Recent CD Reviews
An unmitigated triumph …. required listening.
David Threasher Gramophone
A fascinating CD, admirable throughout.
Susan Miron ArtsFuse
Disarming freshness, agility and intelligence … wonderfully idiomatic.
Andrew Achenbach Gramophone
My great expectations have been completely met!
Maximilian Burgdörfer MusicWeb International
The key figure in the production of this CD is the pianist and musicologist David Owen Norris. His musicianship and knowledge of the period ensures an authoritative approach throughout. This is a disc that can be confidently recommended.
Alistair MacDonald British Music Society
This work (the finale of Mozart’s last Symphony) is tricky enough – especially in the breathtaking counterpoint of the finale – when played as a piano duet. Performing it with only two hands, in an arrangement that preserves nearly every polyphonic strand, is a brilliant tour de force, with the invaluable bonus of the finale’s second repeat being taken, heightening the effect of the work’s cathartic coda.
David Threasher Gramophone
Euan Ferguson’s review of Chord of the Week in the Observer, September 2nd 2018:
Owen Norris surpassed even himself by likening a Rachmaninov chord to a painter’s faint lines of perspective, scrubbed afterwards: it made sense, even to me, at the time, and garnered a round of awed applause from Katie Derham and guests. Probably the most consistently intelligent three minutes you’ll watch on this or any other television this year.
Here’s some one-liners:
‘A famous thinker/philosopher of the keyboard’ Seattle Times
‘Quite possibly the most interesting pianist in the world’ Globe & Mail, Toronto
‘A phenomenon at the keyboard’ Piano and Keyboard Magazine
‘David Owen Norris dazzles’ Gramophone
‘Heavenly sounds – diabolical virtuosity. Don’t miss him.’ CD Compact (Spain)
‘To have David Owen Norris at the piano is luxury indeed’ The Strad
‘Visionary musical leadership’ Classic FM
‘Inspired direction’ Sunday Times
‘A live wire, crackling with electricity’ Boston Globe
‘A musical Houdini’ Opera Now
‘One of the most iconic personalities in English music of any period’
(Revue Musicale)
Here’s a comprehensive round-up of the reviews for The Jupiter Project:
Gramophone August 2019:
In a review of this sort of project it’s customary to add the caveat that these arrangements can’t begin to do justice to Mozart’s original conception of these works. In this case, thanks to four fully committed musicians—primarily the indefatigable Owen Norris—that’s poppycock. The Jupiter, especially, is required listening.
Fanfare February 2020:
Special kudos are due to pianist David Owen Norris, who plays brilliantly throughout, with the kind of technical precision, sensitivity, and pristine legato so prized by Mozart. His embellishments in the “Elvira Madigan” Concerto are beautifully conceived and executed. The inclusion of the extended decay in piano sound at the conclusion of movements is charming. The remainder of the musicians are of a similarly elevated quality.
MusicWeb International August 2019:
Given clear recording to complement the performances and a very informative set of notes from David Owen Norris and Mark Everist, this is a fascinating release.
Sunday Times 18th August 2019:
Vivaciously persuasive performances.
The Times 2nd August 2019:
**** The handpicked musicians beaver through happily, led by the prancing and dynamic David Owen Norris, armed with an 1826 Broadwood piano. Familiar music, delightfully played, viewed from a novel perspective; in a word, irresistible.
Classical Source August 2019:
**** This Norris-led interpretation [of the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony] is immensely satisfying; if only orchestral performances were always as perceptive as this. The tempos are ideal and Norris holds strictly to them; there are no whims or fancies. The Symphony’s structure is clearly represented, every repeat is made and one’s attention is held throughout the forty-minute performance. Clementi strongly features the piano but he is able skilfully to represent all the inner lines—a remarkable feat in the complex fugal Finale.
More …
Church Times
David Owen Norris events are always different. With a racing mind, he can serve up a comic opera, a symphony, a haunting song cycle or a sacred cantata as apparently effortlessly (although hard graft and much midnight oil are more often entailed) as he can toss off a Scarlatti sonata, or Bach’s Forty-Eight; or deliver an analysis – the most inspiring I have heard – on BBC4 of Parry’s Jerusalem.