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CONCERT
REVIEWS |
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Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (DOR 90317) "Red Priest is a group of very intelligent period instrument specialists with a red-hot wicked sense of humor... who irreverently and intelligently deconstruct these war horses and provide the listener an experience as fresh as a spring strawberry bursting on the roof of your mouth... A splendid baroque gift that will be praised as visionary and heretical in the same breath... Good show!" ALL ABOUT JAZZ January 2003 "This is a performance that the major labels have been striving to achieve (and failing miserably to accomplish): attempting to cross the classics with modern sensibilities. Red Priest plays this music with a sense of verve and élan, and, in the process, has created a true crossover recording." SOUNDSTAGE February 2004 "If you think you know the Seasons, if you’ve heard it (or played it) far too often to ever want to hear it again – go straight out and buy this recording. Red Priest’s performance on this disc is passionate but criminal, drunken and disorderly, manic and demonic, outrageous yet compulsive…. This stuff is cheaper than cocaine, but there’s no way it should be legal." EARLY MUSIC TODAY "Sensational ... Completely wild and deeply imaginative, the album marries the work to the spirit of baroque spectacle and Venetian skulduggery." MUSIC WEEK October 2003
"Startlingly fertile imagination ... enormously entertaining while genuinely capable of saying something about the music... Red Priest are having fun with these old favorites, but it is unpretentious fun, and, most importantly, it is dished up by people who know how this music works, and whose affection for the subject of their witty and anarchic fooling is never in doubt." GRAMOPHONE December 2003 "Extends the very limits of virtuosity ... for sheer imagination it's unbeatable" BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE February 2004
"This new version of The Four Seasons will certainly open your mind ... like it or loathe it (I'm firmly of the former camp, I'm slightly embarrased to say!), it's all great fun." EARLY MUSIC REVIEW December 2003
"A wholly irreverent and highly enlightened approach to the piece we all love to hate ... Red Priest puts the viva in Vivaldi." STRINGS MAGAZINE February 2004
"You gotta hear this... It's a depraved taste. But I do think it a highly creative curiosity and a must-have... no-one else has quite done this with the much-abused Four Seasons." AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE Jan/Feb 2004
"Red Priest, the notorious British quartet of wags and mischief-makers, the Spike Joneses of the Baroque ... consists of serious musicians who perform with great skill ... Parts of it are quite lovely, other parts completely exciting. This is an album that rises above its qualities of novelty." GO MEMPHIS October 2003
"Engaging, vexing and exciting ... Their performance is less a Monet than a Jackson Pollock ... as ever with Red Priest one is, rather like going down to the woods, in for a big surprise." MUSIC WEB January 2004
Nightmare in Venice (DOR 90305)
"The Cirque du Soleil of baroque performance ensembles... virtuosity, finesse and crazed sonorities evoke the nocturnal phantasmagoria of a truly fervid imagination." MUSIC WEB March 2003 "Mad, bad and deliciously dangerous... wacky ideas, an impish sense of humour and astonishing virtuosity." GRAMOPHONE April 2003 "Nightmare in Venice is a deliciously Baroque Halloween-fest if there ever was one. Replete with hissing and catcalls, this disc is a chiller... Image is not everything, though Red Priest has that quality in spades. This is a quartet of the best Baroque specialists the United Kingdom has to offer." ALL ABOUT JAZZ "Fresh, fiery flair.... an atmosphere of spectral shock... Red Priest are a crack ensemble with serious virtuoso credentials, but they also know how to make this music fun." THE DAILY TELEGRAPH March 2003 "Baroque music revels in the extravagant... Red Priest's larger-than-life approach only enhances the music's energy and lets its spirit fly. Magnificent playing, too. " **** THE TIMES April 2003
"Not even with Harnoncourt or Il Giardino Armonico will you find so extreme a characterisation of Vivaldi’s ‘La Notte’, with its dreams and bizarre allegros, but it works brilliantly... Not to be missed!" A* 1* HI-FI NEWS AND RECORD REVIEW June 2003
