Daniel Müller-Schott had been engaged as the famous master in Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote with his crispy cello and impressive accuracy. The 33 year old German sounded really very well.

Müller-Schott showed with his easygoing, delicious playing why he with 16 cd-recordings since year 2000 has become one of the most distinguished instrumentalists in Europe. (Politiken, May 2010)

That’s the way things are when distinct musical personalities come together in a trio. At the Heidelberg Spring Festival a trio of celebrities that accords the cello the role of mouthpiece has now elicited rapturous applause.

Volume and splendour
The cellist is Daniel Müller-Schott, a highly expressive interpreter. His playing abounds with emotion and his magnificent instrument (built by Matteo Goffriller in Venice in 1727) articulates the richness of the scope for phrasing with volume and splendour. Daniel Müller-Schott is also mainly responsible for describing the symphonic arcs that distinguish Brahms’ 1st Piano Trio. Exercising tonal control for the piece, he harmonizes his instrument’s voice with the timbre of the violin or piano, as dictated by lyrical necessity. Maurice Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor, composed in 1914, goes furthest toward suiting the different temperaments of the three individualists. The work goes well with the prosaic Jonathan Gilad who is happy to laconically punch the rhythms into the keys. And Ravel also allows the calm noblesse of Viviane Hagner’s violin playing to make its mark …” (Mannheimer Morgen, 20th April 2010)

Played by Daniel Müller-Schott, the impact of the Cello Concerto (1980) by Friedrich Gulda, renowned as a piano-playing child prodigy and as anything but a crossover-inspired enfant terrible, was staggering. Daniel Müller-Schott invested a good deal of courage in overstatement and rousing expression. … For 14 minutes, Müller-Schott succeeded in illustrating to best effect (editor’s note: from Korngold’s Cello Concerto) such traditional string virtues as an unsentimentally sustained melodic line and controlled virtuosic rebellion – this time without the amplification that didn’t do the noble tones of his Goffriller cello any good during Gulda’s Concerto. Cheering and solo pieces by Ravel and Bach as the two encores. (Helmut Fiedler, Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 22.02.2010)

What the overture doesn’t prepare us for, however, is the astonishing effect that a simple visual impression can have on the attentive listener’s interpretation of the Double Concerto. Namely, that of the solo violin played by a beautiful young woman, the solo cello by an attractive young man, the two of them harmonizing wonderfully together. In the face of the couple’s intonation, deliberation, dancing, conversing, romantic zeal and revelry, only a hard-hearted purist could fail to see before his mind’s eye a grand duet of two lovers strolling through the wilds of Nature. This certainly does not mean that outward appearances are to be set above music. For if the two young people played badly, no visual impression, however alluring, would make a difference. But the violinist Arabella Steinbacher and cellist Daniel Müller-Schott are good, very good. Blunier guided the orchestra and soloists with keen sensitivity while allowing the two of them sufficient scope for their unobtrusive dialogue performed in virtuosic clarity and finely balanced warmth – a clear refutation of the frequently raised objection that Brahms’ Double Concerto is unapproachable. (Andreas Pecht, Rhein-Zeitung, 08.02.2010)

Arabella Steinbacher and Daniel Müller-Schott have already cemented their reputations as premier stars of the classical scene. For the Double Concerto, they are the perfect match. Magnificent soloists in their own right, their chamber music activities in which both readily engage come to brilliant fruition when they pair up. Their interplay in the song-like theme at the beginning of the third movement, from which a heart-rending dialogue between Steinbacher’s Stradivari and Müller-Schott’s Goffriller cello developed, was of exquisite beauty. (Bernhard Hartmann, Bonner Generalanzeiger, 01.02.2010)

„…in Camille Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1, Marriner generously handed over the reins to the young soloist Daniel Müller-Schott. The fiery virtuoso seized the opportunity appropriately, though demonstrating his artistic stature more in the gripping and eloquent monologue passages of the ballade-like work – and no less so in the Ravel Habanera played as an encore …” (Stefan Rütter, Kölner Stadtanzeiger, 12.01.2010)

