'...each member of course has enormous individual technical and musical qualities, but what was particularly striking was the great unity that the performance radiated: a massive stream of swirling lava, always completely in balance, always clear in structure and, above all, extremely experienced. Van Rijn's tone is wonderfully velvety where possible, powerful and energetic where necessary and constantly pure and warm, with a flexibility that would not be out of place for a great violin soloist.'
'…Second violinist Julija Hartig 'danced' her sometimes difficult counter-voices almost out of her body, sometimes using beautiful, repetitive 'upstrokes' where she considered it necessary, and rightly so (and where the 'average violinist' would make it easier), and played a truly heartbreaking and moving solo in the third movement. And so each member of the octet deserves its own trumpet, because every part, without exception, was also played perfectly by the other musicians, violinists. Masha Iakovleva and Filipe Fernandes, violists Francien Schatborn and Frank Brakkee and cellists Eveline Kraayenhof and Anneke Janssen: a beautiful, clear and polyphonic voice fabric was created by individual top musicians who nevertheless find the perfect unity of an ensemble that knows and knows each other inside and out.'
Read the full review HERE.
