Kerk en Leven (Belgium) - November 2018
Kerk en Leven - J.C.
« Rarely do we hear Haydn this way: serious and airy simultaneously. Ancelle plays each note and every silence precisely and still gives you the feeling that it shouldn’t be taken too seriously (…) Joseph Haydn's humor is constantly present in the three sonatas. Arthur Ancelle clearly took to heart the recommendation written by the composer on the top of his scores : to play with open-mindedness, not stiff or in scholar way. In his own variations, Ancelle shows how much he masters the smooth combination that makes Haydn so characteristic : delicious spontaneity and freedom of mind on one hand, zest for life and harmony in the other. »
Piano Forum (Russia) - October 2018
Anna Vinogradova
"the exceptional level of interpretation and the irreproachable musical taste of the pianist do not spoil the integrity of the image: they "color" it more (...) We also want to emphasize the flexibility and the naturalness of the phrasing, the attention paid to the silences that allow the entire musical fabric to "breathe", subtly highlighting the individuality of each new theme and its smallest changes, as well as the keen attention of the pianist brought to polyphony. (...) The second solo album of Arthur Ancelle, monographic this time, clearly pursues the line of research he started with the Ballades de Chopin and the works of Dutilleux (2015), and demonstrates the maturity and depth of a musician of great intelligence and brilliant humor."
American Record Guide (USA) - September/October 2018
Bruno Repp
"These performances are unusual but brilliant and highly entertaining. (...) In recent reviews I expressed some reservations about repeats and ornaments in Haydn and Mozart, but such qualms evaporate in view of Ancelle’s spiritedness and invention. (...) It is remarkable how resilient Haydn’s music is to such an approach. This reveals much about its character, the full extent of which has perhaps been hidden up to now. (...) This French pianist plays with splendid technique (...) I look forward to the next adventure of this audacious artist."
FRANCE MUSIQUE - SEPTEMBER 2018
Portraits de famille
Philippe Cassard is enthusiastic about Arthur Ancelle's Haydn : « It had been a long time since I had not heard Haydn played this way ... A voluble, sparkling, fine, extremely lively and mobile playing, we let ourselves be carried away by this intoxication of the arabesque, of the unexpected, it really is theater here, and this way he has, full of irony, to bring out characters, with the bend of an accent or a silence … »
ARTAMAG - MAY 2018
Jean-Charles Hoffelé
« the French pianist plays clear but deep in the keyboard, transforms the eccentricities in disarming confidences, opening the doors of a secret garden which he traverses with a brio tinged with tenderness. Magnificent album that calls for more. »
CLASSIQUENEWS.COM - MARCH 2018
Lucas Irom
« The finesse of intention with which the French pianist approaches the keyboard of the Viennese forces admiration." The approach is of great intelligence: it knows how to renew our perception of the composer, one of the most facetious and most refined . »