ViktoriaMullova

Press

• Schubert: Duos

  recording

  May 2022

  • ...the shimmering opening of the Fantasy is as beguiling as it ever should be...Blazing commitment and consummate musicianship on display from both players

    • Gramophone Magazine
    • 08 May 2022

• Beethoven sonatas

  Recording

  May 2021

  • The C minor of Op. 30 No. 2 inspires the most impassioned playing, Mullova using an exquisitely subtle range of vibrato, from a gloriously pure senza to gentle inflections that both soothe and insinuate. Beatson articulates Beethoven’s occasionally menacing bass lines with relish and a palpable sense of opening the fortepiano’s expressive horizons.

    • BBC Music Magazine
    • 13 May 2021

  • ...Mullova's playing, its strength and power resting on many years' association with Beethoven and his music, strikes off not only her piano support but also the sonic purity of her surroundings and the constant, still-challenging invention of each score... Her spectrum of tones, from the merest whisper to full-throated songfulness in lyrical passages, and range of nuance compel the attention throughout. Among recent recordings of such extremely familiar repertoire, this one must surely rank among the finest.

    • Gramophone Magazine
    • 13 June 2021

• Philharmonia Orchestra

  Royal Festival Hall

  May 2019

  • Viktoria Mullova gave a truly imperious account of Sibelius's Violin Concerto...The cadenzas were magnificent, dramatic and dark...her playing spoke of passion and fire.

    • The Strad
    • 17 July 2019

• Seattle Symphony Orchestra Dusapin: At Swim-Two Birds

  Benaroya Hall

  Nov 2018

  • Mullova led the way in establishing atmosphere, Barley joining in and further embellishing their duologues. Even in the most overtly virtuosic passage—a frenzied outburst of perpetual motion on the violin—Mullova projected a gripping emotional honesty that was echoed by Barley’s passionate phrasing on cello.

    • Musical America
    • 13 November 2018

• Pärt

  Recording

  Oct 2018

  • Viktoria Mullova brilliantly manages to tease out these dichotomies...Lighter feather-bedding is applied in the fourth variation's rapid triadic ostinatos, creating an almost symphonic effect.

    • Gramophone
    • 07 October 2018

• London Symphony Orchestra: Shostakovich

  Barbican Centre, London

  May 2016

  • The opening ‘Nocturne’ brooded, expressed urgently by Mullova in terms of intensity, the LSO dark in support, she becoming even more remote when her instrument was muted. Savage strokes of the bow informed the ‘Scherzo’, an apoplectic dance, woodwinds (not least bass clarinet and contrabassoon) as spectres, abrupt changes of tempo well-judged. The painful emotions of the ‘Passacaglia’ were fully brought out, reaching heights of distressed ecstasy, Mullova really inside the anxiety expressed (as she has been for many years). And then the withdrawing from the world into the extensive cadenza, which retains musical integrity with the movements either side of it, the final ‘Burlesque’ high-spirited, yes, but in this account more about breaking a stranglehold rather than seeking an ovation, which was earned anyway. Mullova’s response was some slow unaccompanied Bach, very expressive, subtly decorated, and a sublime contrast with what had gone before.

    • Classical Source
    • 19 May 2016