Conducts Mozart's Requiem with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
"[Manze] lovingly shaped the individual movements into a dramatically satisfying whole... it was the sensitivity to detail - the sudden celestial quiet of the Voca Me after the opening fury of the Confutatis, the increasing magnitude of each successive declamation of Sanctus - that made the performance stand out."
The Guardian
Mozart Sonatas recording with Richard Egarr on Harmonia Mundi
"Almost Beethovenian", writes Manze in the booklet of the driving opening allegro of K377. True to his word, he and Egarr give a performance of startling tigerish vehemence. But Manze can draw the purest of lyrical lines; and the beautiful minuet finale of the same sonata is as tenderly phrased as you will hear. Elsewhere, Manze and Egarr relish the brilliance and élan of K380's outer movements, and give a delicately poetic reading of its minor-keyed andante. If you want these sonatas played on the kind of instruments Mozart would have expected, these bold, vivid performances should fit the bill admirably."
Daily Telegraph
“Heinrich Biber, German Baroque composer of the generation before Bach, creator of wildly virtuosic solo violin music that a Britisher named Andrew Manze played at Disney Hall a couple of weeks ago and all but set the place on fire.”
LA Weekly.com (Biber – The Rosary Sonatas)
“The introductory music, contrasting pastoral sonorities with dashing solo string passage work, already amounts to a concerto grosso in itself – with the strings of The English Concert directed from the first violin with characteristic fire by Andrew Manze.”
The Independent (Handel – Aci, Galatea e Polifemo)
This is violin playing of an extremely high order from Manze: rhythms beautifully springy, articulation clear and precise, intonation perfect, and great refinement in the shaping of phrases – he has real command of the logic of the music, of why it does what it does… An outstanding CD in every way.
Gramophone (Vivaldi – Concertos for the Emperor)
Mr. Manze makes the strongest impression, not only for the interpretive freedom and vitality in his account but also for the elegantly uncluttered arrangement in which he presents the music.
New York Times (Biber – The Rosary Sonatas)
His imaginative and sensitive phrasing always serves the music, not his own ego. He makes even the most repetitive little figures, which could easily come off as dry exercises, sound strange and new, and his double- and triple-stop passages seem natural and necessary, not like violin tricks…
Manze's sense of spontaneous fantasy is perfect for Vivaldi, and he's capable of a variety of tone that in a single movement runs the gamut from gut-string standard to Paganini-style cantabile. His generous ornaments in the slow movements seem perfectly organic, never tacked on, and he leads the English Concert in performances that are lively but not hard-driven.
Strings Magazine (Vivaldi, Biber)
As we have come to expect, Manze’s own playing is colourfully imaginative, and intuitively responsive to the rich seam of fantasy which runs through so much of Vivaldi’s music… the result is full of sensuous allure. Three virtuosic cadenzas are improvised in the programme and much thought has been given to ornamentation as well as to the shaping and dynamics of phrases. The English Concert makes a sensitive contribution to a release which deserves to do very well indeed.
BBC Music Magazine (Vivaldi – Concertos for the Emperor)
Manze needed no collaborators on this occasion… to demonstrate how an artist can command a stage through sheer musical brains and brio. The Baroque violinist played four solo works, as well as an encore, with a sense of adventure and freedom that gave new perspectives to old music… Manze invested the Tartini wit extraordinary passion and subtlety. He tamed the technical beasts while making musical sense of the dizzying figurations and contrasting materials… a mesmerizing lesson on how to mix structural cohesion with expressive fluency.
Cleveland Plain Dealer (In recital at Cleveland Museum of Art)
[Manze] has repeatedly demonstrated that the heart of Baroque music lies beyond what is on the printed page, and that the performer has a crucial creative role to play. At a time when improvisational flair and spontaneity have never been a more exciting part of Baroque music-making, Manze and his accompanist Richard Egarr are the masters of it, and here they have produced a Corelli recording which is nothing short of revelatory.
Many slow sections have a dreamily rhapsodic feel to them, with Manze’s tone offering the comforting qualities of a warmly glowing fire, while I for one never thought to hear in Corelli the note of mystery that they discover in the final ‘Giga’ of Sonata No 5, or the nocturnal stealth with which they begin No 7. Sonata No 12, the famous ‘La follia’ variations, is dispatched with a powerful mixture of passion and poise. This really is Corelli as you have not heard him before… this vital, ear-opening newcomer is in a category of its own, classic music in a classic – maybe even an epoch-making – recording.
