Reviews

Sunday Times
20th November 2011

Thanks to the young violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen and her Honeymead Ensemble, the Tricycle Theatre is mounting a rather marvellous Sunday chamber series. It is proving popular, and connoisseurs might well take an interest, for the shoebox-ish space turns out to have near-ideal acoustics – warm, focused, joyous – for this form of music. From the front of the balcony, one can follow the kaleidoscopic part-writing of, say, Brahms’s G major Sextet with the eye as well as the ear. One is practically sitting with the players, who don’t have to distort the music by projecting it publicly.

After the Brahms last week came as glorious an account of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht sextet as I’ve heard. It’s enough to out-Wigmore the Wigmore, and the string-trio arrangement of Bach’s Goldberg Variations being offered (in candlelight) on December 18 should not be missed.

The Strad
December 2011

The same evening saw the second instalment of a new monthly Sunday series at the 200-seater Tricycle Theatre in north London, devised by violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, in which she performed as part of her Honeymead Ensemble. It’s hardly far-fetched to suggest that this theatrical setting helped to frame the drama of the music in Janácek’s String Quartet no.2 ‘Intimate Letters’, a vision of the piece that the ensemble fully realised. The dynamic foursome launched into the first movement with furrowed brow. The audience was stunned into silence by the stark lullaby of the third-movement Moderato, beautiful yet deeply unsettling. Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ Quartet opened with tightly coiled energy, which could transform equally into fury or intimacy.

This was absorbing music making. This bodes well for the remainder of the series, whose programmes form an attractive mix of well-known favourites and more challenging fare.

Live music (Kinsale Arts Week)
Waley-Cohen/Huw Watkins
St John Baptist Church, Kinsale

"The 25—year-old English violinist, Tamsin Waley-Cohen, and pianist, Huw Watlcins, dazzled the audience with a truly delightful, adventurous programme of music by Mozart, Poulenc, Schumann, Bartok, and Gershwin.

I would expect to hear much more about this duo in the future; indeed, I can foresee a bright future for each as a soloist. They are very impressive, indeed.

Right from the assertive opening, of the slow introduction to Mozart's Sonata in B flat, K. 454, it was obvious that we were listening to players who understand this music. Mozart violin and piano sonatas need very special musicians to reveal their magic, players who can express the musical emotions without sentimentality and excite the listener without overdone technical display. Waley-Cohen and Watkins have these qualities in abundance. Her playing reminded me of that of the great Arthur Grumiaux; a higher compliment is impossible.

Changing the tone colours they produced led to a wonderfully dramatic performance of Poulenc's rarely-heard sonata, completed in memory of Ginette Neveu and recalling his admiration for Spanish poet, Lorca. This work abounds in dramatic gestures, beautiful, melodies, exciting rhythms and deeply disturbing medidative passages, all of which they expolored and brilliantly exploited.

Again they changed tone colours and brought us into the marvellously atmospheric world of Schumann's Three Romances, before unleashing the power and excitement of Bartok's wildly exciting 2nd Rhapsody (piano just occationaly overpowering this) and Heifitz's brilliant transcriptions of songs from Gershwin Porgy and Bess, the atmosphere of which they conveyed superbly."

Declan Townsend

"On the opening night of the Park Lane Group's Young Artists New Year Series, Tamsin Waley-Cohen showed her mettle from the outset with George Benjamin's virtuosic Three Miniatures and a blisteringly fine reading of Ferneyhough's Intermedio alla ciaconna, bringing to its frenetic energy a quasi-improvisatory quality.The world premiere of Richard Causton's Fantastia and Air was full of vibrant colour and played with a strength of feeling and expression that characterised Waley-Cohen's whole performance. The promised reading of Kurtág's Hispatita was apparently vetoed by the composer; instead we were treated to his In nomine and the brief and tender Hommage á JSB. The UK premier of Barry Guy's Lysandra brought an intriguing palette of colours. Written for Maya Homburger to play between Bach's solo violin Sonatas and Partitas, it takes the sound possibilities of the baroque violin, and the rhetoric and phrasing of early music, as its inspiration. Waley-Cohen showed impeccable command and agility here, particularly in its fearsome fugue."

