CHARLES ROSEN Pianist
Critical Acclaim
CONCERT REVIEWS
"Pianist Charles Rosen [is] the 20th century version of the so-called Renaissance man. He may well be the most versatile of living musicians...he plays like a tremendously gifted pianist of most discerning musicality with a technique that makes light of every obstacle." Los Angeles Times
"Two exceptional hours of piano music [were] played by Charles Rosen at Carnegie Hall....It was a symmetrical kind of program, with Elliott Carter's "Night Fantasies" at its center and music by Chopin and Schumann placed around it....It was an impressive act of musicianship."
The New York Times
"His performances had the stamp of a supremely literate musician who could account for every structural twist and turn in these stony works, yet he still made expressive capital from the inspiration of the moment. The three contrasting sonatas...were especially effective, vividly personalized and bracingly articulated." New York Magazine
“Rosen’s piano playing is riveting in the way it combines formal clarity and musical insight with an uncommon gestural and speech-like expressiveness.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“The consummate writer, critic, musicologist and pianist Charles Rosen has been at the forefront of his many fields for most of his 80 years. To a packed hall, he gave a programme that would tax the great performers half his age, in Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata Op. 57 and the Diabelli Variations Op. 120. From the opening of Op. 57, Rosen cast a spell of mystery and tension, of a vision understood. This set the pattern for the evening.” The Independent
“The mighty span of the Diabellis was beautifully apparent, sustained by playing of forceful briskness and unblurred by undue lingering over detail. Not that brusqueness precluded affecting moments: the florid, slow, minor-key 31 st variation had a meditative tenderness that I found heartstopping. I recalled Rosen’s lovely observation that though Beethoven is here imitating Bach, the result anticipates Chopin.” The Sunday Times
“Even the most cursory listen to his [Charles Rosen] recordings of Beethoven’s ‘late’ sonatas confirms that his is playing for which the piano just happens to be the medium through which this music is presented. He focuses on the music as an unfolding process in sound, with no desire to make it seem difficult other than in terms of the form to be clarified and the expression to be conveyed. It is not hard (live or recorded) to locate more highly charged, emotive or, indeed, alluring Beethoven playing—but performances that communicate the music’s essence so intently yet undemonstratively will always be at a premium.” Classicalsource.com
"...the explosively intelligent musician who can convey his highly original ideas with all the silkiness of sound and subtlety of rubato of the great romantic virtuosos." The Boston Globe
"Mr. Rosen threw himself into the "Appassionata" with admirable gusto and a Romantic extravagance that we might not automatically associate with him. He built climaxes expertly and when the piece turned to sheer frenzy, the pianist let the submerged anger in the music show itself." The New York Times
“First and foremost, he is a pianist of penetrating originality...Rosen thinks with his fingers.”
The New Yorker
“Perhaps no pianist brings such musicological authority to the concert stage, just as no scholar has made it into the ranks of world-class pianists and stayed there for as long....” Chicago Tribune
“This was music-making fired by the passion of learning.” The Times (London)
"Charles Rosen is noted as a pianist as well as a perceptive scholar and writer. The two functions really are united in him, as anyone attending his Beethoven recital...had to notice. His intellectual grasp and keen intuition guide each other, and work as one." San Francisco Chronicle
"The pianist applies a formidable intellect to Chopin's music, yet never at the expense of its emotional content....His readings are filled with new, intriguing ideas....Rosen's Chopin combines the old and the new, the scholarly and the spontaneous, as no one else's does....Here was Chopin drawn in bold colors and sweeping gestures." Chicago Tribune
"Charles Rosen is often accused of being an intellectual pianist....If being intellectual means possessing an ability to make beautiful music, may all pianists be so afflicted. Rosen's solo performance...was an irreplaceable gift to the nearly full house and a singularly moving tribute to Beethoven." San Francisco Examiner
"...[his] performances of the last three Beethoven piano sonatas were lucid, focused and literal. They were also searching and powerful and spoke convincingly of the freedom to be found in discipline." The Washington Post
“This was one of the most astonishing, original, and moving interpretations of this work [Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 110] that I have heard.” Chicago Sun-Times 2
“At the keyboard, Rosen is an intellectual in the best sense. He has a clear understanding of how the various components of a sonata work together to convey Beethoven’s prickly, rapturous rhetoric, and he lets a listener hear it.” San Francisco Chronicle
RECORDING REVIEWS
Beethoven's Piano Sonatas Nos. 27-32: "Charles Rosen is one of the greatest pianists this country has produced...Rosen's profound intellect, combined with an impeccable virtuoso technique and fiery temperament, makes him the ideal interpreter of the late Beethoven sonatas. His intensive study has here produced readings that penetrate to the very core of these transcendent works. Nobody before or since Beethoven has written such complex music for the piano, and only a select few have been able to solve its difficult problems so clearly and coherently. With Rosen we are almost witnessing the act of creation."
