The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

“The resourceful Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is evidently manned by players who listen very closely to one another, and the sound is superbly balanced. So, an unreserved recommendation.” (Gramophone, March 2012)

“This is the first time that the German Die Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, with its wonderfully clear brass section, incredibly sharp woodwinds and the most chiselled of strings, has performed in Russia. The ensemble is rightly hailed as the etalon of contemporary orchestral music making. The players’ musical freedom within Paavo Järvi’s precise artistic direction is astounding: the orchestra reads symphonic works as if they were chamber compositions, falling into small groups of deliciously autonomous solo groups just to assemble into an organic whole again with graceful ease.” (Kommersant, July 2011)

“Under Paavo Järvi’s direction, the orchestra played as if a revolution was breaking out in every bar.” (WAZ/NRZ, Bremen, October 2010)

“The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen’s performance was unique, admirable and new.” (Die Welt, Bremen, October 2010)

“The standing ovation was a confirmation of my feeling, that we had witnessed a moment of glory, one of the rarest moments in the history of interpretations, which is both impossible to plan and impossible to repeat.” (Kreiszeitung Syke, Bremen, October 2010)

“The small, brilliant orchestra and their conductor Paavo Järvi celebrated world-wide triumph with their cycle of the Beethoven Symphonies. Their most recent performance in the Laeiszhalle was a moment of glory.” (Hamburger Abendblatt, October 2010)

“Järvi found his musical character in every movement...Järvi doesn’t need grand gestures; just a small movement of his fingertips affects the sound.” (Hamburger Abendblatt, October 2010)

“In their four years of detailed and searching work together on Beethoven, Järvi and his players seem to have left not a pebble of performing practice unturned. And now their style is immediately distinctive: confident shaping through tracing every extreme dynamic and rhythmic nerve-ending of Beethoven’s score, the minute control of every sound, and the meticulous shaping and inflection of every phrase. It’s as though you’re looking over their shoulders into each pencil-marked score. Yet the miracle of it all is that the result is a sense of spontaneous combustion and ever-dangerous living.” (The Times, July 2010)

“After the interval, Järvi didn’t even wait for the applause to die down before launching the Fifth Symphony. This was a reading with no time to waste, but every detail, from the tiniest bassoon parp to the merest flute-tweet, registered with the clarity of, precisely, chamber music.” (Evening Standard, July 2010)

“Even highly competent orchestral concerts can sound like just another day at the office for jaded musicians. But when the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen appeared at Alice Tully Hall on Monday evening in the Mostly Mozart Festival, it seemed that work was certainly play for these fiery performers.” (The New York Times, August 2010)

"This was a Xanax-ree performance, the music raw and unprettified and its bipolar underpinnings highlighted with sharp contrasts and unexpected accents. The musicians, perched on the edge of their seats, played with enormous energy and illuminated violent mood swings within a single measure.” (The New York Times, August 2010)

“This is the crispest, most essential and intelligent Beethoven I have ever heard - and possibly the liveliest reanimation of a musical spitfire whose utopian energies can never be extinguished” (Bayern 4 Klassik, 2009)

“A wonder… festivals justify their name with performances like this.” (Salzburger Nachrichten, July 2009)

“The exciting Beethoven cycle by The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. . . Rarely encountered forms of euphoria on the Salzach (rhythmic applause, standing ovations).” (Der Standard, July 2009)