Professor Peter Hill - Reviews

Messiaen: Préludes
Quite extraordinarily beautiful and right. The Times

This is beautiful music and beautiful piano playing too. I listened entranced … (Gramophone)

Messiaen: Cantéyodjayâ, Quatre Études de rythme
… a classic of dedicated virtuosity. There is a keen edge that makes the rhythms much more incisive than mechanical, and that polishes up the colours with unerring precision. The Times

… wonderfully channelled musicianship and rhythmic control … A quite remarkable issue. (Tempo)

Messiaen: Catalogue d´oiseaux
He is a complete master of its rhythmic complexity and the finger-breaking defiance of the pianistically possible, but he never loses sight of the fact that the cycle´s main objective is to awake awe in the listener at the majesty and sublimity of creation. (The Good CD Guide)

Peter Hill´s superlative recording, remarkable for its accuracy, sense of atmosphere and the sheer dynamism of his response to Messiaen´s virtuoso demands … some of the finest Messiaen playing ever to have gone down on disc. (Sunday Telegraph)

… One´s jaw drops at Peter Hill prodigies of agile dexterity. (Gramophone)

He accomplishes all this with spectacular panache and an involvement with the music and the quality of piano sound that are a sheer delight … I cannot imagine this being bettered. (Hi Fi News)

Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l´Enfant-Jésus
The results are most absorbing from the first chord of No. 1 where the `Theme of God´ seems to unfold with a real sense of timeless wonderment. Hill plays with incredible sensitivity to balance and texture, with luminous clarity and beautifully graded dynamics. Hill´s playing is utterly compelling and he generates a kind of meditative intensity which is something special … Hill is clearly in a class of his own. (CD Review)

There are many wonderful things in the new set, pieces imbued with a genuine sense of awe and majesty, others fined down to the most intimate meditations. Such performances take Messiaen´s music out of the category of special interest and into the centre of the pianistic tradition. (The Financial Times)

… a superb traversal of the immortal Vingt Regards. In static-contemplative pieces Hill obtains peerless sublime repose. Hill is my favourite Messiaen pianist. (Fanfare)

Messiaen: Petites esquisses d´oiseaux, Visions de l´Amen (with Benjamin Frith)
His timbre control is amazing: sparkling here, murky as a cave there, as appropriate. And how strange that a British pianist should emerge as Messiaen´s ambassador to the world. One can buy Hill´s recordings with consummate confidence. He has the technique and the intellect to cope with the most thorny problems, and his rhythmic accuracy is a wonder – an essential disc. (In Tune - Japan)

One of the most impressive solo recording projects of recent years concludes splendidly … (New York Times)

Stravinsky: Music for Four Hands (with Benjamin Frith)
Beautifully phrased, Frith and Hill´s playing is magnetic in its concentration and sensitivity. (The Daily Telegraph)

… sensitive aristocratic playing, the textures never cluttered, the chording beautifully weighted … There are fireworks aplenty where required, but Hill and Frith bring elegance, warmth and fantasy to both the neoclassical pieces. But it´s the Rite that is the triumph. Ever lucid, marvellously poetic in its evocative moments, the fast movements dynamically alive, Hill and Frith present this version, entirely convincingly, as nothing less than great piano music. (Hi Fi News)

The tonal quality of Frith´s and Hill´s pianism is more alluring than that of Ashkenazy and Gavrilov, the combination of zest and seriousness more apt than the Labèques´ rather extrovert manner, and the Naxos recording decisively preferable to the Kontarsky disc … (Fanfare)

Berg: Sonata Op. 1; Schoenberg: Piano works Opp. 11, 19, 23, 25, 33A and 33B; Webern: Variations Op. 27, NAXOS 8.553870
The complete published piano music of the Second Viennese School Trinity is generous measure, when most rivals (e.g., Pollini, DG) devote a whole disc to just Schoenberg´s output. Programming in the order Berg-Schoenberg-Webern also allows a strict chronological survey, since Berg´s Sonata precedes, as Webern´s Variations follow, Schoenberg´s entire canon of piano pieces. But the really important feature of this disc is the insight and musicianship of Hill´s performances. Had this been a full-price disc it would still be my first recommendation in this repertoire, and at bargain price it´s unbeatable. Hill´s intensely lyrical, beautifully-shaped account of the Berg is one that rivals and perhaps surpasses Glenn Gould´s magnificent mono-only recording from 1958 (Sony), as it certainly outclasses Barenboim (DG) in warmth and insight. The crepuscular delicacy of the closing bars is unforgettable. The Schoenberg works appear with very distinct profiles: the burden of emotion in Op. 11:2 is so profound that the explosive expansion of 11:3 seems the only possible outcome. The Op. 19 `Little Pieces´ have seldom sounded more daringly aphoristic. The `neo-classical´ nature of the pioneering serial works, Opp. 23 and 25, is very clearly brought out, yet I´ve never heard Op. 23´s concluding Waltz so evocatively done. And Webern´s Variations, though deceptively simple and pellucid in this account, is given at the same time a reading of enormous depth of feeling which entirely avoids the effect of didactic 12-tone pattern-making…The whole effect of the disc is to show an entire musical tradition in the act of evolution…A superb disc, beautifully engineered. (Hi-Fi News and Record Review)

