Soloist Cornelia Herrmann soars in lyrical concerto
TAMPA — Is there a more perfect piece of music than Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21? I don't think so.
Cornelia Herrmann was the soloist in the crown jewel of Mozart's 27 piano concertos with the Florida Orchestra, Stefan Sanderling conducting, Friday night at Morsani Hall of the Straz Center for the Performing Arts.
The delightfully unpredictable nature of the concerto is exemplified by the belated, deceptively offhand entrance of the pianist in the first movement, with Herrmann fitting into the orchestral texture in serene fashion. A highlight was the cadenza (by the great pianist, Wilhelm Kempff) in the first movement that was both mysterious and forthright, if that's possible, in the Austrian soloist's assured reading.
The slow movement was a dream, with Herrmann bringing a limpid touch to the famous melody over muted strings and pizzicato cello and bass. The only blemish in her virtuoso performance came in a moment of insecure pitch during the rapid passage work of the finale.

St. Petersburg Times, 03/12/2011



Cornelia Herrmann at the Beethoven-Night
...Whoever felt irritated by Monteros powerful and harsh interpretation of Beethovens last piano concerto would now hope for a more refined and delicate interpretation by Herrmann. This he got and much more as well. At the Beethoven-Night in the Stadthalle of Heidelberg Herrmann who has worked with conductors like Sir Neville Marriner, Sir Roger Norrington and Stefan Sanderling presented a new interpretation of the piano concert Nr. 5 in Eflat major that broke up the old listening habits.
The daughter of a musicians family from Salzburg highlighted musical ideas which are often neglected in conventional CD-recordings. She entered the first Allegro wide awake and smoothly, objective in her tone with maybe a hint too much pedal. The musicians of the Württembergische Philharmonie under Ola Rudner had started off the first movement a bit too fast which was responsible for one or two ingenious mistakes by the pianist.
However, she let the first major cadence pearl with wonderful lightness and continued throughout the piece with a masterfully sensitive sound. In the Adagio she calmly built up phrases of great tension and her outstanding delicate touch was reminiscent of Murray Perahia. She also interpreted the third movement very intelligently and thus earned roaring applause for her performance.

Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, 09/11/11



...Cornelia Herrmann proves that virtuosity does not merely mean 'ridiculously fast'! She presents us with an ideal performance of Bach's first French Suite with subtle yet thought through ornamentations and an immaculate phrasing - this is real virtuosity! Without the superficial show.

Ruhr Nachrichten, 14/06/2011



The triumph of an orchestral debut
The debut of the AOS was like a musical miracle.
...a magnificent soloist, Cornelia Herrmann, who with her right hand managed to bring out both the dramatic moments as well as the beautifully sung melodies. This smoothly lead us into the cadence by L.v.Beethoven. A special mention deserves her eloquent dialogue with the winds in the 'Romance' around the g-minor middle part where Cornelia Herrmann tastefully and discretely embellishes her melodic lines thus creating a real conversation between the various instruments. She managed to build up and spread such a tension and suspense in the dramatic rendering of the Finale that you could have heard a needle drop!...

DrehPunktKultur, 26/05/2010



A joined awakening of Spring
Chopin's 'Scherzo Nr.1 in b-minor op.20' was a thorough enjoyment both for the eyes and ears. It was simply astonishing with how much ease Cornelia Herrmann whirled through this complex piece. In her playing she was everything, strong and powerful, wavelike, floating and sometimes extremely tender. After some unexpected musical turn her playing would become lively again, always changing between calm and drama. The overwhelming applause showed the enthusiasm of the audience...

Berner Zeitung, 04/05/2010



Classics concert beats with spring’s optimism
...Certainly the most exciting serendipity for the audience was listening to Austrian pianist Cornelia Herrmann re-create Mozart’s wonderful early piano concerto, No. 9 in E-flat Major, (“Jeunehomme”). In her American orchestral debut, Herrmann was a marvel. With brilliant technique and tender yet authoritative touch, she seemed to melt into the composition, yet retain control over every carefully placed note. Her expressiveness and clear concept made each gesture an enhancement of the overall effect. The opening Allegro, with its lively and changeable dialogues between piano and orchestra came across as a frolic grounded by excellent ensemble work. Solemn yet never sluggish, the Andantino was a thoughtful journey, and a lesson in how to massage the key notes of a melody into a heartsong without once sounding precious. Herrmann’s deliberative tempo gave way to the romp of the final Rondo: Presto. Again, there was no rushing, no fumbling, just a sense that each note belonging exactly where it was sounded.

Toledo Blade, 02/2009



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