Reviews

BEETHOVEN: THE COMPLETE WORKS FOR PIANO & CELLO

JRI Recordings (J143)

“. . . a reading of Beethoven’s cello sonatas, which I count without hesitation as among the most exciting and best I know. . . unusually dynamic and virtuosic interpretations. . . absolutely phenomenal recording technique. . . Technical brilliance, committed interpretations, great interplay, a dynamic that always suits the works, and all this with a virtuosic, exciting style and great recording quality.”

– Pizzicato (Luxembourg)

“. . . of the countless versions of these sonatas I’ve graced with favorable reviews, I believe that Green and Moyer’s account stands tallest among them. . . urgently recommended. FIVE STARS. A set of Beethoven’s cello sonatas to care about and covet.”

Fanfare (USA)

“Ms. Green and Mr. Moyer have a remarkable affinity for Beethoven’s music. . . it is the sound of Nancy Green’s cello that is truly exceptional. When Jacqueline du Pre and later Yo-Yo Ma made their recordings of the sonatas, they had access to the famed 1712 Davidov Stradivarius and may have used this instrument, but I much prefer Ms. Green’s warm full-bodied enveloping tone. . . This is the way Beethoven should be played.”

Audiophile Voice (USA)

“. . .certainly a contender for high honours. . . Green’s powerful sound is matched but never overwhelmed by the piano. Her tone is immaculate; light and lyrical in the delicate passages, yet full, rich and meaty as required. It is no wonder she has been compared to such greats as Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, Leonard Rose and Jacqueline du Pre. . . outstanding”

WholeNote (Canada)

“. . . Green’s tone and color variety easily bring to mind the best days of Zara Nelsova and Jacqueline du Pré.”

Audiophile Audition (USA)

“. . . committed, dedicated, gorgeous, and superbly interpreted performances. . .”

CVNC (USA)

“a marriage of performance and scholarship that is all too rare in the domain of nineteenth-century music, bringing cellist Nancy Green together with musicologist and ‘dean of Mendelssohn studies’, R. Larry Todd… This union, to be sure, is a blessed one. Green sings with a warm, velvety tone that never comes across as too harsh or overbearing, while the expressive range of her playing reflects the rich textural palette of Mendelssohn’s evocative writing for the instrument.”

Nineteenth-Century Music Review (Cambridge University Press)

“To say that Green commands an incredibly voluminous and voluptuous tone is not hyperbole. The sound she makes and her style of playing remind me of no cellist more than the late Leonard Rose… a stunning recording… Everything about this disc is first class… superb… one fantastic recording. Urgently recommended.”

Jerry Dubins – Fanfare

“The performance here by these eminently qualified musicians is both exquisite and sublime. The partnership is extraordinary, the balance perfect. The interpretations are extremely sensitive… The whole is a classy, high-quality product… a beautiful product and a beautiful performance…”

CVNC

“The performances and recording quality leave nothing to be desired… strong and subtle; they play superbly together with appropriately varied tempi, clear articulation, vigorous attacks and full tone… lasting and pleasurable listening.”

Classical.net

COMPLETE WORKS OF MENDELSSOHN (FELIX AND FANNY)

JRI Recordings (J138)

SPANISH & LATIN CELLO – SONG OF THE BIRDS

Cello Classics (CC1025)

“Green’s playing is nothing less than magnificent on every one of the pieces on this CD… consummate artistry… one of the great cellists of our time.”

Fanfare

JAGUAR SONGS – 21ST CENTURY CELLO
Works by Paul Desenne

Cello Classics (CC1026)

“The performances by Nancy Green are stunning. She deserves official honours, both for her technical skill and for her faith in the music. And her faith is well founded, as these works are fascinating, engaging, exciting and often very beautiful. They are also superbly well written for the forces involved. The recorded sound is magnificent. Fascinating music for cellos, brilliantly played, challenging and deeply rewarding. Disc of the Month.”

William Hedley, MusicWeb International

“Green supplies immediacy and power to these performances”

Editor’s Choice, Strings Magazine

“Green performs all parts of all tracks, using dubbing techniques in the 3 and 4 cello pieces. It is difficult to believe that all the sounds she produces are made with nothing but a cello… The performance is amazing, a tour de force: one often wishes there were a video to be able to see how Green produces the extraordinary sounds… Highly recommended.”

CVNC

“The performances are extraordinary. Nancy Green is in terrific form: her sure intonation, rhythmic nuance, and expressive shading put her in the elite of today’s concert cellists.”

Fanfare

“… Soloistic and showy, the agility Piatti called for is considerable by any standard. . . deeply expressive, Nancy Green is sensitive to the rhythmic nuances of this music and she plays with impact and intensity… a very nice recording…”

Fanfare

“Nancy Green gives an elegant account, her richly mellow cello sound positively purring in the lower ranges, coupled with a sense of fiery urgency in the last fantasy… both performers display a real empathy for the Czardas and play with great panache.”