"For those of you who haven’t heard the bold and daring style of Red Priest, be prepared for a musical roller-coaster-catch-me-if-you-can ride. The music is familiar, but still unexpected, exhilarating, breathtaking, played with a wicked sense of humour. This is the most entertaining early music recording I have ever heard." WHOLE NOTE Dec 2002
"Diabolical, fanciful zeal... delightfully creepy." CLASSICS TODAY April 2003
"Wonderfully intense showmanship that makes one proud to be British... Whilst CD recordings are said to never wholly capture the realm of the concert platform, Red Priest’s spectacular musical theatre succeeds a thousand times in bringing the concert to you; I just hope you aren’t afraid of the dark…a must!" THE RECORDER MAGAZINE March 2003
Priest on the Run (DOR 93208 / URCD 141)
"The UK's most dynamic, theatrical and outrageously different baroque ensemble…Red Priest has the fire, technical ability and sheer daring to bring it off…brilliant and inspired musicianship." GRAMOPHONE "This group tears up the carpet, rattles the walls, and certainly will shake up its audience with rousing and original renditions of music by some composers we thought were much less, uh, 'out there'... " CLASSICS TODAY "Sonically supercharged, played with the intensity of any rock performance... The musicianship is incomparable. Dare to listen, skeptics; see if Red Priest doesn't convert you!" SWIRLPOP MAGAZINE
"Deeply and genuinely emotive." BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE "The effect is like crossing a Wigmore Hall recital with a Guinness-soaked folk session in an Irish bar…Piers Adams is the standout instrumentalist in this highly competent and infectiously different gang of four." CLASSIC CD
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USA and Canada
"If the Rolling Stones played recorder, violin, cello and harpsichord and their genre was 17th-century music, they would be the band called Red Priest" PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE Jan 2006 "The dynamic early music group Red Priest, drew an absolutely packed house... The concert began 15 minutes late so the large crowd could be seated. There was a buzz in the Old Arts Building that is rare at most concerts, let alone chamber music events. Red Priest did far more than just play good old music well. They put on a show that awed with the breadth of musicality the four musicians displayed." EDMONTON JOURNAL (Canada) Jan 2006 "The ensemble's performances ran from red hot tempos to way cool interpretations, with plenty of visual and aural humor relieving moments of overwhelming intensity... The raging, wide-ranging sound effects certainly exhausted the exercise books of the respective instruments, but not the energy or precise control of the players." WEST VIRGINIA GAZETTE Jan 2006 "Stunning virtuosity and flamboyant stagecraft." PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE REVIEW Jan 2006 "Red Priest has carved out a unique niche in the early music world with its break-all-rules, rock concert-chamber concert approach to early music performance and with the dazzling technical prowess of recorder player Piers Adams." MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL Jan 2006 "The performance by British period instrument quartet Red Priest of "The Four Seasons" at Dumbarton Church on Saturday didn't so much breathe new life into Vivaldi as plunge an adrenaline-filled syringe into his heart…What made this zaniness work, was the players' virtuosity and thorough understanding of the baroque idiom" WASHINGTON POST Jan 2003 "[Piers Adams] and his bandmates treat Baroque music in the finest rock tradition. So if you get a chance to catch Red Priest, take it -- and take your lighter, too. Dude!" THE
OREGONIAN Nov 2003 "There's absolutely nothing ordinary about the early music ensemble Red Priest, from its quirky costumes and innovative musical arrangements to its zany sense of humor and amazing virtuoso skills. In fact Red Priest is one of the most extraordinary ensembles on today's chamber music scene…" VIRGINIA GAZETTE Feb 2003 "Whatever stuffiness remained in the once-stodgy field of early music blew out the windows of Synod Hall on Saturday. Taking its place was the uproarious conduct of Red Priest, an English foursome that appears to have discovered music's fountain of youth... Even though Red Priest gave a new arrangement of "Seasons," the performance seemed more authentic than one by an orchestra, modern or period. And that is simply amazing. Any group that can make you rethink a masterpiece and also make it fun is rare indeed." PITTSBURG POST-GAZETTE Sept 2002 “Antonio Vivaldi met the musical Marx Brothers… an engaging mixture of facetiousness and artistry… staggering virtuosity… a real joy.” PITTSBURG TRIBUNE REVIEW Sept 2002
