FROM MUSICIANS AND THE PRESS 

(a sampling of comments)

Headline: An Outstanding Evening: Bill Newman listens to American pianist Rorianne Schrade (Wigmore Hall recital)

“It [Bach Liszt Prelude and Fugue in A minor] was tremendous! I sat there glued to the Steinway grand and the lady’s powerful rendition … So special, here [Schumann’s Etudes Symphoniques], were the gradations of tone, and those wonderful old-fashioned rubatos. It reminded me of Claudio Arrau at the height of his performing powers. 

Ravel’s Valses Nobles et Sentimentales came after the interval - it was a peach of a performance. Following on directly came Liszt's Soirée de Vienne No 6, after Schubert … it could hardly have sounded better, exuding grace and charm, with fleeting fingerwork in every bar. Then, the Grand Finale -- the same composer's Waltz from Gounod’s Faust. I have never heard it played so wonderfully, except by the late Györgi Cziffra at his only Royal Festival Hall London solo recital”

Bill Newman, Music and Vision Daily, mvdaily.com, UK, October 5, 2011 

"Schrade’s [Rachmaninoff Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 22] ranks right up there with Bolet, Rodriguez, Wild, and Shelley at the top of the list... Schrade’s performances are marvelous. She has a big virtuoso romantic approach that is exactly what I like in these works. She is also capable of soft, nuanced legato phrases – often called for in these works. She notes that this is a recital that she has performed many times, and it shows in her approach to the Chopin especially.... I will keep my eyes open for further recordings from this label and artist."

From American Record Guide, James Harrington (Jan/Feb 2009 Issue)

" She is an all-about-the-business sort of player, whose business is executing the music impeccably, without any nonsense, but with lots of expression, often with a large Romantic interpretative style."

The Boston Musical Intelligencer, 2011

“Rorianne Schrade is one of the most dynamic, impassioned pianists I’ve seen in live performance in years.”

Dr. Roberta E. Zlokower, RobertaOnTheArts.com, New York NY, (Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, 2011) 

“On the last day of September Rorianne Schrade commenced with the triumphal elegance of Liszt's transcription of the Bach A minor organ Prelude and Fugue. This was consistently fluent and grandeur accumulated. The main event of the evening, however, was Schumann's Symphonic Studies Op. 13 and as in most of his best pieces formal structure and musical content were as one. Certainly in this performance we were made aware of the symphonic aspects of the score and of the etude dimension. To put this another way, mastery of one aspect of keyboard playing after another was demonstrated but so also was the music's symphonic organisation.”

Musical Opinion, Max Harrison, UK (Wigmore Hall Recital), January 2012

Headline: Rorianne Schrade Impeccable in Sevenars Solo Concert

“Rorianne Schrade ... award-winning pianist, took on a program of mostly modern piano works, each offering its own distinctions...utterly precise articulation which coaxes every drop of sound from each note...Her impeccable technique collaborated with the hall again in Samuel Barber’s monumental Sonata...it was the larger works, the Barber and the Gershwin, with which Schrade appeared most comfortable ...Schrade with her versatility treated the Sevenars audience to a concert that tastefully blended the intense with the light, the somber with the whimsical, and the legendary with the local” 

(All 20th Century program)  Eric Weld, The Hampshire Gazette (MA)

Headline: Pianist Superb with Demanding Recital

“In four Strauss Waltz paraphrases, pianist Rorianne Schrade played enough notes on the first half of her Sevenars solo recital Sunday to exhaust two pianists in two concerts. Apparently tireless and possessed of infinite emotional depths, she went on after a brief intermission to play a heartfelt, magically tender account of Mozart’s Sonata K.282 in E-flat Major, and finished with Schubert’s towering ‘Wanderer Fantasy.’ 

‘Rori’ negotiated the Allegro con Fuoco’s heroic chords and sweeping arpeggios with the dry lucidity of Horowitz, plumbed the Adagio’s melancholy depths, delivered a breakneck Presto, and plunged with undiminished intensity into the fugal opening of the closing Allegro. The explosive conclusion of the piece rocketed her audience to its feet.”

