Austrian Cultural Forum Washington D.C.
Annually some of the young European musical superstars parade through Washington's embassy community with surprisingly little advance notice. Thursday night it was the turn of Cornelia Herrmann, a finalist and winner in the 1996 International J. S. Bach Competition in Leipzig, Germany. Musical historians remember that Tatiana Nicolaeva won the same piano competition in 1950, and so dazzled Shostakovich with her playing that the composer returned to Russia and proceeded to create the Preludes and Fugues of Opus 87 for Nicolaeva. It was certainly worth taking a little time to see what Herrmann could do.

Not surprisingly, Herrmann opened her concert with a very impressive rendition of Bach's Partita No.2 in C Minor. Obviously Herrmann's participation in master classes with Murray Perahia has paid off for her, as she plays Bach with a intentional majesty but with an artful awareness of the moments when the capabilities of the piano can give the underlying contrapuntal music the extra "punch" impossible with a harpsichord rendition. Perhaps Herrmann made the music a little less dance-like than it might have been, but obviously she finds serious sinews inside her Bach, and this famous piece responds well to her approach.

After Bach, Herrmann gave a very fluid rendering of Schumann's Theme and Variations on the Name Abegg, a very early piano work by the composer. A great pianist married to another superb pianist, Schumann was forced by an injury to one hand to abandon concertizing for composition. Whereas an endless series of concerts might have left only the rapt comments of members of audiences across Europe, Schumann's compositions continue to give daunting evidence of keyboard virtuosity from pianists who can pull their melodic essences to the surface successfully.

One can dismiss very quickly Erin Gee's 4 Variations on a Mouthpiece, a work Herrmann played with evident amusement, adding her own vocal manipulations to the piano whose strings had been strangely altered by the insertion of various objects beneath the strings. Further alterations were made as Herrmann appeared to pull a metallic object (perhaps a paperclip?) across the strings nearest the keyboard. There is often a curveball in an Austrian Cultural Forum concert, and tonight Gee's work played such a role, a forgettable palate cleanser. Bartok's delightful Suite op. 14 was presented as a very muscular interpretation of folk melodies, played in a rather Bachlike manner, densely melodic and inherently dignified. This was the second signal that Herrmann has an exceptional deftness with complicated rhythms and curiously accented meters.

After an intermission, Herrmann presented the real meat of the evening, an extremely impressive version of Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze, a work so difficult that it is unlikely to find its way onto the program of any popular concert in a large auditorium. Herrmann appeared to relish the obvious complexities of a composition which moves through 18 separate pieces. This pianist plays elegantly, with a warm smile and a definite sense of personal style that should take her far.

All Arts Reviews, 13/11/2008



Recital at the Piano Etoile Series, Saitama
...In the first piece, Bach Partita No.2, Cornelia Herrmann impressed with a strict rhythm, a warm cantabile and a very skilful counterpoint. ...Schumann Abegg-Variations showed a beautiful rhetoric flow. ...Cornelia Herrmann’s performance was wonderfully fresh, transparent and clear, yet filled with intense shades of sound and we look forward to her next visit in great anticipation.

Musica Nova, 08/2008



International class at the piano
Cornelia Herrmann shows right from the beginning that she is used to playing in larger concert halls. She has a powerful and rich touch combined with an outstanding technique. Pearly fluency and dynamic are combined in Beethoven Appassionata to a thrilling emotional storm.
Cornelia Herrmann demonstrated her art of playing in Chopin’s Ballade in A flat major: continuous soundwaves – a fascinating and gripping performance.

Augsburger Allgemeine, 07/08/2007



The internationally renowned pianist Cornelia Herrmann who has won many prizes demonstrated her artistry in producing a beautiful sound. Even in the more dramatic passages she always maintained transparency. There is nothing artificial about her playing, it is technically profound, sensual, and clearly suited to the acoustics of the hall. ...Even more impressive were the slow movements of the Davidsbündlertänze where Cornelia Herrmann showed again and again her ability to produce different colours of sound and a beautiful long phrasing – resulting in particularly tender and wonderful moments.