„ …Daniel Müller-Schott plays confidently and brilliantly – even in the fiddly passages of Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1. In his early thirties, the Munich-born soloist, originally discovered and nurtured by the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, already belongs to the international cello elite. At the master concert in the concert hall on Saturday evening, the young man with a musical pedigree demonstrated his ability to interpret French Romanticism and the Bach suites in exemplary and earnest fashion. With alertness, wit and chamber-music intensity, he performed the concerto that flows like a rhapsody. His sombre tones are ardent, the allegro creates a brighter mood and its mercurial passages are infectious. Müller-Schott has vivacity, but he knows how to temper it. The outcome is controlled passion. …” (Michael-Georg Müller, NRZ Der Westen, 10.01.2010)

”Playing in a rare partnership for the Vancouver Recital Society, cellist Daniel Müller-Schott and pianist Angela Hewitt, each a well-known soloist, divided Beethoven’s output into two separate programs on November 27 at the Chan Centre and November 29 at Vancouver Playhouse.

It’s a myth that only musicians who’ve played together for decades are privy to the inner sanctum of chamber music’s secrets—of knowing how to pick up a phrase and respond to it. All it takes is an ear, a personal virtuosity, a sensitivity to what’s in the score, and the generosity to sublimate technique and listen to the other instrument. Each of these musicians is individually splendid - Hewitt for her Johann Sebastian Bach in particular—and together they were a model of the art of producing that “chamberly” synergy. .....

This is Beethoven through and through, with its hair-raising development section of the first movement and a hard-to-resist scherzo full of off-beat accents. This was gripping playing, Müller-Schott extracting an expressiveness that I haven’t heard from Yo-Yo Ma, and Hewitt absolutely with him on her splendid Fazioli piano.” Lloyd Dykk, straight.com, 30.11.2009

The Rococo Variations, Op. 33, for cello and orchestra by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky aim to be nothing but simply beautiful, ingeniously entertaining music. How many original ideas it contains!

In the first subscription concert of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra in the Zurich Tonhalle, the work sent us off into the interval in good spirits. The soloist, the German cellist Daniel Müller-Schott, loves to squeeze every last drop of Tchaikovsky’s ingenuity out of this music. He presents precisely the ingeniously cheerful with captivating creative details. … In this work, he seems to give beauty pride of place, savouring the resonance of his Goffriller cello, and his intonation, even in the trickiest passages, is of a perfection rarely encountered.

The sequence of seven variations very different in character also came across strongly as an integral whole – a fact due not only to Müller-Schott’s intelligent sensitivity for the formal function of every detail, but also to the ability of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under the baton of its conductor-in-chief Muhai Tang and its new concert master Natalie Chee to listen carefully and show initiative. Pure delight in a mournfully melancholic tone was resumed after the interval in Ernest Bloch’s three-part suite “From Jewish Life” (1924), originally written for cello and piano and here in the lesser known adaptation for solo cello, harp and string orchestra. The orchestra provides little more here than a sonorous backdrop for the cellist’s persuasive performance.

In his judiciously chosen encore, Müller-Schott demonstrated his familiarity with other dimensions of expression. The American composer George Crumb celebrates his 80th birthday next Saturday, 24th October. With brilliance and abundant colour, the cellist intoned the highly dramatic final movement, a “toccata”, of Crumb’s early sonata (1955) for solo cello. (Alfred Zimmerlin, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 22. Oktober 2009)

“How far is it from the laconic to the melancholic? In Daniel Müller-Schott’s case, they’re just a bar line apart. The transition is made between bars 131 and 132 of the 1st movement of Antonin Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in the MDR Concert at the Gewandhaus on Sunday evening. The soloist effortlessly swerves around, and gentle melancholy flows from his cello from which he had only a moment ago aloofly and laconically bowed the theme so cautiously conveyed by sombre clarinets and bright strings. And then all there is a feeling: the heart-rending emotions of the young cellist alone or in dialogue with the flute and the rest of the orchestra … In the second movement, a hesitant, tentative, pensively searching cello with the brilliant Müller-Schott over a fine tonal substrate of clarinets and deep pizzicato strings and lithe horns. Here the conductor Jun Märkl only has to oversee, gently wave on and accompany. Everything else flows of its own accord. As in the magnificent finale where the strings resolutely join forces or tenderly separate and where dazzling brass fanfares contribute to a conciliatory end and the solo cello thrusts itself to the fore and fades away in a melting vibrato. There was great rejoicing in the sold-out Grand Hall after the first half of the concert …” Birgit Hendrich, Leipziger Volkszeitung, 15th September 2009

"It was more than just a well-played piece that young cellist Daniel Müller-Schott and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin under the baton of Lothar Zagrosek made of Joseph Haydn’s C major Concerto for Cello and Orchestra at the “Kissingen Summer”. Wedged between Johannes Brahms' opulent Haydn Variations and Robert Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, the slimmed-down orchestra dazzled with rhythmic precision and fine articulation and paraded the vitality and spark of witty and prolific Haydn.