C. Noble, Union News, Springfield, MA

 “There is something analogous about this dynasty of New York pianists to the celebrated Trapp family singers... Robelyn and Rorianne have been successfully making their mark pianistically (I glowingly reviewed Rorianne’s Weill Hall concert in the pages of this journal)...the first half ended with the Copland-Bernstein El Salon Mexico bitingly and energetically rendered by Rorianne and Randolph.”

(Schrade Family Two Piano Concert, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center NY)

Harris Goldsmith, New York Concert Review 

Headline: Music Lovers Win the Shell Game:

“Rorianne Schrade was the exciting young soloist...strength and stamina to burn... she found whatever poetry and sentiment the piece contains and drew a fine variety of tonal shades from the instrument, thundering resonance, a penetrating singing tone, harp-like effects and velvety light scales and arpeggios... She frolicked through the scherzo and tore through the finale like a whirlwind unleashed.”

(Saint-Saens Concerto No. 2, New Orchestra of Westchester)

F. Brancaleone, Gannett Westchester Newspapers, New York, USA 

“Schrade blew into town on a rainy afternoon yesterday and scattered ideas across the hall like thunderbolts...a lavish romantic intensity...beautifully sculpted phrases...melting and utterly natural lyrical grace...”

Andrew Pincus, Berkshire Eagle (MA.)

Headline: Schrade Concert Dazzles Audience

“Dazzling concertgoers with blazing technical skill and captivating them with vulnerable emotional depth...Schrade’s potent mastery of the keyboard-spanning, strength-sapping virtuoso textures brought to mind the playing of Horowitz ... Schrade keeps alive and, in a sense reinvents a venerable tradition of heroic virtuoso performers born in the Liszt-Paganini era of the late 19th century and stretching into the twentieth century with the likes of Paderewski, Rachmaninov, and their contemporaries.”

C. Noble, Union-News, Springfield, MA., USA

“Delectable flair...a communicativeness that I do not remember having heard...a sensual quality I would not have thought possible [in Rachmaninoff's B-flat minor Sonata] ...nuance and flexibility that had this listener thinking of Rachmaninoff’s own recordings...It is rather unusual to encounter a ‘throwback’ and to discover a player who embraces the values of a seemingly long-vanished pianistic style.”

Harris Goldsmith, New York Concert Review

“This was an engaging and formidable program ... endless energy...technical bravura...the success of this performance was not rooted just in the technical capacity and sheer energy of the performer (brilliance alone would not have sufficed); it was also rooted in Ms. Schrade’s ability to musically shape the piece [Glazunov Sonata in Bb minor], in individual phrases as well as in overall architectural line.”

J. Royal, New York Concert Review

“First class talent in my (not so) humble opinion...” 

“...a magnetic lyricism...personal and idiomatic, yet not self-indulgent or sentimental. She honors the composer with devotion to the score...the sweep of demonic grandeur was most persuasive...” 

“Powerhouse performance...stunning." 

Jurors, Concert Artists Guild International Competition

“...fabulous...she plays with total immersion in the music...Everything was appropriate; right tempos, lyric phrasing. Rorianne Schrade struck the happy medium interpretively, avoiding both affectation and excessive rubato."

Daily Hampshire Gazette (MA.)

“The young soloist displayed elegant phrasing and a wide variety of articulation...” 

(Beethoven Concerto No.1)

The New Haven Register (CT.)

“A brilliantly played program of piano music...sensitivity and fervor...beautiful and dramatically satisfying...superb pianism...”

Garden City News (N.Y.)

“A vixen and an elf at the keyboard… She plays with the fire of the very young and with the insight of an artist mature far beyond her years...there were no runs too fast for her, no powerful attacks beyond her strength, nor yet any whispered lines outside of her concept. A wild range of expressiveness...”

E. Wayne, Berkshire Eagle (MA.) 

“She played with a beautiful, velvety tone...her sense of color was subtle and dramatic. The judges looked charmed as she played. She played with wit, passion, and grace. Extended applause followed the concerto. Repeated ‘Bravos’...”

Talk of the Town section, The New Yorker

“...agile, intensely musical performances, percolating with youthful optimism...the Schrades’ fragrant supple interpretation was a beauty.”

(In Duo-piano combinations with Robert and Randolph Schrade) 

Joseph Horowitz, The New York Times

 “...thorough, forceful, and cogent...she demonstrated a keen ear for sonority, plenty of temperament, and a fine sense of architecture.” 

