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“Antonov’s exquisite interpretation of the Tchaikovsky
Rococo Variations and broad and powerful performance of the Dvorak
Concerto has brought him a well deserved success. He is the only
participant who possesses a harmonious gift that encompasses high
professionalism, strong individuality and respect for the composer’s
vision…”
Kirill Rodin, cellist
Independent expert of the XIII International Tchaikovsky Competition
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“….when the orchestra assigned to accompany the
cello finals bowed out of playing Prokofiev’s challenging
Symphony Concerto on the grounds that it hadn’t played it
in 10 years,[ Sergey] Antonov, 23, thus had to play Dvorak Concerto.
It did him no harm, for he took the gold medal. At the award ceremony,
he offered a polished performance of the Tchaikovsky’s Variations
on the Rococo Theme that stressed its classical elements; his
account of the Dvorak was reportedly firy…”
George Loomis
Future Stars Shine in Moscow
Financial Times
July, 2007
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“ [Sergey Antonov’s] playing is strong without being
sentimental. It is passion under full control”
Sven Bertilsson,
Katrineholms Kuriren,
Katrineholm, Sweden
August, 2006
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Cellist Sergey Antonov Peforms in Class
of '45 Hall
December 10
……..The audience raved about the young musician
after the concert. English teacher English teacher Peter Glomset
later wrote to thank Music Director Tom Berryman for organizing
the event. In his letter, Glomset wrote:
“The performance today was among the most enjoyable hours
I've spent at St. Mark's. It was exciting as well as soothing,
a perfect addition to our normal school life. It was wonderful
to hear old favorites and pieces I had never heard before played
so well."
"The connection that the performers made with the students
was also extraordinary. They were clearly excited and impressed,
but you could tell that Sergyi was accessible to them from their
questions. I felt that we could have continued with those questions
for much longer. Going to the concert reminded me of how good
our students are and how much they crave and love to be connected
with, in this case, musically and in words."
"The music sounded wonderful in the new hall . . . Thanks for
organizing this. It was a terrific experience."
www.stmarksschool.org
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Trieste, Italy. They say, about singing, that
a voice is alluring if it manages to please us even with just
the linear emission of a single note. We are reminded of this
notion as we listen to a voice, not human—for as much as
it may resemble it—but of a truly special cello. We choose
to speak not simply of the instrument’s sound because the
sound that wafts from Sergey Antonov’s bow work transcends,
by multiple analogy, into the domain of sensations usually associated
with the highest singing qualities. Indeed, even as the musical
flow lingers for a moment on a strain, the latter, suspended in
mid air, emanates an opulent hypnotic beauty that expands and
materializes in an architecture of sensual, welcoming, inebriating
softness, almost to the point of distracting one’s reflexion
from the young Russian artist’s accomplished mastery. But
nothing could be further from the truth of a judgment that does
not in the least put on the same level the timbral fascination
and every other aspect of Antonov’s interpretations. Interpretations
that glide like satin, wide in scope yet capillary, totally immune
to angularities, with a subtle passionateness in which every gesture
naturally—dare we say, inevitably—descends from the
preceding one. After an unusually lithe and sweet yet without
a doubt stirring and soulful rendition of Bach’s Suite No.
2, the wonderful readings of Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne
and Rachmaninov’s Sonata in G minor feature, next to Antonov,
the pianist Constantine Finehouse, a Russian compatriot, though
settled in the United States since childhood. The latter’s
artistic intelligence and polish is truly priceless, especially
in consideration of the cellist’s nature. The duo’s
irresistible dialog totally conquers the audience gathered at
Teatro Verdi’s Sala Ridotto for the inauguration of the
Chamber Music Association’s Salotto Cameristico. Two encores
seal the excellent evening.
Dejan Bozovic
Il Gazzettino, Trieste, Italy, April 2008
(Eng. tr. by Pasquale G. Tatò)
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….Sergey Antonov has performed
Elgar’s cello concerto at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.
The final concert of the Moscow Philharmonic subscription series,
titled “ Stars of the 21st Century”, featured two
young musicians. The performance of one of them, a Gold Medal
winner of the last International Tchaikovsky Competition, cellist
Sergey Antonov became a real discovery .
The title of this five concert series implies that the “Stars”
are young musicians who earned competition titles and have already
had considerable exposure on the classical concert stage. They
are given a chance: they are selected from the overall mass of
many accomplished young musicians; they are united by a musical
“weight category” and are propelled to the status
of a “Star”. The main objective for us is to acknowledge
this new generation for whom the road is paved. At present, the
technique of bringing forth a talent allows one to build a performing
career but there are dangers involved. One may loose their individuality
by way of education, technique, success. In today’s world
it became a norm. The musical gift is cloned, but the main ingredient
is lacking: “God’s Gift”. Geniuses are becoming
fewer…
…Sergey Antonov, who performed first, became a persona
from a different world. He has nothing from our age of cloned
virtuosos whose desire is to be liked. It appears that the journey
of an education at the Central Music School, Moscow Conservatory,
Graduate School and victories in the competition world has not
been traveled.
