Heinz Holliger – Press

“Reconsider the oboe. If an orchestral concert features a concerto, odds are that it will showcase either a pianist or violinist. But Holliger demonstrated on both the Carter concerto and a set of dances by Frank Martin that the oboe is an evocative and versatile instrument, spanning the sonic spectrum from sweet singing to urgent alarms…Holliger made Carter’s Oboe Concerto a fascinating journey, one that moved from anxious percussion-enhanced agitation to questioning reverie and back again, resolving in a lonely cry above the murmuring strings.”

“His oboe was hypnotic and mesmerizing, carrying the audience lyrically through some bracingly challenging music.”

“Holliger is without doubt one of the finest oboists on the planet and an authority on Carter’s music…It would require another skilled oboist to tell you if some of the more extreme squeals and rasps are exactly as represented on the page. Yet during the incantatory slow section, Holliger’s astringent sound softened into a sublime singing tone.”

“Mr. Holliger closed the recital with a shapely account of the unaccompanied ‘HBHH,’ an exploration of the oboe’s range and the warmer side of its palette. Later, in the main concert, he gave taut, high-energy performances of Mr. Carter’s more dramatic work for solo English horn, ‘A 6 Letter Letter’ (1996) and the best of his pieces for Mr. Holliger, the Quartet for Oboe and Strings (2001).”