Can any instrument rival the human voice for expression and resonance? Daniel Muller-Schott made a convincing case for the cello when he performed with the Kansas City Symphony on Friday night at the Lyric Theatre. The expressive medium was Edward Elgar's "Cello Concerto in E minor," a work composed in England in the gloomy years after World War I. The German cellist played with an impressively rich singing tone that was even in the high, middle and lower registers, and the Symphony delivered an utterly convincing reading of this powerful work. The music, especially the first movement, is pensive and often brooding, with recitative-like passages for cello accompanied by pointillistic orchestration. Sweeping orchestral themes follow that make the heart melt. The virtuosic sections were deftly handled with sure technique, as would be expected from a performer at that level. What was surprising, however, is that Muller-Schott, in his early 30s, so convincingly expressed the composer's weariness with the world and with life.

Music Director Michael Stern conducted passionately with fluid tempos and pathos. The orchestra responded admirably, with crisp entrances, good balance and marvellous tuning. (Timothy Mc Donald, The Star, October 18, 2008)

Melancholy poetry

In the case of Shostakovich, again with the superb Daniel Müller-Schott as a soloist, in the first and last movements this meant a latent, and never intrusive, motoric presentation, not least with the insistent solo instrument which avoids any trace of excessiveness. With Müller-Schott, as with Kreizberg and the orchestra, one felt at times the burning devotion, in which, however, control was never lost. Wonderful, in between, the “Mahler movement”, the moderato in its quiet, never halting flow, captivating in the melancholy and unreal sound of the poetry. (Frankfurter Neue Presse, September 25, 2008)

Strong as a trio

Violinist Julia Fischer and cellist Daniel Müller-Schott came to Yakov Kreizberg’s interpretation concert.

The three musicians made it clear that their cooperation is more than a mere partnership of convenience. Julia Fischer, Daniel Müller-Schott and Yakov Kreizberg speak a common language. (Frankfurter Neue Presse,
September 22, 2008)

It seemed only sensible to dedicate the performance of Shostakovich’s trio for piano, violin and cello no. 2 to the memory of Mauricio Kagel; news of the composer’s death had only arrived a few hours previously.

The way the three young musicians silently embraced each other, following a truly moving interpretation, and after the last pizzicato had died away, was moving to watch… During their performance, Kreizberg, Fischer and Müller-Schott had pulled out all the stops in demonstrating their limitless wealth of expressiveness. …

The momentous evening could hardly have started in a more devoted way: Haydn’s Gypsy Trio … was not exactly treated casually by the three musicians. Admittedly, the music, as a whole, was lively, dance-like, and never slow-flowing, and yet, in every beat, one could feel the characteristic expression of a theme being carefully modelled in every detail. (Harald Budweg, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 20, 2008)

Technical perfection

The cellist and the violinist had played it together in Paris four years ago, and now they played it in Redefin for the second time. The remarkable extent to which Anne-Sophie Mutter and Daniel Müller-Schott speak the same musical language became clear in the course of the concert. With enormous technical perfection, they both mastered the difficult passages. Towards the end of the second movement, the rain returned and could be heard falling on the roof of the indoor riding arena – it seemed to match the score. Finally, the conductor, Dmitri Kitajenko, guided both the soloists and the orchestra to the finale with nuances which ranged from light and dance-like to pathetic and dramatic. A jubilant audience thanked both star soloists for a grandiose concert. (Beatrix Hasse, NDR-online July 22, 2008)

Daniel Müller-Schott is playing over a dozen concerts this summer, and one of those which is most important for him personally was his appearance in Redefin on Saturday with his mentor, Anne-Sophie Mutter. Four years ago, in Paris, he had been allowed to play Johannes Brahms' Double Concerto with her, and the closeness of the way the world star treated the young cellist was shown when she handed him her own handkerchief so that he could wipe away the pearls of sweat which had fallen onto his cello. This time, both soloists reduced the level of drama, while creating the details in a profoundly transparent way. At the same time, the Russian conductor Dimitri Kitajenko, with the Philharmonic Festival Orchestra consisting of members of the Munich Philharmonic, ensured great calmness, but also exquisite beauty of sound. .... The faces of the 3000 members of the audience displayed smiles and enthusiasm, and they were clearly glad that they had made their way to the Redefin equestrian centre. (Helmut Peters, Die Welt, July 21, 2008)

Fischer and Mueller-Schott, making Tanglewood debuts, are German. Biss is American. The three, according to BSO sources, had never performed as a group. You'd never have known it from the smiles passing back and forth in the music and between the string players.