He is unique.
It is hard to imagine but he is a musician who has his own inner
space, where he submerges himself from the very first sound. And
if the composition is not something that is heard very often,
and is not composed by the famous cello composer, but appears
completely ingenious, there is no doubt that the reason is in
a performer, who turns each phrase , every deeply felt sound into
an event of his own inner monologue. The theme of this monologue
is existential suffering; a change of intricately notated emotions,
directly related to the unexplainable condition known as Spiritual
Life. Such consciously developed nuances, sensitivity, such concentration
in combination with the feeling of drama have not been heard for
a long time. It is possible that the last voice of the 20th century
here was an ingenious Jacqueline du Pre. She was considered an
ideal interpreter of the cello concerto of Edward Elgar, which
was played today by Sergey Antonov.
This concerto was played by Antonov not only as a beautiful rendition
of the late post Romantic music, but as an expression on the level
of the late symphonies of Mahler, where the author was tormented
by two questions: the end of human life and an end of the classical
culture. Mahler died in 1911 and became a prophet. First World
War closed both questions. However, there were few residuals.
Elgar’s cello concerto which was written when the composer
was 62 (premier in 1919, London) – is an epilogue, where
the desperate questions are heard again: why the world is made
this way, why our lives on earth are filled with loneliness and
suffering? The fact that these questions were heard today, so
unexpectedly and with such bareness in a time when the society
is tuned to the positive “tuning fork”, can be only
attributed to Sergey Antonov. It appears that this musician has
a serious artistic fate.
May, 20, 2008/Marina Borisova
Daily Telegraph, No.91, Moscow, Russian Federation
http://www.gzt.ru/culture/2008/05/20/063002.html
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IL PICCOLO
Newspaper of Trieste
Web address: http://www.ilpiccolo.it
E-Mail: piccolo@ ilpiccolo.it
April 30, 2008
Culture and Entertainment section
MUSIC — At Teatro Verdi’s Ridotto
Sergey Antonov — A cello that can spellbind
Trieste. In the program it was billed as a major event, whether
on account of Sergey Antonov’s Italian début première
or of his brilliant course of studies begun as a child prodigy
at age five, his advanced studies with a master such as Rostropovich,
and a string of first prizes at important international competitions.
And no publicity campaign was ever more on target because Sergey
Antonov, who, together with pianist Constantine Finehouse, inaugurated
the Chamber Music Association’s Salotto Cameristico, is
truly a monster virtuoso on the cello.
The performance that featured him as the applauded protagonist
in Trieste literally spellbound the rapt audience at Teatro Verdi’s
Ridotto with an expressive mastery of extraordinary maturity,
realized through a technical skill exhibited without glitz but
with the naturalness that characterizes a genial interpreter.
The 25-year-old Muscovite exhibited an alluring bronzy timbre
that shines in the embrace of a most beautiful sonority, full
and rich of nuances. He impressed us with his imposing production
of sound, which gives him a powerful yet not excessive volume,
and for the bow’s soft, pliable, varicolored dance, which
allows him to get to the heart of the musical pieces with irresistible
fascination. Thus, his solo in the Suite No. 2, characterized
by a flowing phrasing and litheness of strains, gives Bach a velvety
sonority and subtle poetic nuances of bewitching freshness, while
the light shading of the dynamic acrobatics that underpin Stravinsky’s
Suite Italienne’s six movements envelop its genial
plot in an explosion of colors. In the latter score, which involves
a transcription of the Pulcinella made by the same author,
Antonov finds a highly skilled foil in pianist Constantine Finehouse.
A feeling that gave us, in conclusion, a breathtaking execution
of Rachmaninov’s Sonata in G minor, op. 19, as
arduous for its virtuosic funambulisms as it is seductive for
its melodic profusion, rendered by this duo in both of those aspects
with dazzling instrumental bravura.
Patrizia Ferialdi
(Eng. tr. by Pasquale G. Tatò)
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VITA NUOVA
Catholic Weekly of Trieste
May 2, 2008
Arts and Entertainment section
Antonov and Finehouse at Teatro Verdi
A CONCERT FIT TO BE RECORDED
The Chamber Music Association’s Salotto Cameristico at
Teatro Verdi’s Sala del Ridotto got started in a big way
on Monday, April 28, with a concert by the 2007 winner of the
prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition, the Muscovite cellist Sergey
Antonov, accompanied by pianist Constantine Finehouse.