Attentive and lively faces in the orchestra, in constant dialogue with the conductor and soloist, made this music for the eye as well. With his staggering musicality, Müller-Schott succeeded in striking a balance at all times between an excess and dearth –of dynamics, gesture and facial expression during his playing. Thanks to his inner creative urge, his audience enjoyed a splendidly unworn interpretation of Haydn, which was also replete with maturity and depth.

In the second movement, glances and smiles darting back and forth between the musicians testified to the intimacy of their music-making. However, rather than losing himself in the tenderness of the Adagio, Daniel Müller-Schott moulded it with tension and at times with gripping drama. All the performers seemed to have fully extended their feelers, bringing off the third movement with a fire and brightness that was rewarded by the audience with foot-stamping and cheers.

The two solo encores of the cellist born in Munich in 1976 (a genuine Habanera by Maurice Ravel and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Bourrée No. 1 from the 3rd Suite in C Major) reinforced the superlative and genial impression that he had made with Haydn." (Katja Tschirwitz, Mainpost July 2009)

"... The young master of the cello performed Haydn’s C major Concerto with the tonal and technical agility that has made him one of today’s leading cellists. Rather than misinterpreting Haydn’s brilliant concerto as a test of breakneck fluency, his phrasing was clearly articulated throughout, his vibrato adapted to the intensity of expression and he allowed his splendid Goffriller instrument to sound unforced. He succeeded in dramatically charging the Adagio in the middle movement without erring into inappropriate expressiveness. Although the Allegro molto alone then verged on the Presto, the commitment to Haydn’s bel canto was still tangible. Ernest Bloch’s urgently lyrical „Prayer” followed as an encore.

As a rarity, Müller-Schott then played Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata in a version for string orchestra by Heinrich Klug. Despite all the cellist’s tonal refinement and expression, the orchestra negated the characteristic contrast between the keyboard instrument and strings. ... With a Bach Bourrée as an encore, Daniel Müller-Schott then left the stage to the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra ..."(Harald Eggebrecht, Süddeutsche Zeitung July 2009)

“… This time with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the star cellist Daniel Müller-Schott. And once again we can report on a top-level concert event. Eschenbach and Müller-Schott had paired up once before in the Alfred-Krupp-Saal and delighted their audience with their great artistic rapport. This time, Dvorák’s Cello Concerto with its emotionally saturated Late Romantic tonal language was on the bill. And just as the London Philharmonic Orchestra launched with symphonic impetus into the exposition, so it savoured the music of the Bohemian master with expressiveness and timbral opulence. … Müller-Schott proved once again that he ranks among the very finest cellists. He plays his part with great musicality, inward-looking – often with closed eyes – and with commitment. Everything he does commands unquestioning acceptance: the powerful, broad accents, the seemingly natural variations in tempo, and the cantilenas sung with a breathing vibrato. His melodic line in the Adagio melts on the tongue, his technical bravura (also in the Ravel encore) and his clean intonation. The audience’s unbridled delight and acclaim was only understandable …” (Neue Ruhr Zeitung, March 19, 09)

“What a terrific conclusion it would have been if Dvorák had ended his cello concerto in B minor op. 104 with the sad memory of an early love who had passed away. However, audiences have forgiven him the somewhat shallow final bars. And certainly when a soloist’s strengths are in the field of lyricism. For example, in the case of Daniel Müller-Schott, who continually sought – and found – beautiful dialogues with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. His tone develops the most powerful stimuli when he reduces his vibrato in the quiet passages. Or when, in beautiful lyrical passages, he allowed the wind section to play alongside him as an equal partner. That is precisely why the idea of bringing these poetic moments more to the centre of things than is usual worked so well. …. There was wild applause for both the soloist and the conductor. By way of thanking the audience, the cellist played Ravel’s Habanera.” (Klaus Lipinski, Ruhr Nachrichten, March 19, 2009)