With Haitink eliciting clean, supportive playing from a reduced BSO, the first movement swung along at a leisurely pace, in keeping with its loosely strung structure. The brief slow movement — hardly more than a bridge between fast movements — was graced by the elegance of Mueller-Schott's opening cello solo, seconded by Fischer's violin. The "Polish" finale bounced along at a lively pace. (Andrew L. Pincus, The Berkshire Eagle July 14, 2008)

Cellist Daniel Müller-Schott makes a memorable VSO
début in Dvorák Concerto

Dvorák's incomparable Cello Concerto often figures on VSO programs, but subscribers have rarely been treated to a lovelier performance than that given by young Daniel Müller-Schott, a fast rising star in the cello firmament. Müller-Schott's approach is fastidious and full-blooded, marked by emotional generosity kept in bounds by innate good taste and a winsome freshness.

He works hand in glove with Tovey, and their shared interpretation is a highlight of this or any season. Tovey glories in the symphonic sweep of the great concerto; Müller-Schott creates astonishingly private moments for solo cello which seem to suspend time.

On Saturday the sublime duet near the end of the finale between soloist and, in this instance, visiting Concert Master Robert Uchida wrung the heartstrings. They played together as if they had known each other all their lives. (The Vancouver Sun, David Gordon Duke, June 9th, 2008)

Among words wafting in the post-concert scrum for the door were: "Magnificent," "Great," and "Thrilling." And this was no mere gush to describe an evening whose many and deep pleasures began with its first gentle and evocative bars. A spellbinding performance of the Dvorák Cello Concerto by Daniel Müller -Shott was followed by a towering reading of Shostakovich's sprawling emotional roller-coast of a masterwork, his 5th Symphony. Feeling spoiled, were we? Yes, indeed! … If lavish attention to detail was on offer for the opener, it was the central underpinning of a brilliant execution of Dvorák's 1896 Cello Concerto by both soloist and orchestra.

That they had "clicked" during rehearsals was obvious at every turn in this white-heat performance, inspiration palpably flowing from one to the other and adding up to top-of-the-game energy. Cellist Daniel Müller-Schott delivered on all counts: his interpretation had dazzling authority, his technique was impeccable, his playing was tasteful, his musical and technical skills of the very first order. The playing in the poetic Adagio went right for the jugular, reaching a level of almost unbearable intensity in the quasi-cadenza. This was a quite simply a "stunning" performance by a young musician with star quality written all over him and whose name can already be added to the list of recent cello greats: Rostropovich, Starker, and Harrell. His return will be much anticipated. (J.H. Stape, reviewvancouver.org, June, 2008)

With Robert Schumann's Cello Concerto in A minor, cellist Daniel Müller-Schott presented a no less contradictory – but in this case, genuine – Schumann. The soloist, the “artist in residence” at this summer's Mecklenburg-Vorpommern festivals, is a lyricist who was particularly suited to playing the languorous second movement in the dialog with Thomas Tyllack, the Philharmonic’s solo cellist. Always present in the middle voice, he does not force the low register, leaving himself time for the daring interval skips in this work. He gratefully accepted the freedom of movement which Young gave him by constantly moderating the dynamic and highly-tensed orchestra. (Helmut Peters, Die Welt, April 2, 2008)

“... In Schumann's Cello Concerto it was primarily the intimate and tender facets which formed the central focus. Because with Daniel Müller-Schott, there was a soloist on the podium who has an entrancingly pure and soft-warm sound. Such a pity that one cannot bathe in the sounds of the cello! It is certainly not the case that the young star cellist plays in a way which is monochrome and poor in contours. Quite simply, he masters his instrument so superbly that even when playing the most difficult passages in high thumb positions, he coaxes sounds of tender smoothness and exquisite sonority from the strings. It may be true that the piece can also be played differently. But more beautifully? That is hard to imagine ...” (Hamburger Abendblatt, March 31, 2008)

Plenty for the mind and soul

Daniel Müller-Schott and the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra
Cellist Daniel Müller-Schott enchanted the audience twice

In the case of Schumann's cello concerto, the élan started late. But then, such a talented, world-renowned cellist like Daniel Müller-Schott has the power and dramatic fire to bewitch the audience. He plays the concerto in a wide, narrative framework in a contemplative way, enraptured by its swinging, expressing drive. The musicians in the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra accompany everything attentively, leaving room for the rhapsodic development of the great soloist emotions. Müller-Schott's elegant Goffriller cello, made in 1727, plays its part in this: a delight for the ears. Because nothing degenerates into pure routine, everything displays spontaneous freshness, undisguised sentiment, and the trend towards undisturbed beauty. The Fauré encore was an ideal choice. (Uwe Mitsching, Nürnberger Nachrichten, February 2008)