RECORDING REVIEWS

MICHAEL HERSCH - THE VANISHING PAVILIONS

"The evening felt downright historic. [Hersch] conjured volcanic gestures from the piano with astonishing virtuosity. Everything unfolds in open-ended, haiku-like eruptions, though built on ideas that recur throughout the 50 movements, from a lamenting, chantlike melody to passages of such speed and density you'd think the complete works of Franz Liszt were played simultaneously within three minutes. Overtly or covertly, The Vanishing Pavilions is about the destruction of shelter (both in fact and in concept) and life amid the absence of any certainty. And though the music is as deeply troubled as can be, its restless directness also commands listeners not to be paralyzed by existential futility." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer (from the premiere performance)

"... he has composed one of the most unusual pieces in memory: The Vanishing Pavilions for piano, a work in two "books," as Hersch describes them, and taking about two hours and twenty minutes to play. Apart from his composing, Hersch is a brilliant pianist, and there could be no better advocate of his own music. ... the work is barely fathomable: reflecting terror, agony, wonder. I hesitate to describe it. It seems both intensely personal and universal. It is ferocious, desperate, manic; titanic, daunting, world-containing; visionary, apocalyptic, inexorable. You sometimes want to look away from it; it can be terrible to contemplate. And yet you still heed it. You sense that the piece is both reacting to this world and striving for something beyond. I intend to live with The Vanishing Pavilions for a while longer. It has gotten under my skin, as it must; it has even disturbed my sleep. A first hearing takes a considerable amount of time, especially given the lives so many of us now lead. But one hearing is plainly insufficient. Michael Hersch has something to say, and he bears listening to." -- National Review (2007)

"Your deepest fears and most monumental anger seem to aired and examined -- in music that's an artistic expression of the highest sophistication, and never more so than in The Vanishing Pavilions. ... perhaps the most imposing work yet in an output that began imposingly more than a decade ago ..." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer (2007)

"This is music of raw, elemental gravity, which proceeds at its own unhurried pace. The music of each movement has an immediate, visceral impact; it sounds like it springs from, and speaks to, some deep, primordial place, unmediated by any system or even the niceties of compositional correctness. The variety that Hersch's tonal and gestural palette brings to each movement, as well as the music's restless, unpredictable rhythmic energy, commands the listener's attention. Hersch's performance is stunning in its vitality and virtuosity."
-- allmusic.com

MICHAEL HERSCH - CHAMBER MUSIC

"The disc, titled "Michael Hersch: Chamber Music," features Hersch himself on piano as well as string soloists from the Berlin Philharmonic. The disc's highlight is probably a vast octet for strings in 11 movements that lasts half an hour and seems an encyclopedic exploration of deepest darkness, shot through with anxious energy. A "Recordatio" for solo piano was inspired by the death of Luciano Berio, one of many diverse and extraordinary older composers (George Rochberg and Hans Werner Henze are two others) who have recognized and encouraged Hersch's melancholy genius. These are remarkably original and assured pieces -- best of all, Hersch, still in his early thirties, may just be getting started."
-- The Washington Post (2004)

"... austere and uncompromising. What attracts the ear, and keeps it engaged, is Hersch’s acute ear for harmony. This manifests itself not only in the colours of the sounds themselves – but also in the way that glimmers of tonality emerge at key locations in a largely atonal landscape. But, then, Hersch clearly has an innate dramatic sensibility. His Octet is spread over 11 distinctly characterised movements (and at 31 minutes the largest work here), yet how inexorably it moves. The climax is placed in the 10th movement (and, interestingly, the dramatic shape of this movement appears to be a condensation of the work’s larger structure), while the final movement (a reprise of the second) serves as an anguished, angry and strangely familiar sounding epitaph. The effect is devastating.” -- Gramophone Magazine

“With Hersch, you hear a sincere, emotionally raw voice with every utterance – often a harrowing experience. ... urgent, commanding, able to communicate without shouting and without cliche.”

-- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“This is a powerful, engaging, and most auspicious debut.” -- Strings Magazine

HERSCH - JOSQUIN - RIHM - FELDMAN

" ... a natural musical genius who continues to surpass himself." -- Tim Page (The Washington Post)
Hersch creates music of stark, austere beauty. He is also a brilliant pianist, as this darkly compelling program shows.