Antonov, born in 1983 to a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory
and a Bolshoi Theatre cellist, began studying the cello at age
five and studied at an advanced level with, among others, the
legendary Mstislav Rostropovich, after obtaining his diplomas
at Moscow and at Boston’s Longy School.
The program began with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suite
No. 2 for solo cello in D minor, BWV 1008, where Antonov
immediately gave proof of his exceptionally high level with a
most beautiful, rounded sound, a taut yet at the same time sweet
phrasing, and an interpretation that struck the right balance
between philological deference to the score and modern sensitivity,
reminding us, in certain respects, of the celebrated baroque specialist
Jordi Savall for the breadth of its sound.
Then followed Igor Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne,
based on the famous ballet Pulcinella, where Antonov
and Finehouse’s duet work was so masterful as to sound like
an entire orchestra. Antonov is a complete artist, both from the
point of view of his unimpeachable technique and musically, with
a cantabile quality and an energy that merge in a harmonious whole.
Furthermore, Finehouse surely does not limit himself to accompanying
and expresses an interesting and never predictable personality.
Born in Saint Petersburg, he emigrated to the United States at
age thirteen and studied at Yale University and at the famous
Juilliard School in New York City. He plays in a duo with violinist
Philip Ficsor, with whom he has already recorded six CDs.
The second half was entirely dedicated to Sergey Rachmaninov’s
Sonata in G minor, op. 19, an essential piece in the
cello repertoire, which, with its four broad movements, seems
almost a concert with orchestra. And indeed Antonov and Finehouse
gave it a concertante treatment, with a truly masterly interpretation.
The duo’s phrasings were stirring: Monday’s concert
was a concert fit to be recorded.
In conclusion, a great success, followed by two lovely encores,
by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky.
Alberto Coda
(Eng. tr. by Pasquale G. Tatò)
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A SHINING PERFORMANCE
The absolute highlight of this summer's concerts
happened on Friday evening when the Russian Sergey Antonov gave
his long anticipated concert at the museum at Julitagård.
It was a performance that stood up to and outdid its high expectations.
Sergey Antonov goes into war with music, a war of 'love'. He is
full of strong emotions and an energy bigger than just the physical
performance. It's more than just the sum of a bow against a string,
what this consists of is hard, if not impossible, to explain.
And it is just as impossible to protect yourself against the emotional
force. You are pressed backwards in your chair, with a pressure
like the G-force in an accelerating Formula One car. There are
few musicians this talented, with this esoteric ability, being
able to touch the listener so deeply and put them in another dimension.
Sergey Antonov is playing with intuition, he breathes and lives
in music, the instrument is a natural extension of himself. The
whole first part of the concert was performed solo on the cello,
an experience that is not only musically hard to beat, but full
of a dense
atmosphere, sparkling with an electrified presence. In the second
half we heard the Cesar Franck Sonata in A major, which brought
forward a brilliant musical partnership with Carl Pontén,
and standing ovations, truly a magical moment and the absolute
highlight of an already spectacular evening.
Sven Bertilsson
Katrineholm Kuriren
July, 2008
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Youthful music (Mozart would love it)
- music review
While old age has its wisdom and insight, youth
has that vigor and conquer-the-world spirit that can be infectious
and exciting. This was certainly the case with the last performer
in Jakobi Koncert's series "Russian Rising Stars in Budapest,"
cellist Sergey Antonov, on November 8.
Winner of the 2007 Moscow Tchaikovsky Cello Competition, Antonov
combines formidable technique and an incredibly warm, penetrating
and vibrant tone to a romantic musical sensibility to create music-making
of a high caliber. He also has the good looks, fashion sense and
rugged self-confidence that should carry him to the top.
Antonov's program at the Academy of Music mainly showed one style:
Romanticism. He began with Kodály's extremely challenging
Solo Sonata. Right from the opening chords the sound exploded
from his cello, leaving no doubt that this was going to be a tense,
vivid interpretation. He grappled with this virtuoso piece and
created a real sense of triumph by the piece's end, not least
by his amazing technical skill.
The Budapest Strings, complemented by wind instruments, joined
him after the intermission for Tchaikovsky's concerto-like Rococo
Variations. Antonov's sonic brilliance and ease of execution carried
him through the piece's various moods. He seemed to enjoy the
slow, melancholy minor mode variation the best, because this is
what he played as an encore after the enthusiastic audience applauded
for countless curtain calls.
Kevin Shopland
2008.11.12. 18:00
http://www.budapestsun.com/cikk.php?id=28966
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