Pollini´s Deutsche Grammophon recordings have been a landmark since their appearance in the 1970s, while Glenn Gould´s set, reissued a few years ago by Sony, has its special, idiosyncratic virtues. Now they have a genuine rival, with excellent 1990s recording quality … Hill offers interpretations which brilliantly combine intensity, clarity and control. (Classic CD)

… a satisfying, scintillating disc as played by Peter Hill, who also contributes an acute booklet essay. Berg´s one-movement Sonata Op 1, in a poised reading that brings out the music´s sudden swagger but lingers over its perfume, provides a symbolist gateway to the expressionist eventually 12-tone idioms of his teacher Schoenberg. Hill is equally at home with the black bravura of the third of the Op 11 Three Pieces, the Pierrot-like irony of the Six Little Pieces, Op 19, or the mercurial brilliance of the Op 25 Suite´s Gigue, a musical Catherine wheel. He caps all this with a sensitive account of Webern´s geometric, impassioned Variations. (The Sunday Times)

Here´s an example of the (often deservedly) maligned record industry at its best: superb budget-price value, and quality in every department. The recorded sound – clear, yet comfortable and unexaggerated – is about as good as you can get. Peter Hill contributes a booklet note which compresses much information and food for thought into just three lucidly written pages. Oh, and he plays the music too.

In Berg´s Sonata, he keeps phrasing and pace on a tight-ish rein; voices the harmony to emphasize its acuity rather than its lushness; sets the music on a purposeful trajectory, rather than letting it wallow in fin-de-siecle torpor; and judges the coda´s mournful slowing down of harmonic rhythm quite beautifully. Webern´s Variations, too, shine like jewels. Hill takes the music (and its classical affinities) at face value, refuses to sentimentalize or over-pedal it, and judges its interaction of strict technical procedure with subtle shifts of pace to near-perfection.

… Throughout Hill combines crystal-clear articulation with beautiful piano sound. [Schoenberg´s] op 19 pieces come across not as febrile miniatures but as substantial statements; the opening chord of No. 6, resonating on each repetition like a funeral bell for the dead Mahler of Schoenberg´s inspiration, is a small miracle in itself. The interplay of dialectics and fantasy in the op 23 pieces and op 23 Suite comes across unerringly: the suite´s Gavotte and Musette are a coruscating delight, the Gigue at once controlled and impulsive … Buy, and listen enthralled. (Tempo)

As with his landmark Messiaen cycle … Peter Hill infuses the very different pianistic, stylistic and emotional demands of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern with technical assurance, intelligence and authority…Enthusiastically recommended. (International Piano Quarterly)

Where Pollini responds with near frenetic intensity and an excess of dazzling pianism, Hill probes with subtlety, sympathy and high intelligence. Both approaches are equally valid, it seems to me, and both are done with comparable finesse…Apart from its amazing value for money, Naxos´s first-rate recording quality, Peter Hill´s own lucid booklet-essay, and what sounds like an ideally regulated instrument, all contribute to the outstanding success of the new issue. (Gramophone)

Peter Hill´s searching intelligence in this music provides a wonderful introduction to the piano works of the Second Viennese School …
(The Guardian)

…Peter Hill´s new disc of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, which includes these three Klavierstücke, among some of the most intelligent and imaginative performances of this repertoire in the catalogue. (The Times)

In concert
Hill is a pianist who showed himself throughout the recital to be a superlative communicator, but here above all he held the whole audience enraptured … The urge to applaud afterwards was usurped by the fear of breaking the special atmosphere he had created. (Musical Times)

Peter Hill does not just give concerts, he also enriches one´s life with perceptive introductions that illuminate the music, however well you may think you know it … This was one of those rare musical events at which it was a privilege to be present … Words which came into my mind while I listened – awesome power, rapt contemplation, hypnotic, incredible virtuosity, astonishing intellectual grasp – can give only a vague indication of the mind-blowing experience … When it was over few doubted we had been treated to a master performance. (Yorkshire Post)

It was thrilling the way Hill contrasted crystal-clear movements with sharply accentuated cascades of rhythm and powerful clusters of chords. Due to his virtuosity at the piano it all had the effect of being extremely spontaneous. Moreover the decisive quality of this recital was that he finely balanced shimmering layers of sound with intricate structures. (Neue Luzerner Zeitung)

… not just accurate, it was thrilling, with Hill taking the top part visibly twitching with nervous excitement. A great evening. (The Independent)

The piano partnership of Peter Hill and Benjamin Frith is a formidable one. The recordings are authoritative and the impact of their live performance is extraordinary. This was a dazzling display of both technical and intellectual brilliance … The evening´s high point was Messiaen´s ecstatic cycle for two pianos, Visions de l´Amen. The playing was so vivid that the air seemed to fill with the sweet smell of incense and the joyful clamour of birdsong and exotic gongs. There was a tenderness and sensuality in the lyrical phrases but, in the hands of Hill and Frith, it was the florid rhythmic exuberance and cumulative force of Messiaen´s impassioned testimonies to divine power that made this so compelling. Audience and performers alike seemed stunned but elated by the experience. (The Guardian)