HOME | BIOGRAFI | CV | REVIEWS | RECORDINGS | PHOTO

REVIEWS

Daily Telegraph, July 2008

Ysaye: Six Sonatas for Solo Violin Simax PSC1293

“Eugène YsaŸe (1858-1931) was widely held to be the outstanding violinist of his day, with a titanic technique and individuality that helped define and develop violin playing for the 20th century. His Six Solo Sonatas, completed in 1924, are his towering achievement as a composer and have been gradually asserting a hold on the repertoire.

On this disc they are revealed in all their creative ingenuity, force and vibrant virtuosity by one of the great talents of the new generation, the young Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud.

Kraggerud writes lucid analytical and introductory notes for the accompanying booklet, explaining (with printed music examples) some of the niceties of YsaŸe’s compositional devices and the ways in which he embodied in each sonata the personalities of the dedicatees, all fellow-violinists.

Kraggerud likens the process to Elgar’s friends pictured within the Enigma Variations, which is a good analogy. YsaŸe obvious initial stimulus came from the six solo sonatas and partitas by Bach, a snatch of whose E major Partita launches YsaŸe A minor Sonata, dedicated to Jacques Thibaud, who was forces by his mother to practise the Bach every morning.

As with all these sonatas, however, the personal references are spurs to YsaŸe’s own imagination. The allusions to George Enescu’s music in the sonata inspired by him, the D minor No 3, are freely elaborated and reworked; the Spanish inflections in the Sixth Sonata, dedicated to Manuel Quiroga, urge YsaŸe to his own caprice.

All six sonatas make phenomenal demands on the performer, to which Kraggerud responds with complete mastery of the sheer physical hurdles, the complex counterpoint and the multiple stopping.

Even more importantly, he possesses the interpretative insight to make the music bristle with character and with a powerfully communicative spectrum of expression.”

Geoffrey Norris, July 2008

         
The Strad, September 2008

Ysaÿe: Six Sonatas for Solo Violin Simax PSC1293

“No less an authority than Carl Flesch considered Ysaÿe the ‘most outstanding and individual violinist I have heard in my life’. Ysaÿe was himself a gifted composer, notching up no fewer than eight violin concertos and a series of shorter works for violin and orchestra. Yet he seems destined to be remembered for one notoriously demanding opus: the set of six sonatas for solo violin he dedicated respectively to Szigeti, Thibaud, Enescu, Kreisler, Crickboom (a gifted pupil) and Quiroga.

These inscrutably challenging works can appear emotionally unyielding in the wrong hands (even Michael Rabin) could do little with nos. 3 and 4), yet Henning Kraggerud sounds positively intoxicated by their expressive unpredictability. His multiple-stopping is clean as a whistle without the slightest hint of strain, and under even the most fiendish technical pressure he retains his cantabile tonal composure. The occasionally manic references to Bach (most notably in the ‘obsessive’ opening movement of the Second Sonata) come shooting off the page, and I have never heard the moto perpetuo final of no. 4 so effortlessly negotiated nor so affectionately turned. Even the wrist-crippling acrobatics of the final Sonata are negotiated with consummate grace and ease. Alongside Zehetmair (ECM) and Kavakos (BIS), Kraggerud deserves a place at the top of anyone’s shortlist for a recording of these endlessly diverting works, especially in sound so alluringly atmospheric.”

Julian Haylock, September 2008

Sibelius/Sinding Violin Concertos (Naxos 8.557266)
"Kraggerud's elegant, sweet-toned performance reflects the music's simplicity and in the first ever recording of the lovely Romance, he embraces its sentimental vein with exquisite taste. The orchestra is prominent in this programme and Engeset draws some majestic playing, judiciously balanced whether in accompaniment or in the tutti sections,captured in a spacious but natural light by the excellent recording."
Nathaniel Vallois, The Strad, January 2005

CLASSICAL CD OF THE WEEK
London Daily Telegraph, 18th September 2004
Sibelius:Violin Concerto;Serenade in G minor.Sinding:Violin Concerto no 1:Romance in D (Henning Kraggerud-violin,Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, cond.Bjarte Engeset)(Naxos 8.557266)

