Press
Concert & Recording Reviews
For reviews in languages other than English, please contact Hakan Hardenberger's Local Managers.
Press Quotes
“Armed with two instruments and various mutes, Håkan Hardenberger, the best trumpet player in the galaxy, rode with ease through its dizzyingly fast repeated notes and quick-changing colours.”
The Times, 15th November 2011, (CBSO / Nelsons / Birmingham)
“Hardenberger shows here not only that he masters the flugelhorn and the baroque trumpet as confidently as the normal trumpet (but what is normal about this brilliant trumpeter anyway), but he is also proficient in double voice technique.”
Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, 15th April 2011
"Håkan Hardenberger is top of his field, about as internationally celebrated as it's possible for a classical trumpet soloist to be.(…) This was incisive and physical playing, spurts of unabashed showmanship tempered with subdued, atmospheric grumblings."
The Guardian, 25th March 2011
“[…] Star trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger provided a wealth of technical finesse, played an enchanting cadenza, but still managed to form a unit with the orchestra.”
Emder Zeitung, 19th February 2011
“The real pleasure of the set was the astounding playing of Swedish trumpet virtuoso Hakan Hardenberger, revealed also in Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto. There are very few players who can impress their personality on every note, but Hardenberger is one of them. He gives an impression of seizing the music by the scruff, partly by anticipating the beat — but only by the tiniest fraction”
The Telegraph, 8th December 2010 (Philharmonia Orchestra / Andris Nelsons / London)
“Top of the league: For well over 20 years now, Swedish virtuoso trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger has been the undisputed king of the instrument. There might seem to be no limits to his abilities, though Austrian composer HK Gruber was determined, in writing his first concerto for Hardenberger, to push him even further than he thought he could go. The result, Aerial, calls on the soloist to produce chords, known as multiphonics — a particular challenge on the trumpet — to get some musical sounds out of a cow-horn, and to maintain a dazzlingly kaleidoscopic stream of sound using a variety of instruments and mutes.
Needless to say, Hardenberger carried it all off with a plomb. Not only is his technique rock solid, but his tone is never less than golden — even when emitted by a cow-horn it’s impressively mellow.”
Evening Standard, 4th June 2010 (London Symphony Orchestra / D Harding / London)
“Another work performed for almost the first time in Spain, “Aerial”, a concert for trumpet and orchestra by HK Gruber (Vienna, 1943) entails innumerable technical difficulties for the soloist, in this case an extraordinary Håkan Hardenberger, who had to alternate between traditional trumpet and piccolo. The work is jazzy in character and shows that it is possible to write serious music flavouring it with a personal style that can still attract the general public. The finale is a spectacular dance that is utterly captivating.”
La Razon, 2nd June 2010 (London Symphony Orchestra / D Harding / Barcelona)