Gramophone (Corelli – Violin Sonatas)
On tour in the USA with The English Concert, Oct / Nov 2004
Manze seems to have revitalized the 18-member ensemble. Enthusiasm and high technical standards characterize the playing overall. The performers clearly are having a good time and constantly taking the measure of their own pleasure as well as one another's. Manze himself never lets down his virtuoso standards. In the concluding Vivaldi concertos, he found nuances, contrasts and details in abundance. He is spontaneous and unflagging. He has rightly been called a wizard.
Los Angeles Times
When he wasn't introducing the works in an erudite but engaging manner, Manze stood at the helm of the violins, twisting toward his also-standing colleagues to signal downbeats. The players tore through fast movements with a fierce esprit de corps that felt joyous, never forced or merely brusque. In three concertos by Vivaldi, string lines ricocheted back and forth like ping-pong balls, elegantly articulated and superbly controlled… If you thought period instrument bands have to sound scrawny and anemic, you haven't heard Manze's.
Chicago Tribune
Led by Manze as first violinist, the musicians played with zest, crisp technique and emotional commitment. Founded in 1973 by Trevor Pinnock, the London-based English Concert is one of the most important period-instrument ensembles. With Manze's arrival as artistic director last season, the group has become more vital than ever… Vigorous playing, fresh repertoire, it was a night of Baroque music to remember.
Chicago Sun-Times
Taking his cue from the improvisatory nature of the Baroque composer-performer tradition and the bare notation of the scores they produced, Manze has built a reputation on excising the museum from the ideal of "historically informed performance." It should have come as no surprise, then, that Manze, whose wittily learned introductions were nearly as entertaining as his virtuosic playing, made the evening's program... seem as tightly conceived as a Bach counterpoint.
Orange County Register
Baroque violinist Andrew Manze might be called today's pied piper of early music. To hear him speak about music is to be drawn in and fascinated by his lively delivery and explorations down musical highways and byways. His program notes are equally enjoyable to read. But to hear him play is to be thrilled, amazed, awed and enchanted by both music and musician.
Seattle Post
[The] violinist held our interest with humor and surprise: unexpected little hesitations of tempo, precipitous drops in dynamic (volume) and thunderous figurations giving way to tunefulness… Manze joined the ensemble in 2003, and his mercurial temperament has lent a wildness to the group that on Friday made "sewing machine" music sound like anything but. The surest way to keep our interest is to keep us saying, "I wonder what they'll do next."
Kansas City Star
Manze appears to take delving into music history seriously, but fortunately not himself. The divertimento had the familiar cadence and harmonies typical of ordered Baroque music, but the long, breathless phrases in the andante movement and the festive celebratory feel of the presto ending with its harmonic diversions were more genius than ingenuous.
Sacramento Bee
Mr. Manze uses that purely physical freedom considerably: there is no mistaking his downbeat, which sometimes involves a twist toward the players behind him and a slight, deft shuffle that would do a rock guitarist proud. His trim, energetic ''Eine Kleine Nachtmusik'' (K. 525) was driven by adventurous tempo manipulations and big dynamic contrasts.
New York Times
Andrew Manze's rise to prominence as a period violinist has been spectacular. But now, his leadership of the eminent group the English Concert has put him at the head of an early music institution. With the stakes thus raised, the ensemble's scintillating performance Saturday night at the Byham Theater did nothing but reinforce his position as the premier artistic force in early music…
New blood has arrived in the person of Manze, who has already had a profound impact on the English Concert. He has taken it on a high-profile American tour (which opened with this Pittsburgh performance), has moved the group to the powerhouse label Harmonia Mundi and has infused it with his marvelous combination of fiery playing and audience accessibility…
Two concertos by Vivaldi, "L'Amoroso" and one in C minor, taken from a collection presented to Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, were breathtaking. Manze pounces on a line like a cat. His bow attacks the strings with quick determination… The course that the period or original instrument movement has taken has been fascinating. With Manze at the helm, its horizons are brighter than ever.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette