Press & reviews
The greatest in the resonance of a concerto piano is the way it echoes in the audience. Immerse yourself into the world of Beatrice Berrut’s piano play and discover unheard sound waves.
Classica Jérémie Bigorie
From the first bars of Liszt’s Après une Lecture du Dante, one can tell that a true artist is at work. (…) Beatrice Berrut offers us one of the most outstanding Liszt recitals of these past years.
The Irish Times Michael Dungan
Yet if there were to be one specifically transcendent performance (…) it came from Beatrice Berrut on Sunday afternoon. Her Busoni transcriptions of Bach calmly revelled in multiple layers of genius and beauty. (…) Yet no matter how logic-defying Busoni’s magic, what always came across from Berrut was the sheer beauty of the music and the refined restrained emotional depth of Bach.
the Plain Dealer Zachary Lewis Cleveland
“A standout in all categories was Swiss pianist Beatrice Berrut, who gave electrifying accounts of Bach and Chopin’s works. Evincing masterly control and focused zeal, she tore through the whole and commanded the house …”
Juan Carlos Montero, La Nacion, Buenos Aires
…however, what we should remember is having heard such an exceptional pianist as Beatrice Berrut (…) Her interpretation throws light on her degree of perfection.
Klassik Heute Guido Krawinkel
Both the intensity and the deepness of her playing are exceptionnal. She chisels the many nuances of dynamic and agogic of this music and finds the right balance between genius eccentric and musical sense. The fullness and the variety of her piano sound is as impressive as the virtuoso magic that she deploys.
Tagesspiegel Frederik Hanssen
She enters Liszt’s musical wonderland fearless and with phenomenal technical skills, follows Dante’s path thtough the Inferno and gets lost in the loneliness of the Swiss mountains, with a refined sense for proportions and effects.
Distinctive for her interpretations are her sensitive touch, a sparkling and warm sound, an intelligent construction of the complex musical flow and last but not least, an extraordinary profoundness in the expression. She reminds us of great Liszt players such as Brendel, Arrau or Zimerman.
The clarity of the musical meaning and the sincerity of her playing appear first. One understands at once that this is a rule she won’t break; a condition that echoes in the crystal lines that are highlighted in every work she plays. Her cantabile, so free of affectation, is a real wonder in her overwhelming rendition of La Vallée d’Obermann or in the Consolations, which, played this way, seem to stop the time.
Avoiding the excesses usually bound to romanticism, she unravels a dramatic power that is never brutal, a polyphony that is always sumptuous, and contrasts chiselled to the millimetre.
The art of piano playing
A score is like the sketch of a canvas: subject, outlines and dimensions are set. It is up to the performer to respect and understand these basic data, and to enlighten it with colours and perspective.
Like a painter who chisels the details of a flower whilst keeping in mind its place within the general architecture of the landscape, the musician must develop a sense of proportion and priority. The differentiation of plans, the voluntary choice to highlight certain elements and to leave others out, constitutes creative interpretation. The performer should have a broad colour palette that allows him to dress the score richly.
Every intention of the composer cannot be written in a score and should be complemented by the sound imagination of the interpreter, like a vast database at hand. Sound – its expression, its power and its duration – must be defined before the gesture that executes it. If this constant anticipation is very natural for strings, winds and singers who must “think” the note before “making” it, it is less so for pianists.
The piano is somehow a neutral instrument: it sounds on the condition that a key is pressed. This neutrality, however, allows for the piano to slip into any role. Only a burning desire to bring it out of its emotional lethargy can give it a personal voice. Any practice achieved on a specific work is therefore first of all a practice on oneself as an artist and on one’s imagination.