Henning Kraggerud, in his early thirties, is one of the brightest young stars in the violin firmament, and this recording of concertos by Sibelius and Sinding attests to his mature artistry. His interpretation of the Sibelius, echoed by Bjarte Engeset´s conducting of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, is a fullbodied romantic one.
As a team, they powerfully act out the musical dramas of the two outer movements, with Kraggerud´s rich and pliable violin timbre as the chief protagonist within a context of bold orchestral colours. This is not the chilly landscape that some performances evoke, but it is one that has consistency of thought,suggesting vastness of expanse and awe-inspiring strength of musical ideas. Kraggerud is as compelling in the mellow lyricism of the slow movement as he is in the taxing virtuosity elsewhere. The finale has a thrilling drive.
The main companion piece here is the Violin Concerto no 1 by Christian Sinding, a fellow countryman of Kragggerud´s who is best known for the once populare piano miniature Rustle of Spring. The concerto starts with a theme hinting that Sinding must have heard the finale of the concerto by Brahms, but it is a good, muscular piece that fully merits resurrection in a performance as fine as this one is.
Geoffrey Norris

(Henning Kraggerud / Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto with Beethoven Academie)
"In the afternoon.there was a discovery:The young Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud  played the violin concert of Mendelssohn. This man,who already had good reviews in the past in Belgium, has a spotless virtuosity and is a natural talent. ....   without  a doubt one of the greatest violinists of the future! "
"De Morgen" Brussel  18.02.2003

"Ovations in Berlin for  Henning Kraggerud with  Komische Oper Orchestra /Yakov Kreizberg /  31.05.2001:
«The young Norwegian violin virtuoso Henning Kraggerud,- for  sure a rising star on the violin -sky, played the Tchaikovsky - concerto  with all of youthful, glowing and characterful  musicality,  never with overdone accentuation but with the brightest of  awake understanding, filigree cantability and  a very individual, kernal tone."
"Tagesspiegel" Berlin, 05.06.2001

"Thanks to young Norwegian Henning Kraggerud, Tchaikovsky´s  badly perfumed violinconcerto did not take one´s  breath away. Kraggerud... gave the work as  an airy contrast  to  sultry Rachmaninov. At the end benches  bowed applauding. A conqueror  left."
"Die Welt" Berlin, 05.06.2001

"He provided an unusually satisfying experience" (Recital WPAS/ Kennedy Center) .
The Washington Post, March 8,2001

"After this evening  people were talking about him as the future favourite of the St.Petersburg audience"
(St.Petersburg Philharmonic / Sibelius:Violin Concerto)
St.Petersburg «Smena» Feb 21, 2001

Tour of Belgium18.- 21.01.01 - Beethoven Academie
"His Hartmann: Concerto Funèbre was a monument, the most beautiful result possible of intstrumental virtuosity, subdued honest recital and a power of communication that only great musician are gifted with. I´m not easily touched, but this really went to the bone. He was rewarded with an extra, a bewildering Ysaÿe, and the audience stood up. Perplexed."
De Morgen, 24.01.01

«Henning Kraggerud proved he is representing non plus ultra of todays violin-playing.»
Svenska Dagbladet 14.07.00

"Healthy sounds from the Bath Festival"
"we could have listened to musicianship of this order all day"
The Daily Telegraph, London

Henning Kraggerud: Virtuosity Minus Theatrics Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud chose three late-romantic
sonatas for his program Tuesday evening in the Washington Performing Arts Society´s Kreeger String Series. Structural solidity was the keynote in all three works-Grieg´s intensely lyrical Sonata no.2 in G, Janacek´s subtly moody Sonata for Violin and Piano, and the emotonally complex Sonata no 1 in G of Brahms.

For his Kennedy Center debut in the Terrace Theatre, Kraggerud seemed to be deliberately avoiding the stereotypes associated with young violinists. Not a moment was dedicated to display of technique for its own sake. Kraggerud and his outstanding pianist, Helge Kjekshus, presented themselves as equal partners deeply immersed in serious chamber music. And this approach served to display the violinist´s strengths even more effectively than the familiar showpieces by Sarasate, Wieniawski et al. might have done.

Kraggerud´s tone is warm, precisely focused and capable of an expressive variety of colors. His grasp of structural principles is exemplary, and he shapes his phrases with mastery. Most important of all, he acts not as a nimble young hustler but as a servant of the music. He provided an unusually satisfying experience.
(Joseph McLellan, The Washington Post - Thursday, March 8, 2001)

11/2008