The Plain Dealer, Cleveland 

“...an accomplished and attractive musician...Her control of balances and sensitivity to color in Messiaen's "Sons Impalpables du reve" and her clarity of contrapuntal voicing in the first movement of Chopin's B minor Sonata were thoroughly admirable.” 

The New York Times

“...inside the Academy, the air is full of music. Rorianne, the Schrades’ twenty-something younger daughter, is at the piano... in the “Tombeau de Couperin” by Ravel. The execution is better than flawless. It is inspired.” 

The Berkshire Eagle (MA.)

 “...an outstanding pianist and musician...an outstanding technique and a large centered and colored sound...a conductor’s dream.” 

Paul Dunkel, conductor

 “You won’t get many chances this good to get acquainted with an attractive Russian composer [Balakirev] who stubbornly refused to publish much of his music until late in life...Islamey, perhaps the greatest fingerbreaking challenge in all the literature for piano, is given a bravura performance by Schrade.” 

Classical Disc Digest, Vol.4, No.5

“Rorianne Schrade's performance took off like a rocket with the Wedding March and Variations by Mendelssohn-Liszt-Horowitz. Her performance projected an ease of virtuosic style that looked back to the previous century… The balance of the program was dedicated to American composers. John Newell's Variations on "Amazing Grace" is a moving set of variations based on the well known hymn and lovingly played by Ms Schrade . Rolande Schrade's Acorn #4 is a charming piece in the spirit of Ravel that fit in well with the program. The finale to the first half was a colossal performance of the Barber Piano Sonata. This music continues to haunt the psyche with its blending of 19th century lyricism and 20th century cold, atonal objectivity. Ms Schrade's headlong performance brought both elements together in an electrifying interpretation. The second part of the program continued the American theme with a small Sonatina by local composer Clifton Noble Jr. Its straightforward language and form were deftly rendered by Ms Schrade's playing. The program ended with a solo version of the Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue as arranged by the composer. This tour de force was clearly relished by Ms Schrade. She brought out all of the complicated inner voices that a such a distilled arrangement would provide. Bravo to Ms Schrade”

Thomas Slowick, www.inthespotlightinc.org  

“Even with a bulky cast on her broken right wrist, Rorianne Schrade is capable of some of the finest piano playing heard anywhere. ..Rorianne Schrade’s account of it [Felix Blumenthal’s Op. 36 for the left hand] was extraordinary--she exhibited a sense of line and command of tone color and voicing possessed by only a few of the world’s finest pianists.” 

The Union -News, Springfield (MA.)

(This performance was also included in the Union critic’s top ten roundup for the year.) 

“In presenting an album of works by the little known Russian composer Mily Balakirev (1837-1910), pianist Rorianne Schrade has found the perfect vehicle for dislaying her tremendous depth of expressiveness and virtuosity...The pianist’s range is stunning, equally expressive in the stark, quiet passages and the wild, impossible sounding rhythmic sections...Thankfully, Balakirev exemplifies how Ms. Schrade’s piano artistry and her own self-discipline and commitment to her art can satisfy our longing for natural beauty and release.” 

Paul Burton, Bravo Newspaper

“..limpid ornaments of infinite delicacy... Schrade’s articulation was clean as a whistle, light and crisp through demanding passagework...her consummate artistry ran through the performance like a golden thread. Her attention to tone and color never knuckled under to even the most difficult passages [in “Islamey”]”

The Union -News, Springfield (MA.)

Headline: Rorianne Schrade: Stunning Pianist:

“....absolutely magnificent. She manifested a beautiful blend of strength and sensitivity which enabled her to express a full range of feeling, from tremendous ower to sublime tenderness, all the while commanding the piano with prodigious technical skill...Rorianne Schrade immediately grabbed our undivided attention by plunging directly into the massive opening chords of Busoni’s piano arrangement of Johann Sebatian Bach’s Chaconne in D Minor, without any of the usual fiddling around with the seat, etc., and held us spellbound for the rest of the concert.

[The Waltz from Gounod’s Faust] is a typically Lisztian virtuoso composition which almost seems to demand the impossible from the artist, but Schrade came through with rip-snorting victory. Her hands were all over the keyboard, and her fingers flew miraculously through runs, arpeggios, and trills, and yet she was able to shift gears instantly to a tranquil treatment of the smooth middle section. 

