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Amandine Beyer: 4 Seasons with her chin off

  Tobias Fischer

Amandine Beyer is „an extremely brilliant virtuoso,“ according to Jacques Drillon in Le Nouvel Observateur; „her joy is neither agitation nor sales talk.“ Her personal history certainly singles her out as someone with a voice of her own: Trained traditionally in France, where she studied at the Paris Conservatory, Violinist Amandine Beyer was attracted to the teachings of Chiara Banchini, and her approach to violin includes abandoning the chin-rest – known as ‘chin off.' Her style makes it possible to reach a different understanding of the texts of the 17th and 18th centuries.

In the performance of Four Seasons, there is an obvious effort to focus on each programme and employ Vivaldi’s effects. Our colleague Martin Cotton in BBC Music Magazine wrote that the storm in the final movement of Summer „has incredible energy and the icicles in Winter are truly freezing.“ He noted the vibrancy of the musicians and the generous church acoustics. 

„The young Amandine Beyer, an outstanding violinist, achieves an unhoped-for synthesis of the mastery of Goebel and the poetry of Kuijken,“ said Philippe Venturini in Choc du Monde de la Musique. Pierre Gervasoni in Le Monde wrote of Amandine Beyer’s performance, „Majestic, gossamer, hypnotic. Perfect in every inflection of the phrasing, which the young soloist sculpts with a sense of space, magnificently served by the recorded sound.“ You may say what you like about these kind of superlatives, but they're certainly not far off the mark.

Homepage: Amandine Beyer
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