Press

‘"Replacing the initially announced Truls Mørk, cellist Ivan Karizna lovingly shaped the unconventional, piano espressivo, solo opening statement in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto no. 2. Together with the orchestra, he sustained the tension in the long-breathed, melancholy Largo well, with a meandering melody adorned with dissonant harmonies. An attempt to shift the mood, during the development, seemed to be doomed from the start. Anchored by a street vendor's tune, full of hollow joy, the brief Scherzo also represented a vain effort to escape an overall atmosphere of desolation. Always in tune with his soloist, Jurowski controlled the syncopated rhythms and the mad, sparsely-orchestrated dialogues between cello, horn, xylophone and bassoons. Displaying their mastery of Shostakovich’s idiom, Karizna and Jurowski brought forward the tense desperation in the Finale where lyrical flourishes alternate with sarcasm, while the cello, acting at different points as an additional percussion instrument, eventually fades, unconsolably, away."’

— Bachtrack

‘The young cellist is a breathtaking, even special musician, who visibly lets himself be swept away into Shostakovich's gloomy worlds. The tone for this is enormously versatile, can sing and saw, dance and attack, it shimmers in the piano and glows in the forte. In Shostakovich, one feels the paranoia, the deserts of loneliness, in the encore a spiritual force: Karizna also sings to Giovanni Sollima's "Lamentatio".’

— Suddeutsche Zeitung

‘Of course, one could be disappointed due to the illness-related cancellation of the world-class cellist Truls Mork - however, as a result, a substitute was seen who made the last subscription concert of the GVE this season in the Ladeshalle a celebrated finale.’

— Nürnberger Nachrichten

‘Capturing Hearts in the Storm
The 31-year-old, born in Belarus, Ivan Karizna has embarked on a steep career, performed with numerous renowned orchestras and conductors, won important awards and is using the favor of the hour to promote his fame and popularity with captivating performances. In Erlangen, he takes the hearts by storm, with a work that is unfortunately performed far too infrequently: Dmitri Shostakovich's Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No. 2 in G Major op. 126, which requires boundless skill not only from the soloist but also from the orchestra.’

— Herzen im Sturm

‘The performers offered a seamless performance.’

— Harald Hofmann, NN

‘One listens spellbound to claustrophobic, brutal passages where the solo cello is accompanied only by the big drum. Then again, hard knocking from the glockenspiel, endless drum rolls, endless jingling from the tambourine, cheeky interjections from the piccolo flute, fascinating sounds that arise when the harp and percussion interact. Suddenly it goes almost too fast, one wants to experience this auditory adventure longer, more extensively, but captivating rhythms continue to chase, leading from infernal fortissimo to the "Russian soul" melt.
Under the tension-charged baton of Vladimir Jurowski, the soloist and orchestra become a unity that conjures up mockery and irony from the score in perfect homogeneity. Only with the floating, finely breathed encore did Ivan Karizna show the way back to the present.’

— Fascinating Sounds

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