CD Review

BRAHMS-PIATTI HUNGARIAN DANCES

JRI Recordings (J117)

“Alfredo Piatti’s arrangements of the Brahms Hungarian Dances s are a real workout for a cellist, full of multiple stops, harmonics, parallel thirds and sixths and octaves, and any number of other challenges. They’re also splendid entertainment. Green throws herself into these pieces, making each dance a little rhapsody. She’s not averse to indulging in tempo extremes, as in the fourth dance, and she employs a free, even swooning, rubato that perfectly conveys the music’s gypsy character…”

James Reel – Strings Magazine

Green and Moyer demonstrate a genuine sympathy for these pieces that sounds wholly appropriate to Piatti’s own sensitive arrangements. Virtuoso techniques, such as multiple stopping, harmonics and octave doubling, and dramatically conceived registral contrast vividly display this excellently matched duo’s intuitive response to the music’s mood swings… Green and Moyer luxuriate in the remarkable array of textural and subtly coloured effects created by Piatti’s arrangements… Schmidt’s three Fantasy Pieces, in which Green’s intelligent and perceptive phrasing of the cello’s ornate melodic lines is defly accompanied by Moyer, complete this unusual and highly rewarding programme.”

Gramophone

“Staying close to Brahms’s originals in outline, Piatti’s arrangements (Brahms Hungarian Dances) are full of brilliance and brio, and it is surprising that they haven’t been recorded before. Green and Moyer play them with great enthusiasm and technical virtuosity, reveling in the atmosphere of derring-do. These are fine readings, full of warmth… This is an enjoyable disc.”

American Record Guide

MENDELSSOHN/SCHUMANN/DEBUSSY/BRITTEN

JRI Recordings (J102)

“some of the best chamber music playing around. If everyone related as well as Green and Moyer, the world would be a better place.”

American Record Guide

“Having never heard of Nancy Green, or Frederick Moyer, or JRI Recordings… I have been obliged to play this recording over and over again to convince myself I have not been dreaming, but in fact I have been wide awake each time. The music is terrific. The performances are terrific. The sound is terrific… The performances, besides being technically top-rank, adjust to the distinctive style of each piece: a veritable demonstration of “idiomatic performance” in every case… this is a strong contender for next December’s Want List.”

Robert McColley – Fanfare

“impressively striking and rhapsodic… Green carries off her role (Britten Sonata) as expertly as the music’s dedicatee, Mstislav Rostropovich.”

21st Century Music

“Green acquits herself quite well, nailing all the special effects while also playing a lush legato line in the (Debussy) sonata’s early passages… breathlessly passionate… brilliant… Both (Green and Moyer) have technique to spare, and a gift for seamless playing. Green dazzles in the Debussy Sonata…”

Fanfare

“Utterly mesmerizing in its impact, insight and thrilling virtuosity, Green’s advocacy of all she touches is, it would appear, boundlessly compelling… The present recording is little less than phenomenal… colossal presence and impulse… exemplary… brilliant. It would be hard to deny Nancy Green her deserved place among the finest interpreters of this explosive work (Kodály solo sonata).”

Michael Jameson – Fanfare

“(Tovey’s) three movement sonata is replete with virtuosity, all carried off in a first-rate fashion by Green… passion and earthiness… Green captures the excitement of the music… the results are strikingly original and engaging.”

21st Century Music

“The year 2000 has been an intriguing listening year… each of the CDs below has, in its own way, stopped me in my tracks. Cellist Nancy Green’s… interpretation seemed to me to be the most convincing and eloquent I’d heard of this work, and one may only hope that performances of this stature will invite new contenders to tackle this monumentally difficult but magnetic work.”

Fanfare (Want List November/December 2000)

“(Nancy Green) seems to better communicate emotion and feeling, and her cello sound is closer and warmer-sounding than (Yo-Yo) Ma’s (Kodály Solo Sonata on Sony Classical).”

Audiophile Audition

TOVELY/KODÁLY SONATAS FOR SOLO CELLO

JRI Recordings (J112)

BRAHMS SONATAS

JRI Recordings (J111)

“one of the most stunning duo recordings I’ve ever heard… my hands-down pick for the Brahms Sonatas.”

Fanfare

“Green’s playing is nothing short of rapturous, and pianist Moyer attends with such rapport that both voices are as one. This is music- making of the highest order. And rarely does one hear the sound of a cello captured so radiantly and ravishingly on record… Even if you have one or more recordings of these works in your collection, this one is very special. I cannot urge you too strongly to order a copy of it.”

