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Acclaim:

The Boston Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director Andris Nelsons opened their second night at Carnegie Hall with superb clarity and precision in Sibelius’s Luonnotar; the muted semiquavers in the strings were utterly captivating, setting the stage for soprano Golda Schultz, who sang with remarkable character, range and control.

The Strad

“The Boston Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director Andris Nelsons opened their second night at Carnegie Hall with superb clarity and precision in...

Acclaim:

One might compare the Leipzigers to a well-oiled machine, but to do that would deny the sheer human efforts and years of practice necessary to be so solid. Within the GHO’s woodwinds and brass, tone colors and attacks matched each other so congruently that each section sounded like a single instrument with the slightest hint of reverb.

The Boston GlobeZoë Madonna

“Fire sang through the opening measures of the concerto, practically exploding off the stage, and the piece’s later lyrical orchestral episodes...

Acclaim:

With Bruckner, Andris Nelsons follows in the footsteps of Masur and Blomstedt. But he surpasses them both in dynamic sharpness, highly emotional immersion and, in view of the consistently moderate tempi, in the goosebump feeling of infinite and unswerving flow. No brutal caesuras cut the musical line. Despite all their passions, they are deliberate interpretations, but not calculated and even less controlled by effects. Cosmically perfect in form, the Ninth, which has remained a torso, especially has it all in its visionary, redemption-free archaic. Even Karajan applauds benevolently from his place at the Right of God, of course also for the Wagner excerpts.

Online Merker

“With Bruckner, Andris Nelsons follows in the footsteps of Masur and Blomstedt. But he surpasses them both in dynamic sharpness, highly emotional...

Acclaim:

Nelsons is entirely in his element in "La Mer", in this intoxication of colours and reflexes, of dazzling nuances and mirages, of controlled eruptions and cultivated breakers. And also his Saxon orchestra follows him in blind (self) trust with subtly animated tutti sound, wonderful details and enchanting solos (English horn, trumpet) through this precious seascape of the soul, followed by the first sharp cries of the season.

Leipziger Volkszeitung

“Nelsons is entirely in his element in “La Mer”, in this intoxication of colours and reflexes, of dazzling nuances and mirages, of controlled...

Acclaim:

All of this subtlety depends on fine execution. He [Bruckner] really does have to be played very, very well if the spaces that suddenly open up around the notes are not to seem a slackening of tension. It was one of the outstanding features of Nelsons’s reading - among the best Bruckner interpretations I've heard - that they never did. Every standstill was pregnant with consequence; and, while one could relish the beauty of sound (I was forever longing for the next beautiful phrase from the violins), one felt the pacing hidden in the background. Detail was luxurious, but architecture paramount, and Nelsons’s unshowy approach profoundly impressive. One could almost believe one had come across that impossible thing: the ego-less conductor. No exhibitionism here. He revealed Bruckner, with a relentless vision that takes us into the strangest places, as greater than ever.

The Times

“All of this subtlety depends on fine execution. He [Bruckner] really does have to be played very, very well if the spaces that suddenly open up...

Acclaim:

And here in Lucerne, starting with the low, primitive sound of the rolling double basses, through to the effervescent flutes, the Gewandhausorchester took the 1919 version of the work like a second skin. Nelsons was on top form, poking the strings into their clockwork rhythms and the horns into a brassy bombast, so much so that in the huge conclusion, he used what almost looked like the muscular punch of a professional boxer. That said, this Firebird could hardly have been tackled with more conviction; in short, this performance was electrifying.

Bachtrack

“And here in Lucerne, starting with the low, primitive sound of the rolling double basses, through to the effervescent flutes, the Gewandhausorchester...

Acclaim:

Siegfried Idyll is literally breathed into life by Andris Nelsons, cueing the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra to commune with the music, bringing a very expressive beauty and contentment, ravishing the listener’s senses with a mix of poignancy and poetry (the latter characteristic suggesting gentle breezes and palm trees) and further enhanced by a finely-judged array of dynamics: twenty-one minutes of bliss.

Classical Source

“Siegfried Idyll is literally breathed into life by Andris Nelsons, cueing the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra to commune with the music, bringing a very...

Acclaim:

The nebulous sounds surfacing at the beginning of the piece, symbolizing the (still) deep silence of the water, were played by the Gewandhaus Orchestra in such a floating tenderness that one wanted to hold one's breath. With pianissimos of the finest quality, Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester took the qualities of the Elbphilharmonie acoustic to its limits. But also when the wave movements finally sloshed through the woodwind registers, the beatings of the timpani gave a hint of danger and finally the brass fanfares announced the happy arrival of the ship, the sound balance of this orchestra was unique and precise.

Die Welt

“The nebulous sounds surfacing at the beginning of the piece, symbolizing the (still) deep silence of the water, were played by the Gewandhaus Orchestra...

Acclaim:

For sixteen months, Andris Nelsons has been chief conductor of the world's oldest bourgeois concert orchestra. He treats it with caution and awe. It is an archive of knowledge, sounds and feelings. The musicians, who can tell a lot of stories about various conductors, their irascible anger, their linguistic weapons of intimidation, their strategies to establish authority, are currently enthusiastic about Nelson's gentleness, his human warmth, but also his artistic spontaneity, his interpretational unpredictability in a good sense.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“For sixteen months, Andris Nelsons has been chief conductor of the world’s oldest bourgeois concert orchestra. He treats it with caution and awe....

Acclaim:

Where the Lucerne Festival Orchestra sounds like one of those bright 21st century glass skyscrapers, the Gewandhaus sounds like a sumptuous Gothic palace that has been regularly restored, but has kept its original colours and materials. The strings have the dark patina of antique furniture, the matt brass evokes an organ with wide and deep stops, never flashy. Andris Nelsons' warm direction trusts musicians whose mutual listening is permanent, his little aesthetic body language invites more than it imposes. The result is a luminous Bruckner Eighth, which flows from the source and trusts the music, without seeking to prove anything. And this is does a lot of good.

Le Figaro

“Where the Lucerne Festival Orchestra sounds like one of those bright 21st century glass skyscrapers, the Gewandhaus sounds like a sumptuous Gothic...

Feature:

"The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons, and Deutsche Grammophon have expanded their award-winning recording partnership by extending their original agreement, which focused primarily on Shostakovich Symphonies 5-10 (works composed during the period of Shostakovich's difficult relationship with Stalin and the Soviet regime, mid-1930s to 1953), to include live recordings of the composer's entire canon of 15 symphonies, plus the masterpiece opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk [...]

BSO.org

The first album of the new partnership between the BSO, Nelsons, and DG, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, released in July 2015, won the Grammy Award for...

Feature:

"Charismatic young conductor Andris Nelsons is a talent in global demand. Since joining the CBSO in 2007 his reputation has soared – a thrilling debut at last year's Proms will be followed by the opening night at Bayreuth this year. He talks to Fiona Maddocks about growing up in Riga, Simon Rattle's legacy and Birmingham's bid for UK City of Culture 2013 [...]

The GuardianFiona Maddocks

Everywhere you turn in Birmingham, banners and hoardings urge you to “Join the Big Conversation”. This is the slogan for the city’s bid to...