Kent Nagano
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Recent articles

"Under Mr. Nagano, the fragments [of Debussy's Martyre de St. Sébastien] came across as a cogent and riveting entity. He has a way of coaxing a particular sound from almost any orchestra he conducts: resonant and penetrating without being forced or indulgently lush...Going from this to an incandescent, sensual yet deftly controlled account of Scriabin's Kaleidoscopic Poem of Ecstacy was another inspired programming choice. Things are good again at the Montreal Symphony"
New York Times
(Montreal Symphony Orchestra)

"This symphony has always been one of Kent Nagano's strongest interpretations, and here, with a superlative recording, he commits it to disc in a splendid manner, showing his finest qualities as he did in a recent Berlioz disc. The huge first movement is never allowed to sprawl, and the blend of strings and brass is outstanding. Nagano is a master of creating the tension this movement demands. He can relax, too, as he demonstrates in the lighter middle movements."
Sunday Telegraph CD of the Week *****
(Mahler Symphony No 3: DSO Berlin/Peková recording)

"This man is humbleness itself. Never he would even think about cutting short a singer. His conducting is noble and of a filigrane, celestial weightlessness. And what mixtures of instruments, shadings, soon again imploding elucidations can be heard in this aisle of quietness."
Süddeutsche Zeitung
(Mussorgsky Khovanshchina: Bayerische Staatsoper)

"Nagano gives an absolutely superb reading of the Schönberg, the melodic lines shaped with affection, the complex textures perfectly and fastidiously balanced, but with a thrilling sense of through-composed drive and purpose as strong as in the Brahms. There's a gratifying number of good competing versions but this probably knocks even Karajan's classic recording with the Berlin Philharmonic, my favourite until now, off the top spot."
BBC Music Magazine
(Brahms Symphony No 4 & Schönberg Variations for Orchestra: DSO Berlin recording)

"...Kent Nagano marks his debut as conductor of Munich's Staatsoper with a double bill: Richard Strauss' Salome followed by a world premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's Das Gehege which makes thematic and musical references to the Strauss opera. Reinhard J. Brembeck is deeply impressed. "Finally the conductor has arrived in Munich. His orchestra, which after years with Zubin Mehta had abandoned itself to great flowing feeling, suddenly sounds interesting down to the last detail. In Nagano, Munich finally has a conductor who is not only willing and able to revive great traditions but also to place them in a contemporary context, investing them with new meaning"."
Süddeutsche Zeitung

"In a program note, Placido Domingo suggests that in Parsifal the conductor can be the star of the show; in LA, this is arguably the case. Over the years, Kent Nagano has turned the LA Opera Orchestra into one of the finest groups of its type in the country, and this Parsifal was one of its most impressive efforts. Under Nagano's baton, the orchestra played with a fluency and muscularity that endowed Wagner's allusive poem with dramatic coherence and explored the whole emotional range of the drama. Especially notable were those passages where urgent tremolos on the lower strings reveal the abyss of anxiety that constantly underlies and threatens to engulf the ecstatic vision evoked by so much of the score."
Opera News
(Parsifal: LA Opera Orchestra)

"Kent Nagano is the ideal interpreter of the work, not only because he was Bernstein's pupil. He is simply one of the most generous, mentally agile conductors of the younger generation."
Jörg Hillebrand, Fono Forum
(Bernstein Mass: DSO Berlin recording)

"The orchestral performance is superb, and not just in the fathomless depths of the Meditations; the chorus is as spellbinding as the young boy soprano's solos. Nagano manages convincingly to create the music's final transformation, with the help of a quadraphonic sound effect, into a kind of spiritual peace."
Ulrich Schreiber, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(Bernstein Mass: DSO Berlin recording)

"Rather than hitting you with the music, he made you listen to it and offered transparent textures that brought out Mahler’s refinements of orchestration... Under Nagano's guidance, the musicians voiced this music with consistent eloquence. But no power was spared to bring the symphony to its tremendous and overwhelming conclusion."
(Mahler Symphony No 3: Montreal Symphony Orchestra)

"In all, Nagano's was a magnificent Mahler interpretation. This memorable concert demonstrated that the Japanese-American conductor is a wonderful musician, that the Montreal Symphony Orchestra is bound to flourish under his leadership."
The Globe and Mail, Montreal
(Mahler Symphony No 3: Montreal Symphony Orchestra)

"Already at the opening measures is one aware that this is something extraordinary. Kent Nagano allows the deep organ stops to stretch, and charges them with a high voltage, like sparkling power lines."
(Das Rheingold: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra)

"Nagano's performance is of exceptional quality, with a commendable level of concentrated intensity maintained even in the hushed pianissimo episodes. Though less concise than the later versions, it never seems too lengthy, rambling, or deficient in progression. Indeed, it is lovingly shaped and moulded… It is… well-proportioned, sharply imaged, and energetic."
American Record Guide
(Bruckner Symphony No 3: Harmonia Mundi Recording)

"His (Nagano) orchestra plays with unfailing sensitivity and intensity for its chief. This bodes well for Nagano's coming post in Munich."
Wagner: Parsifal

"Nagano has proved himself wonderfully alive to the iridescent splendours of Stravinsky's instrumentation. This allowed him to balance the wealth of exotic colour and narrative details while awakening a sense of wonder and fantasy in the audience."
The Sunday Telegraph

"Kent Nagano's concert with the Russian National Orchestra is not just a musical event, it is a landmark.... Any performance of a conductor from the highest league with a Russian orchestra makes history, but in this case we have seen not just a single performance but evidence of a regular collaboration."
Vremya MN

"Nagano was playing with timbres skillfully, placing unexpected accents which were articulated by the orchestra with great precision.... It was brilliant playing, in which Nagano and the RNO fulfilled every expectation."
Gazeta

"From the first notes of Liszt's symphonic poem 'Les Preludes' it became clear that the conductor would leave not a single bar, not a single note to flow routinely on its own. The orchestra followed his every gesture with utmost attention as it was striving to perceive and convey the feeling of wonder and fresh emotion which Nagano elicited at every turn of his musical thought."
Vedomosti

"Nagano's experience in the theatricality of opera - he is perhaps best known for his opera recordings - shone through in bold attacks and treatments of rhythm.  The audience was now enamoured... and when the work was done, the crowd roared its approval." 
The Globe and Mail, Montreal
(Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal)

"Kent Nagano rules?  The American conductor certainly showed that he can last night in a much-anticipated deput with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra... If the MSO can sound as good as this in Place des Arts, do we need a new concert hall?  Dangerous man, this Nagano."
The Gazette