“The Philharmonia, accompanied by pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the Philharmonia Voices, the Rodolfus youth choir and a handful of vocal soloists, delivered with an impressive stamina and focus that never ruled out the light and shade that this massive suite of masterpieces demanded.” –The Arts Desk
“Aimard played the Beethoven first. Using the sustaining pedal sparingly, it was a performance of unflinching, sometimes startling clarity, especially in the colossal fugue with which the sonata ends, but it was always more convincing on the tumult than the poetry. The huge Adagio (the longest slow movement Beethoven ever wrote) was never as poised and other-worldly as it can seem in some performances, and the final climax was more clangorous than consoling.” –The Guardian
“Some pianists are drawn to play the cantabile second theme of the slow movement with tenderness and elegance, as if anticipating the studied melancholy of Chopin; so too can languorous speeds stand in for profundity. Aimard eschews both approaches. The dotted rhythm smoothed out by many pianists at this melody’s outset pinched against its accompaniment; even in the most effusive moments Aimard made Beethoven’s lyricism sound like music fighting for breath. Aimard’s performance spotlights a special quality of isolation in late Beethoven.” –MusicOMH
“The 2008 Duet for piano and orchestra preceded the composition of that opera, and its sequence of sparely scored, crisply focused episodes now seems a clearing of the musical decks for the work to come, concentrating on dramatic essentials rather than exploiting the virtuosity of Pierre-Laurent Aimard, for whom it was written, and who contributed the Messiaen too – a typically brilliant account of Le Merle Bleu (The Blue Rock Thrush) from the Catalogue d’Oiseaux.” –The Guardian
“Part of the Moonlight Sonata, first heard as an offstage recording and then taken over by Aimard, began the second half. It launched a sequence that took in Helmut Lachenmann’s Tableau, the first movement of Beethoven’s First Symphony, the allegretto from the Seventh, and then the finale of the last piano sonata Op 111, breaking off before its final ecstatic trills to lead into BA Zimmermann’s Photoptosis, which quotes Beethoven as well as Scriabin, Wagner, Bach and Tchaikovsky. Impressively well played, with visual choreography and lighting effects too, it was all weirdly compelling, though in a ‘what’s going to happen next?’ way rather than a genuinely revelatory one.” –The Guardian
“At times while Aimard was playing all the orchestral musicians bowed their heads as if in prayer. Or else several would rise to their feet, as if saluting a flag. At one point everyone on stage started swaying slowly, as if caught in a collective trance. Dramatic lighting intensified the feeling of a ritual.” –The Times UK
