Reviews
“The performances with the pianist Michael Endres were revelatory”.
New York Times
"…a l’egal des plus grandes interpretes de Schubert: Serkin, Arrau, Brendel.”
La Monde de la Musique
"One of the most interesting pianists recording today…"
Richard Dyer (Boston Globe)
"John Wiser and Charles Timbrell reviewed two earlier issues, both of them with high praise, and I will go further and state that this is superlative Schubert playing … Michael Endres is a very special Schubertian, and this disc is highly recommended.."
Fanfare, USA
"...Michael Endres...is a superior pianist. … In this sense of proportion, elegance of phrasing, clarity of articulation and polished tone he need bow to no one.”
BBC Music
"He is an outstanding Schubert interpreter.”
Gramophone
"In Deutschland blühen pianistische Höchstleistungen mitunter im Verborgenen. Fernab vom Starkult ausländischer Kollegen arbeitend, ist er einer der herausragendsten Pianisten unseres Landes. … Eine Gesamtaufnahme von Mozart’s Sonaten, die einfach sprachlos macht.”
aktivissimo
"Ein Prophet, der im eigenen Land noch unter Marktwert gehandelt wird: Michael Endres. Mit der Gesamtaufnahme der Klaviersonaten von Mozart tritt hier ein Pianist von überlegener musikalischer Reife auf den Plan. Was hier an beglückenden Einsichten zutage gefördert wird, an tiefgründiger Ernsthaftigkeit in perlend brillantem Klanggewand und mit makelloser Anschlagskultur, das hält jedem internationalen Vergleich stand.”
Abendzeitung
"Mit fantastischer Anschlagskultur ausgestattet…"
Berliner Zeitung
"Musikalische Höhenflüge … wirkt dabei wie einer, der der Droge Musik rettungslos verfallen ist.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine
[Headline] "Fearless pianist’s risks yield huge rewards"
NEWPORT — "Dense fog drifted on Sunday night through the great marbled room in the Breakers where Michael Endres made a rare US appearance at the Newport Music Festival, but the playing of the German pianist was like a shaft of light breaking through the mist.
Boston Globe
"Ein eindringlich interpretierender Künstler."
Süddeutsche Zeitung
CD Review SCHUBERT: Fantasies: in C, "Grazer"; in C, "Wanderer." 3 Klavierstücke, D 946. Variations on a Theme by Hüttenbrenner
"his unforced playing and engaging musicality make him a perfect Schubertian."
"Endres is a most persuasive advocate of this work, responding to its mood swings and holding the episodes together in a seamless manner.
"The Klavierstücke are among Schubert's last works, and they are technically challenging and often musically arresting. In the first, Endres plays with real urgency without forcing his sound, and the contrasting material is ethereal, as if composed without bar lines. Beautiful balances and noble sentiment characterize the second, which is musically and pianistically the most original of the set, with its highly dramatic episode. And I like the way he eases into No. 3 and lingers a bit during the lovely Trio section; the final page couldn't be more exciting. Endres' subtle interpretation is on a par with the excellent ones by Uchida and, more recently, Perianes.
There are many very fine recordings of the great "Wanderer" Fantasy-by Curzon, Richter, Pollini, Brendel, Perahia, and Kissin, among others-and Endres' belongs to that elite group. He has the technique to vary his sound, even during the most intense and loud passages; and in the more lyrical moments he plays with a flexibility that seems just right, never exaggerated. His left-hand octaves are equal to anyone's in the notorious passage near the end of the first section. The slow variations flow with unusual continuity and control of texture. The tight rhythms of the Scherzo are contrasted with perfect ease in the Trio. The finale benefits from a less clangorous approach than usual, making the brilliant closing pages all the more welcome. Here, as in the demanding conclusion of the Scherzo, he takes no prisoners, and the playing is immensely exciting.
Charles Timbrell, Fanfare Magazine, Jan/Feb 2010 Full review
Fearless pianist's risks yield huge rewards
NEWPORT -- Dense fog drifted on Sunday night through the great marbled room in the Breakers where Michael Endres made a rare US appearance at the Newport Music Festival, but the playing of the German pianist was like a shaft of light breaking through the mist.
Endres has made an admirable series of records for Capriccio and Oehms Classics -- Mozart, Ravel, Weber, Schumann, and the finest recent account of the complete Schubert sonatas -- but the CDs don't begin to do him justice. They are poised, thoughtful, and expressive, but there is no hint of the wild-man risk-taking that marked his Newport recital. Endres took big chances, communicated how thrilling every dimension of the music was to him, and succeeded triumphantly against the odds. He hit a few wrong notes you wouldn't want to hear repeatedly on a recording; to be fair the fogged-in piano wasn't an entirely responsive partner. But that was a small price to pay for playing that was this imaginative, exciting, and expressive.
With his spectacles, sport coat, and bow tie, Endres looked a bit professiorial, but that was before the music took complete possession of his body; no one has stomped the pedal this enthusiastically since Rudolf Serkin.
He opened with Schubert, a bold and passionate account of the A-major Sonata (D. 959). There was no mincing around, and the crazy storm that broke into the gentle barcarolle of the slow movement was terrifying. Endres followed this up with three vigorously tuneful showpieces by the 19th-century American pianist/composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, delivered with tremendous rhythmic elan and robust humor.
"... Endres's chameleonic performance was sensitive to every nuance of feeling. He closed the program by displaying his supervirtuoso side in Godowsky's musically intricate Paraphrase on Johann Strauss Jr.'s ''Wine, Women and Song"; Endres kept it dancing despite its knuckle-busting difficulties. For his encore, he moved from the ballroom to the great outdoors with a scintillating suite of Schubert peasant dances.
Richard Dyer, Boston Globe | July 20, 2005 Full review
Michael Endres
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