Osmo Vänskä

“This is a thoroughly compelling account of Sibelius’ enigmatic Fourth Symphony. Vänskä is one of the greatest living Sibelius conductors and knows how to bring out the despair at the heart of this spare, icy, almost rebarbative masterpiece.” (Paul Gent, The Telegraph, April 2013)

"That Vanska found himself with a vacancy in his date book was a stroke of luck for the CSO...Vanska was on his toes, sometimes literally, in defining the dancing rhythms of the scherzo, while his handling of the long lead-up to the main portion of the final movement was as masterful as his shaping of the first-movement introduction. He kept the orchestra musicians – and audience members too – on the edge of their seats, so tremendous was the onrush of musical energy he generated in Brahms' noble finale." (Chicago Tribune, October 2012)

"Vänskä has this music deep within his bones, and he delivered a corruscating account of another world written in a time of war." (The Times, August 2012)

"Vänskä’s expressive beat drew such fine playing from the orchestra that the whole thing acquired an air of enchantment." (The Independent, August 2012)

" Vänskä paced the whole work grippingly, so that right until the closing bars it was impossible to be absolutely certain which of the two [strings or percussion] would win this time." (The Guardian, August 2012)

"...But with a conductor as stellar as Mr. Vanska on the podium, there was plenty to admire in terms of phrasing and nuance" (The New York Times, August 2012)

“… my thirst for profundity was quenched by Sibelius' First Symphony... it emphatically reinforced the reputation that Vanska and the orchestra have earned for superb Sibelius interpretations. Rarely will you hear this symphony performed with such crispness, clarity and confidence.” (Pioneer Press, May 2012)

"From a technical standpoint, the Minnesota Orchestra is one of the finest in the country. The strings are bright but with plenty of body, and the winds and brass have one of the most pleasing blends of any American orchestra – including an impressive horn section that was particularly outstanding in the opening work and Nielsen’s third movement. With Vänskä on the podium, the Minnesotans are presenting some of the most characterful and thoughtful music-making on the continent." (Classical Source, October 2011)

"Mr. Vanska has the Minnesota Orchestra sounding like one of America’s finest." (The New York Times, October 2011)

"Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra offered an astoundingly forceful, never-to-be-forgotten account of Sibelius’s Kullervo Symphony. Even the memory of it brings tears to my eyes. What secret of musical emotion does Vänskä possess?" (Alex Ross, The New Yorker, December 2010)

“Here he returns to Bruckner with a superb account of the Fourth remarkable, as one has learned to expect from Vänskä, for unusual textural clarity and the sense that he has come to the music from the inside, bringing it alive through unrelenting attention to detail and unsentimentally brisk tempi. If this release signals the beginning of a Bruckner cycle on BIS, we shall all be the better off for it.” (Finnish Music Quarterly, October 2010)

“Vänskä has been the music director of the Minnesota [Orchestra] since 2003. For some years, it has been evident that he is a conductor of genius, one whom Furtwängler might have recognized as a kindred spirit. The crucial element in his work is unanimity — not unanimity of execution (although that was hardly lacking) but unanimity of feeling. The climaxes were as shattering as on any other night, but the quietest moments registered even more strongly. I hope that Vänskä and his players went home happy… For the duration of the evening of March 1st, the Minnesota Orchestra sounded, to my ears, like the greatest orchestra in the world.” (The New Yorker, March 2010)

“…the Sixth was wonderfully relaxed, without a trace of unnecessary rhetoric and a perfect example of Vänskä's total trust in Sibelius's sense of musical architecture, the "miraculous logic" that gave the LPO series its title, and which he understands better than any other conductor today.” (The Guardian, February 2010)

“He is an immensely physical conductor, a wiry individual who dances about the rostrum, working hard for every effect and living through every second of the music.” (Musical America, February 2010)