Boulez: Mémoriale

“Kawka is clearly in awe of Boulez but fortunately he doesn't handle the music with reverence. These performances are thrillingly virtuoso, and the recorded sound has an edge-of-the-seat immediacy that beats Boulez's own recordings...Boulez's logic may seem fearsome when explained, but in performances as good as these, it carries you irresistably along.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2012 *****

“With its creamy centres encased in slabs of fruity roughage, then sprinkled with hundred-and-thousands of vibraphone and marimba notes, Derive 2 sounds like birthday cakes ought to...Boulez turns the fucntion of hocketing against itself...Daniel Kawka's intelligent, plugged-in direction locates meaning within the labyrinth.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2012

“Daniel Kawka has a grasp of the idiom second to none, while the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain (EOC) he founded two decades ago is an outfit whose virtuosity renders this music with panache likely to surprise anyone who regards Boulez as an austere aesthete...Fabrice Junger handles the translucent alternation of verses and refrains with restrained eloquence.” International Record Review, May 2012

“[Dérive 1] is a scintillating, frequently trilling, six minutes. Dérive 2, for 11 instruments — an 80th-birthday tribute to Elliott Carter — is a bewildering 51-minute expansion of the concept, a work whose sheer relentless continuity makes its well-nigh unique in modern music.” Sunday Times, 4th March 2012

“Experienced live [Dérive 2] can seem too long, but it's a revelation in the superb performance under Daniel Kawka on this disc; the recording is close and vivid, making the music's proliferating lines and abrupt changes of direction seem all-encompassing, and the ebb and flow of their inner tensions and resolutions are constantly involving.” The Guardian, 15th March 2012 ****

“"Dérive 1" uses a Feldman-esque palette of woodwind, vibes, piano and strings, and although named for the structural principles of derivation upon which it's based, its drifting manner also suggests the French notion of a dérive as pleasantly aimless wandering....[Dérive 2] is more purposive, its edgy opening pitching nervous strings against animated vibes and marimba” The Independent, 24th February 2012 ****