American Record Guide
“Certainly, this is playing of high intelligence, sensitivity and great physical vigour.” Gramophone
“Charles Rosen is one of the most commanding interpreters of Beethoven’s longest and most taxing sonatas. His streak of toughness, his analytical powers...and his concentration make for an unforgettable experience.” Penguin Guide to Compact Disks
Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Op. 106 and 110 “...Rosen is very much the complete musician and pianist and this superbly conceived interpretation deserves a place in the pantheon.” American Record Guide
“Author of the most revelatory scholarly analyses of Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann, Rosen is also a pianist, possibly one of the most intelligent to sit at a keyboard...every phrase in these somewhat private works lives and breathes with life, comprehension and purpose.” USA Today
“Awesome! Simply awesome, is my response to hearing Rosen’s new recording of the Hammerklavier ....Rarely are artistic vision and expressive insight so profoundly revealed as in these performances. This CD is definitely in line to be one of the most memorable of the year.”
Classical Music
“...the pianist’s formidable insights into the music’s structure are matched by playing that is appropriately light-fingered and ferocious...Rosen imbues the slow movements with a newfound sense of freedom and more color than before.” Time Out New York
3 “...a disc from a probing and hugely intelligent musician, Charles Rosen’s Hammerklavier is a remarkable one.” Gramophone
The Romantic Generation "Rosen's playing is sober and classicizing in its lucidity of texture, its crystalline tone, and its reluctance to overdo rubatos. His awareness of large-scale architecture lends coherence even to Liszt's sprawling paraphrase [ Reminiscences of Don Juan ]..." Classic CD
Chopin Mazurkas : "Here is a pianist...who employs fluctuations of tempo, who actually observes some of the accent marks that Chopin so carefully wrote into the music, who understands the syncopations, and who plays with a beautifully modulated sonority....To this taste, he has given us the finest modern recording of these elusive pieces." The New York Times
Beethoven's Diabelli Variations : "The Diabelli Variations are particularly a marvel--analytical but never clinical, intelligently characterized, rhythmically vital, alive to detail and forged into a single powerful unit."
The New York Times
"Rosen's performance is a truly extraordinary achievement. There is all the virtuosity needed for the "brilliant" variations, and there are the grittiness, fierceness, and humour that these pieces need as well." Stereo Review
“The best recording ever of what may be Beethoven’s greatest piano work...Mr. Rosen reveals its greatness with blasts of lighting and manic energy.” The Dallas Morning News
Bach’s The Art of Fugue “Rosen’s powerful intelligence allows the work’s ingenuity to shine through with marvellous clarity.” BBC Music Magazine
Elliott Carter’s Piano Sonata, 90+, Night Fantasies “Charles Rosen plays this music with a depth of understanding and empathy that comes from both great musicality and a penetrating intellect.” Fanfare
“In Night Fantasies , too, Rosen is absolutely superb–acute, poetic, and always alive to the quicksilver, improvisatory element in the music.” American Record Guide
4 Schumann's "Revolutionary Masterpieces": "Schumann's piano music has certainly been well served on records, but a collection by Charles Rosen is exceptional enough to justify any duplication of titles you may already have...the present set is something that ought to be acquired and enjoyed by everyone with working ears."
Stereo Review Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze “There is something essentially pure about the playing of Charles Rosen: no nonsense but a great deal of poetic feeling and a beautiful capturing of Schumann’s fictional personalities....”