Jerry Dubins – Fanfare

“It’s evident from the outset that cellist Nancy Green and her partner at the keyboard Frederick Moyer have plenty to say about this music. In sum, these are astoundingly good performances, played with empathetic grandeur and charisma, and in a style that constantly suggests cellist authority. Nancy Green has a formidable technical presence… Frederick Moyer proves to be uncannily accommodating to Green’s vital, enervated style, even when the rhythmic interstices of the music are stretched almost to the breaking point by the gripping spontaneity of her playing… thrilling stuff.”

Fanfare

“Nancy green’s outgoing, romantic style recalls Jacqueline du Pre… a fine blend of passion and control… excellent in every way… this has a special excellence. Invest!”

American Record Guide

“All are exceptional recordings, brimming with thoughtful artistry and lovely, lyrical playing. The Brahms disc, with pianist Frederick Moyer, features especially sublime performances. Green’s cello moves from aching introspection to breathless, biting brilliance, sometimes in the single sweep of a broad, well-paced phrase. Green and Moyer are an exception tandem – each player articulates the formal classicism of Brahms’s music while fully exploring the emotions brimming from within. Their musical dialogue captures both the breadth of Brahms’s compositional ideals and the intimacy of its execution. Green might not have the name recognition of a Yo-Yo Ma, but she is an equally astute and assured virtuoso. It is a virtue of labels such as JRI that she has been given a showcase for her world-class musicianship.”

The Wichita Eagle

“As an example of Green’s work, consider her performance of the scherzo: She can really bite into the music, but she also relishes its openhearted lyricism… Green’s performance is highly rewarding…”

Strings Magazine

“I’m ready to add my voice to the chorus of praise for Green’s extremely secure and self-confident playing: flexible without turning slack, energetic without turning aggressive, fervent without turning frenzied, and virtuosic without turning boastful… whether in the obsessive drive of the opening section of the Allegro Scherzando or the unsentimental fluidity of the Andante (played with an unerring sense of direction) or the soaring climaxes of the finale, she’s unfailingly alert to the music’s changing emotional geography.”

Peter J. Rabinowitz – Fanfare

RACHMANINOFF/ARENSKY

JRI Recordings (J120)

DOHNÁNYI/KODÁLY/STRAUSS SONATAS

JRI Recordings (J123)

“Nancy Green brings a boldly dramatic delivery to these three fine sonatas, with fluent and forthright performances that are enhanced by her clear and vocally orientated feeling for the musical line.”

The Strad

“It must be grateful, enjoyable music to play, with its highly varied impressionistic piano sonorities and idiomatic cello writing, and Nancy Green and Frederick Moyer take full advantage with performances of panache and expressive force.”

Gramophone

“I cannot imagine the music being much better played than it is here… (Nancy Green) has a seemingly effortless tone production and maintains the fine form she has shown in previous Biddulph Productions.”

Strad Magazine (May 1999)

“Gratifying and idiomatic writing for both cello and piano… a most attractive disc. Good sound. Well worth exploring.”

Fanfare

CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO COMPLETE WORKS

JRI Recordings (J132)

ROBERT FUCHS COMPLETE WORKS
FOR CELLO AND PIANO

Biddulph Recordings (LAW 005)

“The music will appeal to anyone who wishes Brahms had written more cello sonatas – which surely means all who love the cello…Two fine lyrical musicians play with scrupulous affection. “

BBC Music Magazine

“this enterprising programme can be unhesitatingly recommended both to lovers of the obscure and of luscious, warm romanticism in the Schumann-Brahms mould… beguilingly presented by Green and Palmer in a first-class recording. One would be hard of heart indeed not to fall for the slow movement of the second sonata and some of the short Fantasiestucke.”

Classic CD

“a delightful addition to the not very large cello repertoire. The interpretations of the young American cellist and her British pianist show remarkable artistry and they do justice to the music in every respect.”

Fono Forum

“all aspects of the production are first-class: the performances, the luxuriant recorded sound, and the very thorough annotations… Strongly recommended”

Fanfare

“These performances from 2004 are, in a word, terrific. Nancy Green’s warm tone and transcendent virtuosity are as evident here as they were in her sensational 1993 recording of Piatti’s cello/piano transcription of the Brahms Hungarian Dances… I prefer Green’s more romantically inflected and charismatic cello-playing…”

Jeffrey J. Lipscomb – Fanfare

“Green and pianist Babette Hierholzer make the most of this music, in performances that are by turn dramatic and lyrical, and always of great technical facility…”

James Reel – Strings Magazine

RIES COMPLETE WORKS
FOR CELLO AND PIANO

JRI Recordings (J119)

HAYDN CELLO CONCERTOS

JRI Recordings (J129)

“Technically her playing is unassailable, and she delivers Haydn’s two standard cello scores with a good deal of verve, vigor, and panache.”

Jerry Dubins – Fanfare