reviews
Programmer, Muziekkamer Assen (March 2009) [NL]
What a fantastic concert! ... so focused and accurate and played with such a sense of phrasing and nuance, superb. The subtle balance and harmony was a revelation, three equal instruments, real chamber music. ... sparks of enjoyment were flying! Special mention is also deserved for the concert talks ... excellent, informative and entertaining. Particularly the history of the basset clarinet - almost a detective story in itself - told with verve by Nicole van Bruggen!Dagblad van het Noorden (March 2009) [NL]
Audience reactions:
"The fortepianist played brilliantly"
"Loved it "
click here for the full review (in Dutch)Leidsch Dagblad (February 2009) [NL]
Van Bruggen allows the sound, particularly in the low register, to melt like creamy May butter … the classical clarinet was swinging, the cellist was rattling his strings and the pianist kept everyone masterfully and rhetorically in line … the music making was so expressive and full of enthusiasm!
click here for the full review (in Dutch)Luister (September 2006) [The Netherlands]
Sounds to enjoy – Performance 10
What a pleasurable CD this is! Unknown music, world premières! - surprising quality by a contemporary of Mozart and Beethoven, sparklingly performed and beautifully recorded. Along with a clear and to the point, educational booklet is the product complete. … The works on this CD all have the clarinet in the spotlight, with contagious enthusiasm perfectly performed by Nicole van Bruggen. The equally important piano part receives just as much care in fortepiano playing by Anneke Veenhoff, the tight ensemble is completed by the cellist Bas van Hengel. This permanent trio is complemented in the Quintet in g minor by two violists. Alongside the quality of performance is the sound a continuous joy, the clarinet tone, the blend with the spectacular Rosenberger fortepiano, the support from teh cello and the autumn colourings of the two violas in the quintet - sounds to enjoy from the first to the last note. H.Quant
click here for the full review (in Dutch)De Telegraaf (July 2006) [The Netherlands]
these three can make music like the best of them
summer listening pleasure. T. Wind
click here for the full review (in Dutch)Early Music Review (June 2006) [Great Britain]
This CD is a real joy…most attractively performed on period instruments…very nicely presented in clean, forward and well-balanced recordings. The melodic, harmonic and textural qualities of this music are a real discovery, and the players deserve great credit for exhuming it and bringing it back to life. P. Branscombe
click here for the full reviewLe Monde de la Musique (Juin 2006) [France]
**** Elles bénéficient d'interprétations de haut vol enrichissant opportunément la discographie. M. Vignal
click here for the full reviewNRC Handelsblad (June 2006) [The Netherlands]
**** some CD booklets are more revealing than The Da Vinci Code… [the trio plays with] contagious authentic pleasure… Hij was no Mozart or Beethoven but listen to the second movement of his Trio and smile! K. Jansen
click here for the full review (in Dutch)De Morgen (May 2006) [Belgium]
*** One step under Beethoven
This music surpasses elegance, must be exceptionally fun to play and certainly is to listen to. It may not have the greatness of Beethoven or the pain of Schubert, but the music is never banal or over the top. Some movements are even extremely beautiful and moving. [The trio] produces an 'earthy', light transparent sound and articulates clearly, without losing the legato. (Ramée) S. Moens
click here for the full review (in Dutch)
Trio Van Bruggen - Van Hengel - Veenhoff plays in Opera by Boieldieu
Together with Foskien Kooistra, Orsze Adam and Frederique Chauvet, the trio performed in Ma tante Aurore by Boieldieu, a Barokopera Amsterdam production. The tour included various theatres in The Netherlands and was a reprise of an earlier tour in France. The opera was arranged by by Frederique Chauvet, Anneke Veenhoff and Nicole van Bruggen.
Excerpts from the reviews:
…fortepiano, which blended magically with the tone of the flute, clarinet and plucked strings.
Volkskrant, 11th February 2006…the production was a great success due to the brilliant musicianship of Il Theatro Musicale. Conductor and flutist Frédérique Chauvet brought the original orchestral score back to only six instruments, which allowed each melodic line to become clearly audible.
de Stentor, 12th February 2006…Directed by flutist Frederique Chauvet, the six musicians of Il Teatro Musicale on authentic instruments brought the charming music to life. The violin sounded like a heart beat, the clarinet brought a dramatic colour and the fortepiano and cello lay down a steady dance…
AD-Haagsche Courant, 11th February 2006
Anneke and Nicole perform solo concertos in the New Dutch Academy's Mozart Brithday programme
Anneke played a solo Mozart programme including the Fantasie in c KV 475 , the Turkish March and some liederen with the Swedish soprano Anna Nyhlin
Nicole's programme included the Serenade KV 375 and arias from Mozart's Die ZauberflöteExcerpts from the reviews:
…[Anna Nyhlin] gave the liederen a particularly attractive lightness, excellently accompanied on the fortepiano by Anneke Veenhoff, who also gave a brilliant redition of the Fantasie in c.
Eindhovens Dagblad, 28th January 2006
Nicole performs a solo concerto in De Doelen with the New Dutch Academy
Rotterdams Dagblad
15th April 2005
…in this way, Mozart embraced the clarinet as a new orchestral and solo instrument. Johann Stamitz experimented to his heart's content with this new instrument. His Clarinet Concerto in B flat was played roundly, sometimes a little soft, but always delicately by the pregnant Nicole van Bruggen-Harris. The peaceful second movement clearly demonstrated where Mozart got his inspiration.
Interview Anneke Veenhoff in Stentor
(click for complete article - in Dutch)
Delftse/Haagsche Courant
17th March 2003
...and most significantly the glowing warm playing of Nicole van Bruggen-Harris. Her performance made the Beethoven as well as the Schubert an ultimate musical celebration which would make any critic speechless. That alone was worth a full church.
Haagsche Courant
7th October 2002
The Dutch trio with clarinetist Nicole van Bruggen, cellist Bas van Hengel and pianist Anneke Veenhoff were awarded third with the beautiful, colourful performance of Beethoven's Clarinet Trio, opus 11, and were also awarded the Audience prize.
Interview Nicole van Bruggen in Tijdschrift Oude Muziek
Clarinettist Nicole Harris had been studying for two years at the conservatorium in Sydney when Eric Hoeprich's ensemble Nachtmusique visited the city. She decided immediately that the classical clarinet would be her future. Enthusiastically she explains: 'In Australia there wasn't very much Early Music so I came to The Netherlands to study classical clarinet with Eric Hoeprich. During my studies, I discovered that there is a large amount of clarinet repertoire which is never performed and I very often came across the instrumentation, clarinet, violin, viola, cello. Together with three string players, I founded Kwartet André in 1996 and as far as I know, we are still the only regular ensemble with this instrumentation.'
Nicole knows very well that there is more than enough repertoire. 'I have found approximately two hundred and fifty works of which we have played around thirty; we have plenty to keep us busy. Mozart wrote the best known work for my instrument and strings with his clarinet quintet and he started a trend: the composers following Mozart wrote more clarinet quintets than quartets. There are also many arrangements of string quartets in which the first violin part is played by the clarinet. Publishers often did that to enable their music to be sold to a broader public. The range of the clarinet is greater than that of a violin in the low register and it is precisely this low register which blends so beautifully with the strings. Especially in the work by Hummel which we will play in the Network series, this can be clearly heard.'