And yet a 32-year-old almost stole the show from the elite British orchestra. Daniel Müller-Schott played the highlight of his art, Anton Dvorák’s cello concerto, in such a serene and relaxed way, yet also in such a highly-concentrated way and with such emphatic intensity, as if he already possessed the maturity and experience of old masters such as Casals or Rostropovich. This young man from Munich has taken a thoughtful approach toward his career. He has not allowed himself to be seduced by the short-lived commercial aspects of the music business. His playing reveals a virtually unshakeable faith in his own talent. It is also to be found, effortlessly, in the difficult double stopping. And despite stupendous technical authority, Müller-Schott shows himself to be free of any cheap sensationalism. Taking a hands-on approach, in the opening movement he takes up the dialogue with the orchestra’s soloists. Inspired, he savours the warm, soft sound of his Venetian Gofriller cello (which dates from 1727) in the adagio. Here, the modest soloist disdains the superficial gloss of a virtuoso and succeeds in presenting entrancingly intimate moments. (Bernd Aulich, Recklinghäuser Zeitung, March 19, 2009)

“… Beforehand, Dvorák’s Cello Concerto played by the young, energetic soloist Daniel Müller-Schott. A firebrand with an abrasive and sometimes bittersweet tone that Eschenbach has to temper somewhat. This is then followed by glowing phrasing and robust, urgent playing. The, on the surface, above all dazzlingly emphatic work is persuasively checked in the Adagio, as if the to some extent ceremonious eulogy is to be offset with wintery woe.” (Martin Schrahn, Westfälische Allgemeine Zeitung, March 19, 2009)

Daniel Müller-Schott and Christoph Eschenbach perform with the London Philharmonic in Essen. Tremendous applause greets high-class interpretations of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto and Brahms’

Symphony

“…The person who brought together the young star cellist Daniel Müller-Schott and star of the podium Christoph Eschenbach united brothers in spirit. ... Both have a cool head, and they are not musicians who get so carried away that they would ever lose control. On the contrary: perfectionism is predominant for both musicians, particularly when it comes to sound. On Monday, they performed Dvorak’s Cello Concerto together with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the “Philharmonie Essen”. A live performance can hardly sound more perfect. ... The cellist plays an assertive, flawless tone. Even when he resolutely attacks the strings with the bow, the roughness and aggressivity in the tone still retain controlled perfection in the sound. On the other hand, and notwithstanding its cantabile decrescendo, the melody still has enormous intensity.“ (Westfälischer Anzeiger – Kultur, March 18, 2009)

“… Then came the appearance of Daniel Müller-Schott, who has long become one of the world’s foremost cellists, and not only of the younger generation. Displaying passion and power, but without any crudity, he plunged into the bluntly aggressive opening movement that demands forcefulness of the soloist as well as untiring onward drive and tonal smoothness. Shostakovich wrote the concerto for the great Mstislav Rostropovich, for his endurance, his grandeur of tone and his overwhelming vitality. Despite all the necessary expressive frenzy, Müller-Schott delivered this in a forced gallop of light-footed vigour. By comparison, the Adagio evolved into a grandly sung, yearning lament following the lonely path through the at first broodingly dejected and later more upbeat cadenza that finally almost frantically surges into the wild chase of the finale. Müller-Schott’s concentration captivated everyone, and in the solo cadenza the tension he steadily built up was breathtaking. The soloist and orchestra (solo horn!) were celebrated with a storm of approbation. Daniel Müller-Schott thanked his audience with Ravel’s Habanera.” (Harald Eggebrecht, Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 23, 2009)

“One of the most moving acts of self-assertion in the history of music is the way in which the initial theme in Shostakovich’s 1st Cello Concerto, the ego, achieves its fragile peace in the face of the impositions of life and the system. Daniel Müller-Schott created all the conditions for a peace full of grandeur and depth. Mastering everything from the vicious “Here I am!” via full-throated, soulful singing through to the delicately pure harmonic, he has at his disposal all the tonal disguises for the masque. And he has the ability to express the most intimate feelings without artificiality …” (Thomas Willmann, tz February 21/ 22, 2009)

"… nevertheless, it was Daniel Müller-Schott's evening. ... and the ear cannot get enough of the sublime sound of his Goffriller cello…“ (Christa Sigg, Abendzeitung, February 21/22, 2009)

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)