"He plays his own spare transcriptions of works by 15th century master Josquin des Prés, as well as Morton Feldman’s chilly “Piano Piece (for Philip Guston)”, the moody silences and sometimes gauzy, sometimes jangly textures of which he articulates with imposing power. In Wolfgang Rihm’s “Auf einem anderen Blatt”, Hersch’s palette ranges from diaphanous, petal-soft tones to startlingly metallic stabs. Of greatest interest are Hersch’s “Milosz Fragments”, inspired by the Nobel laureate’s poems and based on the composer’s 2003 work, the wreckage of flowers, and his Sonata No. 2 for Unaccompanied Cello. Daniel Gaisford brings the latter to life with astonishing virtuosity and a haunted lyricism ideally suited to Hersch’s somber muse. “Milosz Fragments” finds Hersch at his most tortured, traversing landscapes of uncompromising bleakness. An immensely rewarding disc.”
-- Time Out NY

“Hersch’s compositions, frequently singled out for their dark emotional intensity, should not be misconstrued as gothically despairing; more accurately, they fall in line with the stark spiritual introspection of Ingmar Bergman’s landmark films. ... this collection strikes a remarkable balance. Nothing feels forced to fit here, and it is to Hersch’s credit that his own works stand so strongly among such talented company. Excepting the cello sonata performed by Daniel Gaisford, Hersch himself is at the piano throughout. Both men perform with a palpable intensity... If one had to guess just by listening, Hersch did more than program this recording for commercial effect. Rather it’s as if he is writing a profoundly personal letter to the listener in which he shares much of both his intellectual and emotional self.” -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Hersch is known as one of the world’s leading young composers. This stark, introspective program, ranging from transcriptions of fifteenth-century giant Josquin des Prés to Hersch’s own Milosz Fragments, highlights his equally remarkable gifts as a pianist.” -- New York Newsday – Best of Year 2004

SYMPHONIES NOS. 1 & 2, FRACTA, ARRACHE'
Marin Alsop, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

"These performances confirm Michael Hersch (b.1971) as one of the most seriously engaging musical voices in the U.S. today. The Second Symphony marries a volcanic New World energy to a deeply skeptical, often angst-ridden spiritual climate. Alsop and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra are brilliant advocates." -- Andrew Clark (The Financial Times, UK)

"(4 stars) Three years separate Michael Hersch's First and Second Symphonies. The first, composed in 1998, is hauntingly beautiful, densely textured with an inexorable sense of the organic. The second displays a rather more searching and adventurous style, where dramatic extremes and a more intense astringency are its lifeblood. There's an alluring boldness about this young American's music, which is noticeable too in Fracta and Arraché, both contained in this big-scale survey by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Marin Alsop." -- The Scotsman

"For many young composers, early works tend to project a youthful sense of innocence and discovery. Composer Michael Hersch, however, seems to have entered adulthood painfully aware of the darker ways of the world - heard in this first disc of his orchestral works in no uncertain terms. Though frequently characterized as a descendant of Mahler and Berg, Hersch's music is more aptly compared to the sinister sound collages of Alfred Schnittke. But even with the distinctly American vigor of imagination Hersch stands pretty much alone in this country in terms of his confrontational musical idiom. That might have been a minus to some 1990s audiences, but now seems to define our time. His dissonances were always fascinating; now they're oddly comforting. The Symphony No. 2 and Arraché in particular stand up well among Hersch's recent work, especially in these compelling, comprehending performances. In fact, this may be conductor Marin Alsop's best recording yet."
-- The Philadelphia Inquirer

"(Hersch) has made several recordings as a pianist, and a solo disc devoted to his keyboard and chamber music came out of Germany. Now, Naxos gives us a full-scale introduction to his orchestral music, and it's impressive. In contrast to the minimalism that has occupied so much of the classical landscape during the last 30 years, and in contrast to neo-romantics, Mr. Hersch comes off as an unapologetic modernist. His pieces don't really sound much like the Second Viennese School (Berg, Schoenberg), but they're not afraid of dissonance. They're not really reminiscent of the big American symphonies of the middle 20th century, either. They feel less nationalist than William Schuman's, less esoteric than Roger Sessions'. But they share those composers' sense of scale and drama. The younger composer loves big gestures played off against solo laments. He favors the orchestra's lowest voices: tuba, cello and double bass, big bass drum. Notice the chimes that ring in the Symphony No.1. They immediately announce that something epic is happening. ... this music rewards repeated listening. The performances by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop are all you could wish for." -- The Dallas Morning News