BBC Music Magazine
Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto: "Rosen's recording...is a triumph...the balance of elegance and warmth of heart, of serenity and humour represents...a joyous realization." Stereo Review
BOOK REVIEWS
Piano Notes
“No instrument represents the culture of classical music as powerfully as the piano. Charles Rosen’s new book investigates the piano’s cultural history, its repertoires and institutions and its crucial impact on the history of music…this is a wide-ranging and approachable book that will appeal to pianists of every level.” The Economist
“Here’s a great book for your piano-playing friend or keyboard fan from a pianist/philosopher who also is a National Book Award-winning author…This book teaches you nearly everything about the piano, except how to play it.” Seattle Times
“The real-life experience of a pianist enlightened about his art and its teaching is priceless, particularly when described with such discernment…Piano Notes is a goldmine of experience and wisdom. It is also a starting point for further reflection. Piano teachers and young pianists must read this book.” American Record Guide
“This witty but solid, informative but highly readable little volume offers insights aplenty into the piano, its literature and the art of playing.” St. Louis Post Dispatch
Piano Sonatas “Rosen, whose legendary books of music criticism are among the most lucid and valuable in print, has produced yet another outstanding work: a performer’s guide to Beethoven’s piano sonatas…The text is rich in detail, and Rosen’s prose is typically graceful and embracing.” Library Journal
“An indispensable book.” Chicago Sun Times
5
“Charles Rosen writes in his usual freewheeling style—that is to say, his book is about the Beethoven sonatas and a good deal else….the many fans of Rosen’s two classic books—The Classical Style and The Romantic Generation —will find much to enjoy in this new work. Fanfare
Critical Entertainments “Charles Rosen is incomparable. When the Muses were dispensing their gifts–musical skills to one person, literary ability to another, intellectual gusto to a third–they must have met in the middle of their rounds over Rosen and emptied their satchels on his head.” Financial Times
Romantic Poets, Critics and Other Madmen “This latest book demonstrates Rosen’s astonishing range of cultural reference...the new book includes searching and generous studies of mad poets...Romantic writers...nineteenth-century novelists...and twentieth-century theorists...in every one of them, Rosen’s wonderful critical intelligence is attuned to the dialogue between the work and its modern interpreters.”
The Observer (London) The Romantic Generation "Charles Rosen's new book is that rarity: a work of detailed musical analysis that combines profound scholarship with artistic intuition...Mr. Rosen's analyses are permeated with genuine love for the works he discusses. The effect of his writing is not to channel the glory of music reductively into words but, rather, to increase our awareness of the inner workings of the creative process...the best thing about his writing is that it leads one to want to hear the music: to listen anew to the well-known works and to acquaint oneself with the lesser known."
The New York Times Book Review
"One can say with confidence that The Romantic Generation , Charles Rosen's sequel to his The Classical Style , is the music book not only of 1995 but also of many years to come. The author's ability to communicate his musical insights and immense learning has developed even beyond the capacities displayed in the earlier volume. No one else, certainly no other music historian, could have written any of the chapters in the new study, partly for the reason that its subject is the literature of the Golden Age of the keyboard, chiefly the l830s, and Rosen is himself a world-class pianist." Books, Chicago Tribune
“...an elegant and altogether irresistible study that is destined to endure...this is musicology that captivates us with its style and enriches the act of listening.” Time
“...the real power of his criticism rests on his immediate musical insight...his analytical genius extends to both music and language, so that again and again he finds just the right words to describe a musical effect simply, clearly, and to perfection.” The New York Review of Books
6
“The crowning glory of The Romantic Generation , of course, is its discussion of some of the greatest literature for the piano, a discussion that is historically informed, intellectually brilliant, profoundly intuitive and thoroughly practical -- every pianist who wants to play Chopin, Schumann and Liszt will need to read it.” The Boston Globe
“In his long-awaited new book, The Romantic Generation , Charles Rosen opens the reader's ears and mind with his brilliant insights, his enthusiasm for the music, and his elegance and wit. Like the author's The Classical Style , this is a book of ideas and opinions that shows off Mr. Rosen's awesome command of the musical repertory and of much else besides."
The Washington Times
“Rosen’s highly readable erudition illuminates Romantic music as never before, and retunes one’s ears.” Financial Times
“The great strength of The Romantic Generation is that, though dealing with complex matters, it is never more abstruse than necessary...A fascinating read.” The Mail on Sunday (London)
“The Romantic Generation ...is a monumental work of critical intelligence and of impassioned recreative imagining...If The Classical Style was Rosen’s C minor Sonata, Op. 111, The Romantic Generation is his Kreisleriana , ‘violent, eccentric and poetic’ and hugely perceptive besides.” Times Literary Supplement (London)
“Many readers have considered The Classical Style the finest book every written about music. The Romantic Generation in some ways aims even higher and succeeds breathtakingly.”
The Dallas Morning News
NOVEMBER 2007. PLEASE DISCARD PREVIOUSLY DATED MATERIALS Shuman Associates 120 West 58 Street New York, NY 10019 T: 212/315-1300 F: 212/757-3005 E-mail: [email protected] 7