"Anyone expecting stuffiness and tedium must have gone home disappointed. The rest of us enjoyed consummate musicianship combined with a healthy dose of mirth." GREEN MAN REVIEW July 2002 "For people who "appreciate" classical music but have a little secret -- it bores them -- the answer is Red Priest. The four flamboyantly dressed British musicians mug, throw funny lines at us and make us laugh. But something important is going on, and it happens fast… the process is effortless, a barrel of fun and almost invisibly subtle… immaculately forged and cunningly phrased…legitimately baroque and thoroughly musical. An electrified audience shouted and cheered." WASHINGTON POST Feb 2001 "A high-energy baroque hoe-down… [Red Priest's] performing style comes from pop-infused acts such as Kronos Quartet or the violinist Kennedy… unfettered interaction and spontaneity… a wide-ranging, unhackneyed programme… deliciously twisted, vividly interpreted and played with dash and precision." LOS ANGELES TIMES Oct 2001 "Nothing short of electrifying… combined a supremely accomplished level of musicianship with an almost superhuman energy and a sense of showmanship in a concert that will stand as one of the season's best… Purists might cringe at some of the liberties this ensemble takes, but it is hard to argue with the sheer verve and daring musicality it delivered." DENVER POST Oct 2001
"Without a doubt, Red Priest has redefined the art of baroque music performance... it is really the virtuoso style of these four musicians that makes the entire performance meld into such a satisfying whole... the true magic of Red Priest is that they create music that will likely appeal to anyone with an ear for music. In these times, that is no small feat." THE EASTENER Dec 2003 "In brief: Wow!… Red Priest has not simply jumped onto a rolling bandwagon. They've taken off the wagon's wooden wheels and replaced them with Michelin radials." DAILY HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE Oct 2001 "A wild ride . . . playful antics and stunning musicianship . . . breathed new life into all of these ancient pieces . . . an amazing evening" THE POST-BULLETIN, ROCHESTER, MINNESOTA Oct 2001 "Different from all others, in almost every way imaginable…They had fun, they played their hearts out and brought the venerated era to bawdy, brilliant life." NEWS JOURNAL FLORIDA Feb 2000 "A joy to behold… absolutely incredible virtuoso skill." VIRGINIA GAZETTE Feb 2000
UK and Europe
"Highly individual… Purists would probably run a mile from what Red Priest does to this music, but virtuosity, verve and creative spontaneity are fused together in a way that makes the impact positively volcanic” DAILY TELEGRAPH Dec 2002 “The playing is indeed red-hot virtuosic …the adaptation of The Four Seasons- involving swirling snowstorms, thunderclaps and the mime of an entire stag hunt – is way over the top, but one has a sneaking suspicion that Vivaldi might have approved.” THE TIMES Feb 2005
"The original Red Priest should be dancing in his grave!" BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE April 2005 "Putting the rock into baroque... Energetic spectacular stage show... Invigorating versions of familiar Vivaldi pieces... The difference is clear: Red Priest have much more fun!" THE EVENING STANDARD Feb 2005
"BAROQUE STARS... an unorthodox quartet of virtuoso musicians on a mission to make classical music a visual as well as aural experience... supreme musicians." THE OBSERVER April 2005
"Not so much reconstruction as total re-interpretation…they are sure to introduce a new audience to baroque music." EARLY MUSIC TODAY
Australia and the Far East
"The world’s most distinctive early music group... Their concerts are clever take-offs, zany and irreverent, yet strangely closer to the spirit of the music than many other performers would dare consider." THE ADELAIDE REVIEW "A revelation and a joy... The vitality and virtuosity that Red Priest bring to their concerts is inspiring to musicians and audiences who might otherwise be trapped in the institutionalized conservatism of the historical performance practice movement." MUSIC CULTURE REVIEW Oct 2003
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