The second half of the concert was made up entirely of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme by Chopin, Op. 22...She was virtually alone with the music and the piano, and yet we were privileged to intrude just enough to see and hear her play.” 

C. Pottol, Daily Hampshire Gazette

Headline: Schrade delights at Sevenars:

“She draws crowds of loyal and enthusiastic admirers ---and an admiring press as well...a master pianist ... A listener, on learning that I am a critic, aptly remarked “you must be running out of adjectives” 

E. Hafner, Daily Hampshire Gazette

These paraphrases on the waltzes of Johann Strauss, Jr., are what is to be expected: highly florid and virtuosically showy. However, that doesn't mean they are all flash and no substance, particularly in the hands of Rorianne Schrade. She brings out the original melodies and uses the flourishes to enhance the elegance of Strauss' already elegant music. Much of that extra material is also used to keep the music flowing and gliding along so that the pulsing of the waltz can be felt without the "oom-pah-pah" accompaniment. Schrade gives the waltzes continuous movement and sparkle without being too dramatic at the beginnings and ends of themes or with the bridges between themes. The Dohnányi is not quite as flowery as the Schulz-Evler, Godowsky, or other arrangements, but Schrade's own arrangement of "The Kiss Waltz" fits right in with the others, filled with fluid ripples of accompaniment. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "Tales of Strauss" is actually the oddball here. It's an original work by Korngold that combines themes by all of the Strauss family, not just Johann Strauss, Jr., and rather than being a grandiose showpiece, it's more nostalgic and playful in its tone. These arrangements of Strauss waltzes do not have much more in common with their original orchestral versions than the melodies, but Schrade makes sure they have the same energy, sophistication, and richness. 

Patsy Morita, The All Music Guide, 2005 (Centaur Records, CRC 2721)

My only complaint relates to the playing time. It is so good that I wanted the full 80 minutes - another two or three selections. Schrade, who teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, is justifiably praised by our own Harris Goldsmith who, on the basis of her Weill Hall recital, spoke of "communicativeness ... delectable flair and ... the nuance that had this listener thinking of Rachmaninoff's own recordings."

Not only is the concept behind this recording interesting, but the sheer fun of it all is hard to resist. Schrade sparkles and bubbles her way through these charmers with a light touch and enjoyment that makes a tangible thing of what some would call pure froth. Schulz-Evler's famous piece based on The Blue Danube leaves nothing to be desired; her technique carries all before it. Without attempting to impress by calling attention to her skills, Schrade sweeps things along with a glint in her eye.

Godowsky's Artists' life is the longest work here and the one that invites the most bombastic display. Not so here; it calls forth smiles rather than impatience. Schrade avoids the longueurs by keeping her volume in check and by carefully contrasting the different episodes. If the music does overstay its welcome sometimes, that is less of a problem in this performance.

 Schutt's Tales from the Vienna Woods paraphrase is an imaginatively conceived piece that strays harmonically and rhythmically from the original but still keeps its shenanigans in 3/4 time, while Tausig's We Live But Once waltz caprice is a celebration of Strauss's wife Adele. As befits a Liszt pupil, the work strays imaginatively all over the place.

Dohnanyi's Du and Du draws its melodies from Die Fledermaus and keeps the tipsy energy of the original. Schrade herself contributes The Kiss Waltz, a perfectly lovely piece that does not stylistically conflict with the others. It is dedicated to her husband and displays a warmth and romanticism that must have warmed his heart.

Korngold's Tales of Strauss is direct in its use of themes. While it does stray in the central section, the excursion only takes us to the lush romantic harmonies typical of this composer. Schrade brings her love of the music very much to the forefront here with playing that keeps us from overdosing on 3/4 time. The playing is so good you may actually want to press the repeat button on your player.

REVIEW by Alan Becker, The American Record Guide, 12/05 

"Schrade plays precisely, expressively, and seemingly effortlessly…this lovely recording is heartily recommended.” 

(Homage to Chopin Recording, 2008)

Marvin Ward © 2008, Classical Voice of New England, Inc., cvneweng.com

Photo Credit: Christian Steiner