Catherine Nelson, The Strad

"Tamsin Waley-Cohen, whose solo violin recital opened the Park Lane Group series, held us rapt with daring and undaunted performances of an enticing commission from Richard Causton called Fantasia and Air, and with the UK premiere of Barry Guy's brilliantly imaginative Lysandra."

The Times, Hilary Finch

"Waley-Cohen had shown what a fine player she was, projecting George Benjamin's Three Miniatures, Richard Causton's new Fantasia and Air and Fernyhough's daunting Intermedio alla Ciaconna with fearless intensity."

The Guardian, Andrew Clements

"Violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen was just as fearless, and in her case she was faced with even more formidable challenges, such as Brian Ferneyhough's Intermedio alla Ciaconna, with its thickets of quarter-tones and stratospheric twitterings. She met every bravura challenge with total confidence, but captured the introspective poetry of Kurtag's Hommage a J.S. Bach equally well."

The Telegraph, Ivan Hewett

In Tamsin Waley-Cohen's violin recital two fleeting fantasies by Kurtag showed off the woody tone of her Strad, and Barry Guy's Lysandra, borrowing its name from a butterfly, fluttered and swooped to dazzling effect.

The Evening Standard, Nick Kimberley

There is no doubt that Tamsin Waley-Cohen is supremely talented. Her technical mastery is allied to superb musicianship and a luminous sound. Not an easy programme; all the works were filled with virtuosic pyrotechnics but entirely unlike the light show pieces one often hears. An entire solo violin recital requires formidable concentration and the ability to engage the audience; Tamsin did exactly that. An intense and theatrical performance, the highlights the rhythmic panache of Barry Guy's Lysandra and the more meditative Hommage a Bach by Gyorgy Kurtag.

Musical Pointers.co.uk, Anna Michel

"The sound Waley-Cohen's incredible instrument makes is indescribable. It could be compared to the sound of an extremely gifted human voice and the song reminds you of the most intimate part of the soul, the unwritten story of the intimate spirit of authors, untold emotions and feelings, passing through centuries, through the magic hands of the ones that can open the wizard's chest. Both Miss Waley-Cohen and Nardi have charmed us all through the evening with a Beethoven almost not to be recognised, lacking post romantic additions but in the same time passionate and elegant. The Spring has found it's true rococo dimension without any constrained sound - full of a liberty and grace we haven't heard for a long, long time."

Massimo Crispi, Una Voce Poco Fa

"This recital was outstanding. Furthermore, it comprised works we were unlikely to hear again, live, for quite a long time – nor played anything like so well or with this degree of intensity, style and dedication. Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Gemma Rosefield are still making their names separately. With outstanding panache and vigour, and sensitivity, they played as one. One could have danced to the Beethoven – as indeed did the under 10s who came to this morning concert. Testing-time began with Ravel's Duo; here the composer explored tenaciously just about every nook and cranny of the sonic capabilities of the two instruments. As a result, the music sparkled and glittered like some rivulet during sunny weather, with sonorities, texture and explorations. Waley-Cohen's and Rosefield's astounding playing showed that they deserved to be let near Ravel's taut genius more often. Halvorsen's arrangement of the Passacaglia from Handel's Harpischord Suite in G minor was demanding, too, with the players finding just the right ounce of Nordic integrity to do justice to this work. (Halvorsen, married to Grieg's niece, was esteemed for his demanding, fiercely original orchestration.)Kodály was a cellist, and his writing for the two stringed instruments shows this: demands are challenging but rooted in a traditional and national (East European) context, though with a modern outlook. The work was given savage beauty, somewhat in despite of itself, through unswerving playing. An encore by Glière (Berceuse) had a soft, soporific melody with a gentle flowing undertow from the cellist."

