DanielPioro

Press

• Britten Violin Concerto

  Snape Maltings, Suffolk

  Jun 2024

  • Pioro’s approach to the Britten Violin Concerto was one of magnetic intensity. Music whose soul-searching and questioning betrays all the anguish of its 25-year-old composer – a conscientious objector exiled from Britain and facing the likelihood of war in Europe – carried a fresh authenticity. In his performance, the sense of living-in-the-moment risk-taking was always implicit, Pioro connecting anew with the composer and with his audience.

    • The Guardian
    • 23 June 2024

• "Rosary Sonatas" by Heinrich Biber

  Southbank Centre, London

  Jan 2023 - Jan 2023

  • The two artists – violinist Daniel Pioro and, on organ and harpsichord, James McVinnie – together with the Southbank’s management had taken such care over details of presentation. It was like being gently led from one richly coloured musical universe to another.

    • The Telegraph
    • 23 January 2023

• Vaughan Williams "Lark Ascending" / Coult "Pleasure Garden"

  Royal Festival Hall, London

  Oct 2022 - Oct 2022

  • The centre of attention was naturally the violin playing of Daniel Pioro, who led the solo line on an ever more ecstatic spiral, full of expressive nudges and nuances. Earlier Pioro had also been the soloist in the London premiere of Tom Coult’s violin concerto "Pleasure Garden", which he had introduced with the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester a year ago. Here it seemed a lucidly shaped work, a treasure trove of luscious orchestral colours and effects, that is convincing enough even without the detailed extra-musical explanations that Coult provides for each of the four movements.

    • The Guardian
    • 27 October 2022

  • Pioro was given the chance to display his sweeter and more poetic qualities in "The Lark Ascending", which he played with mercurially fast arabesques.

    • The Times
    • 25 October 2022

  • Daniel Pioro played the solo part with great sensitivity and more than a little panache, choosing not to overindulge in a relatively straightforward opening sequence, but appearing to add a few extra ‘blue’ notes as the violin warmed to its characterisation, ‘lost on his aerial wings’. Manze’s pacing, initially quite fast, settled to a satisfying pace, with ideal balance between soloist and orchestra. The hall responded with commendable silence to the absolute quiet at the end.

    • arcana.fm
    • 26 October 2022

  • The colour was appealing [in "Pleasure Garden"]; Pioro’s playing had a sweetness which contrasted with a slight sour tone from the orchestra. Bursts of frenetic energy lashed out at the audience and one had a sense of something truly momentous being depicted. Pioro returned after the interval for "The Lark Ascending" and brought a strikingly modern edge, a touch of steel to the bowing and a finale that avoided descending into that overtly maudlin or tawdry manner which can be tiresome if overdone, while maintaining a beauty in line. The balance between soloist and orchestra was spot on – one senses that Pioro is an amenable partner – and Manze packed colour into the piece.

    • Bachtrak
    • 28 October 2022

• Oliver Knussen's Violin Concerto

  Royal Festival Hall, London

  Feb 2020 - Feb 2020

  • Considering some of the wild musical company he keeps (electro-acousticians, Jonny Greenwood) and a publicity photo featuring his bare feet, the rising British violinist Daniel Pioro stayed rigorously well-behaved in this London Philharmonic concert with the guest conductor Vasily Petrenko. Well, Pioro was performing a masterpiece. Every one of Oliver Knussen’s works is masterly in some way, but his magical Violin Concerto of 2002 surely represents a pinnacle. Its achingly lyrical slow movement is framed by two quick-changing acrobatic displays, the music bathed throughout in the seductive, mysterious timbres and crystalline colour effects only possible with an orchestrator of genius. Brought in at short notice to replace an unwell Leila Josefowicz, Pioro conquered what had been an unfamiliar piece with flames of passion and high technical flair. I’ll happily hear him play anything, with shoes or without.

    • The Times
    • 19 February 2020

  • The composer himself has referred to the high-wire act that the soloist, here Daniel Pioro, replacing the indisposed Leila Josefowicz at short notice, is required to engage in. That is certainly true of the opening Recitative in which the exposed solo instrument demonstrates acrobatic agility, its lines interweaving with glittering wind, percussion and pizzicato strings. It was Pioro’s emphasis on the lyrical intensity of the piece, especially in the central Aria, which left the greater impression. With magical, ethereal sounds from both soloist and orchestra, the long expressive lines had a bewitching effect.

    • Bachtrak
    • 20 February 2020

• Prom 70: Jonny Greenwood’s "Horror Vacui”

  BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London

  Sep 2019 - Sep 2019

  • In Daniel Pioro’s wonderful performance, Biber’s piece came across as an impassioned oration, a million miles away from the ticking mechanisms and glassy otherworldly atmospherics of what was to come. It was a joy to hear it. Jonny Greenwood’s new piece, composed for Daniel Pioro and the 68 superb solo string players of the BBC NOW and BBC Proms Youth Ensemble, was on a different level of ambition. "Horror Vacui" was a delightfully naïve yet sophisticated exercise in re-imagining sound effects obtainable in a studio, such as booming reverberations, or repeated “dying-away” echoes, or uncanny slidings of whole sound complexes up and down. Every sad drooping phrase or vehement outburst or glassy high note from the violin was seized on and magically transformed by the string players, who were sometimes called on to blow into or slap their instruments.

    • The Telegraph
    • 12 September 2019

  • A stark opening from violinist Daniel Pioro, who performed the unaccompanied G minor Passacaglia that concludes Heinrich Biber’s "Rosary Sonatas". A clean, crisp, and methodical reading of the piece, Pioro’s bright and flexible sound moved through the variations with quicksilver ingenuity and clarity.

    • Bachtrak
    • 13 September 2019