BBC Proms
Royal Albert Hall, London
September 2003

The Evening Standard, London
September 2003
Barry Millington

Mastery of phrasing in Mahler and Beethoven

“Since becoming Principal Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, Gianandrea Noseda has been collecting golden opinions. His Prom with the orchestra last night reinforced his reputation with two performances of outstanding merit.

In Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, the soloist Christian Blackshaw stamped a clear personality on the opening bars with his pensive, introverted reading. Noseda countered with a response every bit as imaginative. The phrasing of both conductor and pianist was inspired throughout, producing a soft-grained texture, with piano tone of crystalline clarity worthy of Blackshaw’s teacher Clifford Curzon. .. “

The Financial Times
September 2003
Andrew Clark

“Understatement, traditionally an English virtue, has little place in today’s music world, but on Wednesday it raised Christian Blackshaw’s performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concert above the ordinary. .. His welcome return (to the BBC Proms) revealed old-fashioned virtues: elegance, inwardness, delicacy of touch, poetry of feeling exactly the qualities that distinguish Beethoven’s most soul-searching concerto. .. Blackshaw’s simplicity and artlessness, as refreshing in the first movement’s lyrical meditations as in the single-note sequence of the Andante, which somehow maintained momentum within the spacious stillness.

Blackshaw made us hang on every note. How often can we say that in Beethoven? His stylistic asceticism was reflected by the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda, a conductor who, in less than 12 months, has seamlessly woven himself into this orchestra’s success story.”

The Guardian
September 2003
Tim Ashley

“ ...two powerful performances from the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda. Noseda combines a fiery emotionalism with a marked absence of sentimentality, and the dividends are enormous. His soloist in the Beethoven was Christian Blackshaw, weighty in style, often aspiring to grand romantic gestures.

In the opening movement, there was an occasional disparity between his moodiness and Noseda’s concentrated energy. In the Andante, however, Noseda invested the orchestra’s ferocious recitative with a severe hauteur that seemed to have strayed from the classical dramas of Gluck. Blackshaw countered with a sweeping, rapt lyricism, before the finale found soloist and orchestra ebulliently functioning as one.”

The Times, London
September 2003
Matthew Connolly

“..the soloist in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, Christian Blackshaw, had to stamp his authority quickly over a boisterously bold orchestra. He did, and it was a performance full of galloping lyricism combined with muscular tenderness.”