Kenneth Carter, http://www.classicalsource.com/

"Tamsin Waley-Cohen, the violin soloist for "The Four Seasons", who seems to be a fixture in Florence (to our great delight), overwhelmed us with a pressing and strongly felt interpretation of Vivaldi's music: the countless colours and phrasings required of the soloist, now elegiac, then virtuoso, now tempestuous, then popular, seem to be part of the genetic make-up of the young English artist and of her superb instrument, who was perfectly accompanied and supported by Andrea Fornaciari and the young Polish orchestra. The tempest, which always looms in the muggy Summer, emerges through little interventions which break the monotony of the stifling heat and the flies' buzz to end up in Hurricane Tamsin, devastating for the power of the chosen tempos and the variety of expressions of Waley-Cohen. And the utter tenderness of the Winter's middle movement was one of the most moving moments of these Seasons, where Grace herself appeared to have decided to pay a visit before moving on to new destinations."

Associazione Musicale Mario Tiberini

"Another fantastic concert from Charities Philharmonia included two Russian masterpieces and a side order of Bartok. As well as a star turn from Tamsin Waley-Cohen in Prokofiev's early Violin Concerto, there was also a colossal and relentless performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The evening began with Bartok's Rhapsody No.1 for Violin and Orchestra. Tamsin Waley-Cohen poured sweetness into Bartok's customary ragged, biting sound-world, also coaxing humour from the piece with a broad palate of muted and luminous tones. Prokofiev's 1st Violin Concerto was on another level, both as a piece and as a performance. Prokofiev seems to be wryly testing the violinist in the opening few bars: just how softly, how breathlessly can you play this? Waley-Cohen answered in a whisper. Prokofiev then starts on his narrative swoops and arcs (making Bartok's melodies sound more like the flight path of a chicken), but for all the bravura and show-stopping electricity, Waley-Cohen manages to root her sound within the orchestra, never dominating it or overpowering it."

Musical Opinion, Robert Matthew-Walker

"Despite the atrocious weather that saw audience figures plummet from over 200 to just 60, the sheer professionalism, dedication and joy in playing of Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin) and Gregorio Nardi, (piano) was exemplary. Charles Ives' descriptive music of boyhood memories of "Decoration Day In America" was intensely moving. Tamsin painted a reflective heartfelt picture of sorrow and celebration with snatches of bugle calls and American marched clearly heard before a slow quiet coda proclaimed evening twilight. Written in 1892 but first published in 1977, Frederick Delius' "Sonata in B Major" begins like a new dawn-fresh-with a flowing melodic line and full rich piano accompaniment. Ethereal tunes continue throughout with a distinctive tickling piano motif beginning the third movement and both instruments equally dominant in the finale. Tamsin beautiful tone, perfect vibrato and intense feeling would have won the admiration of Delius himself a talented violinist. Keen interest in jazz influenced Maurice Ravel's "Sonata" with its central movement of using Blues idioms and rhythms. Unbroken shivering semi quavers on the violin and jazzy waltz of the piano have equal expression to both artists in the third movement. An encore if Huw Watkins' "Romance" with tender violin passage and controlled gentle piano playing demonstrated that these performers perfectly complimented each other."

Gloucestershire Echo, Jill Bacon

With playing that emphasized inherent musicality over the display of virtuoso technique for its own sake Waley-Cohen proved a persuasive and enchanting soloist. Particularly pleasing was her willingness to inflect the part with shadings of piano playing without making the effect seem anything other than natural. In respect of the tone Waley-Cohen produced, this was possessed of an unforced singing quality that was notable in the higher register, which contrasted well with the rich chest voice of her instrument's lower ranges. The second movement was memorable for the direct simplicity of her playing and phrasing, whilst the third movement was imbued with a rousing bite to the phrasing."

Evan Dickerson, Seen and Heard

Tamsin has also recently been featured in Muso, the Evening Standard Magazine, the Daily Mail, and Tatler Magazine.