DrehPunktKultur, 24/10/2006



Then the refreshing appearance of the soloist, Cornelia Herrmann, in Schumann's Piano Concerto. Her playing was of a profound debth, crystal clear and completely unpretentious. The beauty of her sound fulfilled the expectations in a pianist who has her musical origins in the Mozarteum Salzburg.

Ongaku no tomo 08/2006



Pleasure at the Piano
The recital by the young Salzburg pianist Cornelia Herrmann was pure joy. She is already a familiar figure in Deutschlandsberg, but it seems that she has gained further in both maturity and expression. In Mozart's Sonata K331, with the "Alla Turca", her playing was riveting with its flexibility and vitality. Trying to fathom what made it so, one might see the secret in her feeling for nuances of colour, rhythm and timbre. This feeling is evidently rooted in Cornelia Herrmann's powerful musicality, together with her intellectual penetration of the works. Thus the op 76 piano pieces by Brahms appeared like splendidly colourful paintings, and Schumann's Fantasy Pieces op 12 like a musical narrative. Two pieces by Messiaen on the life of Christ were given a dramatic rendering. It was a pleasure to encounter, instead of the all too frequently heard "piano machines", a personality so thoroughly imbued with artistic sensibility.

Weststeirische Rundschau, 10/2005



Vienna Musikverein:
Intellect at the Piano
Cornelia Herrmann appears to be a serious and courageous intellectual at the piano. Despite her perfect technique, she shuns glamour and virtuosic showmanship, seeking in every work the deeper meaning, the true message [...] In Bach's B minor Partita BWV831, her intellectual approach and passionate timbre spark poetic inspiration. Her interpretation of Liszt's Variations was quite amazingly sensitive, meticulously faithful to the score, and at the same time sophisticated in the shaping of its rhetoric. In the Messiaen, dynamic contrasts were realised uncompromisingly [...]

Neue Kronen-Zeitung, 20/05/2005



Schumann's Concerto in A minor op 54 for piano and orchestra is regarded as one of the most consistent and important works of the genre, with a highly demanding solo part. The young Salzburg pianist Cornelia Herrmann was less concerned with show than with deeply-felt lyricism, poetic delicacy and beauty of tone. The gently flowing lines of her musical phrasing gave her playing a light, airy quality, almost introverted at times, but always integrated in the overall sound and sensitively interwoven with the orchestral language [...]

DrehPunktKultur, 29/04/2005



Konzerthaus: Herrmann
Virtuosic and with great elegance
She attacked with energy, escalating into pianistic fireworks with breathtaking climaxes, showing true and elegant mastery. [...] Outstanding brilliance in the last movement with the Turkish March. The refined lyricism of Schumann's Fantasy Pieces op 12 seems to suit her best; her delicate pianissimo is moving[...]

Kronenzeitung, 29/10/2004



Mozart's Piano Concerto K537 was played by Salzburg-born Cornelia Herrmann. Her playing showed no sign of the cheap showmanship quite often observed in recent young players. Her musical expression together with the orchestra was unpretentious, filled with purity and pleasing grace.

Ongaku no tomo, 03/2004



The first soloist evidently fulfilled all the expectations of the American conductor. The young Salzburg pianist Cornelia Herrmann performed Mozart's Piano Concerto K466 with bold and unaffected gusto, giving the minor mood of this work an atmosphere more dramatic than mysterious.

Neue Luzerner Zeitung, 22/03/2004



...Cornelia Herrmann played the piano part with virtuosic refinement

Salzburger Nachrichten, 11/08/2003



...Her richly dynamic entrance was sheer joy [...] In Mozart's C major Piano Concerto, she was clearly in command, with a confident smile. She left nothing to be desired in either force or sensitivity. The passage-work rolled along splendidly, but the piano could also sing. The end died gently away under her light touch.

Hamburger Abendblatt, 21/05/2001