Acclaim
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Yehonatan Berick’s Paganini Caprices (packaged with both DVD and Blu-Ray discs) offer...tidy and assured performances in the modern international style from this Dorothy DeLay protégé. Berick’s stage presence is grounded and secure, as befits a capable pedagogue, and his playing provides us with, for example, clarity in no.2, technical fleetness in no.6 (‘The Trill’) and immaculateness in the 24th. Berick, who also gives a twelve-minute interview, comes across as serious and devoted...this is a quality product that is worth watching – seeing Berick’s playing is both instructive and inspirational.
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Rather than draw attention to himself, Berick makes the listeners join in his own enjoyment of the music. He phrases with meticulous care, and the beauty of his full-bodied tone is ravishing. Whether playing passionately or with utmost delicacy, his bow control is such that the instrument always sings, and the four strings form a seamless sonorous continuum - in the third movement of Bartok’s Sonata, this made the melody flow as smoothly as oil. What a joy to hear him play Bach’s Partita No. 2, culminating in the famous Chaconne. He rendered this difficult work so expressively, in tune, and with complete ease - never a scratch or shriek. (In the Chaconne, the unforced purity of his playing brought tears to my eyes.) That he managed to maintain a steady beat in each of the five movements made the music flow with uncommon clarity. - The Montreal Gazette |
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Berick didn't let the audience down. Right from the start, it was clear he was in complete control of the work, and the orchestra in turn was inspired to raise the level of its playing... For his part, Berick set the tone from the opening few notes, drawing the most passion from the music but never sounding saccharine. The work's Russian character is most clearly heard in the beautiful second movement Andante, and here Berick was superb. He was the pace car at the outset of the third movement, which begins after a brief pause at the end of the second. He had a little hop in his step at the beginning, moving through the rapid notes with ease. - The Windsor Star |
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The four-movement sonata, expressively performed by Ms. Artymiw and Mr. Berick, evokes Handel’s operatic style with ornamented, emotive melodies; the weeping lines of the Larghetto sounded like a trademark Handelian lament. The first segment ended with Saint-Saëns’s Rondo Capriccioso, played with flair by Mr. Berick. - The New York Times |
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For most fun of the evening, though, I’d have to nominate the Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat Major, for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, K. 364... The evening’s guests soloists, violinist Yehonatan Berick and violist Rebecca Albers, were having such a good time “conversing,” it was infectious. Who could climb to the top and claim the highest notes in the exchanges between the instruments? First Albers won, flashing Berick a smile; later it was his turn. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the playing of this pair was stellar — Berick’s high-flying and free, Albers’ soulful and throaty — what a sound!
- The Ann Arbor News |
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Paganini, a champion virtuoso, composed 24 of these exercises, not just one, in the early years of the 19th century as a daunting challenge to other violinists, contemporary and in the future. “I double dare you to try them,” he seemed to say. Berick took the challenge and, from what one heard, certainly mastered the approximately 80 minutes of music. From memory, he aggressively and convincingly negotiated his way through chords, trills, string crossings, ricochets, arpeggios, staccatos, pizzicatos, scales, octaves and what have you. Since these Caprices were not intended to show off the violin’s beauty of tone but a violinist’s ability to execute technical acrobatics, Berick caused this listener to marvel rather than revel. But marvel I most assuredly did at his stunning accomplishment.
- Herald Times |
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One should mention the eminently powerful contribution of Israeli violinist Yehonatan Berick. At the end of the day, the best moment of the concert was the Ravel sonata for violin and cello. Here is an astonishing work, quite revolutionary even for the era, that Mr. Lysy and violinist Berick had obviously prepared with great care of the synchronization of the movements, and most importantly, the sound. Indeed, with one as with the other, there was the same quality of vibrato, as sober in the violinist’s playing as in that of the cellist, and consequently, the same quality of sound, that, in some registers, merged the two instruments into one.
- La Presse |
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As soon as the theme of the first movement sounded, it was clear to the audience that something exceptional was taking place. It was not Berick’s technical security that so amazed; Although this is already a respectable trait in itself, it merely demonstrates manual skill. No, it was the exceptionally fine violin tone, and the rounded, ever-heartfelt design, of which the listener could conclude: only so, and not otherwise, should this concerto sound. Berick’s violin sings with a sweet, warm tone, soft and intensive even in the highest range, but has enough brillinace as well, making runs clear and audible. Throughout the three movements, all listened spellbound to the young, celebrated soloist. And the encore - a solo sonata movement by Bach - sounded refined and mature.
- Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung |