermann’s score."
Tagesspiegel Berlin, 18th February 2008
"Wild ride on horn and hide
It was a breathtaking performance by two highly proficient performers. Both players exhibited stunning virtuosity, though always at the service of musical effect, never for its own sake. As astonishing as Hardenberger’s precision was in the many fast runs, most impressive was his ability to play extremely soft high notes. These players had absolute command over their instruments. There was no gap between what they wanted to express and what they were technically capable of expressing."
San Francisco Classical Voice, 29th January 2008 (Duo with Colin Currie, percussion)
"Håkan Hardenberger delivers the jewel
The solo part was played by no one less than the Swede Håkan Hardenberger. The trumpet depicted something luminous in a danger-strewn environment, the orchestra’s brass section, especially the saxophones, blending wonderfully into its spectrum of sound. The orchestra was like a glacier pushing along before it ever more immense moraines, on the surface of which the trumpet laid bare radiant sheets of ice. Hardenberger’s tone is flexible, bright and, in the many long notes, possessed of an exceptionally rich fullness in vibrato. Fascinating too how the trumpeter was able to transform himself in seconds from an aesthete of sound into a casual jazzman."
Die Welt, 16th January 2008 (Hamburger Philharmoniker, Sebastian Weigle)
"In the Zimmerman Concerto the Orchestra had found the ideal Guest Soloist. In his approach and phrasing, Håkan Hardenberger left nothing to be desired. The ticket price was worth it for his encore alone, a pianissimo solo improvisation on the jazz standard 'My Funny Valentine', greeted with tempestuous applause."
Hamburger Abendblatt, 14th January 2008 (Hamburger Philharmoniker, Sebastian Weigle)
"Fresh, clean and the best trumpeter I’ve seen
Håkan Hardenberger is billed as the greatest trumpeter on Earth. Now that is quite a claim, but on this evidence it is hard not to endorse it and even harder to imagine what a hypothetical greater trumpeter might have done differently. He has doubtless played Haydn’s popular little concerto a gazillion times, yet the performance he gave us was fresh and clean, and brimming with expressive little touches.[…] Countless happy choices of phrasing, speed and volume, things you could hardly believe the music had in it, added up to a truly outstanding performance. Gruber’s 3 MOB pieces was a delicious contract, sly and witty and immediately appealing. Again there was an amazing virtuoso technique to admire and a sense of humour that brough the music to life."
The Press, 4th October 2007
"Trumpeter of the gods
Charismatic Swede offers elegant, deft lyricism with a nod to the masters of mood
“Håkan Hardenberger is one of the world most charismatic trumpeters and it was Auckland’s immense privilege to him as a soloist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra over the weekend. Friday’s Haydn Concerto may have had seen the Swede make the occasional falter but these were mere ruffles in the infectious drive of the outer movements. The Andante basked in an individual lyricism with Hardenberger’s winning slightly breathy tone. 3 MOB Pieces cast soloist and orchestra into the devious musical mixmaster of HK Gruber. The trumpeter sauntered around he riffs of the opening Patro – I imagined Copland in bed with Bach for this one – and flicked deftly through a Finale that sounded as if it might burst into Milhaud any minute. […]Saturday night saw the New Zealand premiere of Mark Anthony Turnage’s From the Wreckage. Hardenberger had explained it as “one gesture going from darkness into light” and this journey called for seatbelts. Travelling from late night flugelhorn to the piercing exultancy of piccolo trumpet, Hardenberger emerged the stunning victor and sometimes bracingly rowdy score.”
The New Zealand Herald, 2nd October 2007
“Hardenberger produced a beautifully clear, sweet, silky tone with all the hard, brassy edges smoothed. His virtuosity with articulation made it seem easy. The tow outer allegro movements cocooned a beautiful middle one where Hardenberger produced exquisite legato playing. Gruber’s 3 MOB Pieces for solo trumpet and small chamber orchestra was an engaging work that was hard to compartmentalise, with an eclectic mixture of styles and rhythms that appeared vaguely familiar and accessible. Each piece, like chameleon, reflected a different imagery, a new collage.“
Waikato Times, 1st October 2007
"Still, most had to come to hear the dazzle of Hardenberger’s trumpet, and they wouldn’t have been disappointed. He dispatched Haydn’s hardy annual – the Concerto in E flat 0 with applomb, and entertained us with HK Gruber’s 3 MOB Pieces, feelgood pieces with a high entertainment factor, that introduced the audience to some marvelloisly atmospheric trumpet playing."
The Dominion Post, 24th September 2007
BBC Proms: Brass day
“The real tour de force, perhaps, was Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in Elgar Howarth's arrangement for brass and percussion, flamboyantly conducted by Hakan Hardenberger and played with jaw-dropping dexterity by the combined forces of the BBC Philharmonic's brass section and students from the Royal Northern College of Music. “
The Guardian, London 30th July 2007 (BBC Philharmonic Brass with RNCM students)
"BBC Proms review: Positively thrilling
But for me the highlight of Brass Day was Håkan Hardenberger's scintillating account of a modern classic among trumpet concertos, HK Gruber's 'Aerial', with André de Ridder conducting the hard-working BBC Philharmonic.”
The Telegraph, London 30th July 2007 (BBC Philharmonic, André de Ridder)
BBC Proms
“… a hugely successful day on Saturday which went beyond everyone’s expectations in providing a thrilling and varied experience of music for brass in its many incarnations for our vast audience.
…the astonishing virtuosity of the students from RNCM with BBC Philharmonic colleagues under Håkan Hardenberger, the afternoon was a triumph. The evening concert added yet more thrills: Håkan’s sublime performance of HK Gruber’s Ariel under Andre de Ridder…”
Nicholas Kenyon
"Standing out Swedish Music
Swedish music confirmed its quality with the main act of the night. Soloist Håkan Hardenberger is a real master of his instrument. Precise in tone, dynamically luxurious, extremely musical. Every composer would be glad about his performing skills."
Delo, Ljublana 18 April 2007 (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Stockholm, Conductor Alan Gilbert in the Cankarjev Dom)