“The soloist in Sibelius’s Violin Concerto was the beguiling Chloë Hanslip, a sizzling young product of the Yehudi Menuhin School. Hanslip produces a full-blooded sound… Her dazzling technical proficiency made sparks fly.” The Independent, concert review 2005
“It's excellent sense to couple John Adams's Violin Concerto with John Corigliano's Chaconne based on his film music for The Red Violin. Both require bravura of the highest order… This is the fourth recording of the Adams Concerto. …Hanslip's new version seems to me undoubtedly the one to acquire.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2006 *****
“As an overall concept this album is a mess. Franz Waxman's arrangement of Enescu's First Romanian Rhapsody is positioned before the Adams Concerto and sounds like an encore before the main event. Waxman's Tristan and Isolde Fantasia pushes Wagner towards Cecil B DeMille histrionics, while John Corigliano's hacked-together Chaconne is episodic and rhetorical and is severely lacking in the material department.
This is a pity because nothing should hide the fact that Chloë Hanslip is the sort of musician every teenager forced to practise their scales dreams of becoming. The richness and clarity of her tone is beyond learning, and she demonstrates such profound empathy for John Adams's 1993 Violin Concerto that Gidon Kremer (Nonesuch) can consider himself completely outplayed. This is the sort of performance that secures a reputation for life.
The first movement is a particular challenge, as an unwinding melodic line generates itself over a quarter-hour span. Kremer plays the notes mechanically but Hanslip deconstructs their meaning and pieces together a cogent narrative direction that's a bona fide interpretation.
The sing-song ballad quality of the slow middle movement unlocks her lyrical imagination, while the tricky moto perpetuo of the violin part zigzags and breakdances across occasional Nancarrow-like rhythmic overlays in an exuberant finale. Assertive and enthused accompaniment from Slatkin and the RPO, too – everybody's doing Adams the greatest of service.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010
“…Chloë Hanslip is the sort of musician every teenager forced to practise their scales dreams of becoming. The richness and clarity of her tone is beyond learning, and she demonstrates such profound empathy for John Adams's 1993 Violin Concerto that Gidon Kremer... consider himself completely outplayed. This is the sort of performance that secures a reputation for life.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2006
