Callum Smart makes stunning debut with the RPO
“Smart combines brilliant technique with the confidence to take risks… the packed Town Hall audience was privileged to listen to a prodigiously gifted performer whose rhythmic alertness and purity of intonation is to be admired.”
Read the full review on Bachtrack
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The Strad Magazine
A winning sense of natural authority…The tone is beautiful, the double-stopped demands of the violin writing are handled with ease, and there is a constant blend of freewheeling rhapsody and musical purpose.
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BBC Music Magazine
There are certainly no complaints about the burnished beauty of Smart’s tone, and it is no small feat to make the overall pacing of [Faure’s First Sonata] sound so natural… Both Ravel pieces are full of finely judged inflections, from delicious use of slides in the Tzigane to the twirling whisp of notes near the end of Pièce en forme de Habanera.
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Musicweb International
Callum Smart and Richard Uttley here make a formidable partnership, which encompasses not only technical prowess, a well-honed sense for interpretation, and, most importantly a true feeling of shared empathy.
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Norman Lebrecht’s Album of the Week
What Smart and Uttley do, and do well, is to present these period pieces without overt intervention, allowing the listener to draw impressions and conclusions. The result is one of the year’s most atmospheric releases.
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International Record Review
Playing with an inherent nobility that speaks to the heart and eschews any show for the sake of it… Smart can withstand the closest scrutiny, whilst getting the soulful quality of the work… The sincerity of Smart’s singing line is cause for celebration, and the recital is quite outstanding in its unique sequence and profile of a superb young player.
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The Strad Magazine
Callum Smart and Richard Uttley gently caress the finest of [Faure’s] early works with a cantabile grace and elegance that distil the composer’s churning emotions into a sound world of captivating restraint.
The Poulenc Sonata’s delicate balance between neoclassical jollity and haunting introspection is keenly felt here, the key moment in the finale when frivolity turns to tragedy being particularly well judged. Smart’s sinewy, silky tone comes into its own in Tzigane, in which the long unaccompanied ‘improvisation’ sounds for once like an introspective meditation rather than the usual excuse for lashings of virtuoso fireworks. Finest of all is the habanera, which shimmers in the twilight as though emerging from some distant gypsy encampment, atmospherically captured in gently cushioned yet tactile sound.
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BBC Music Magazine
An exuberantly assured debut. Grieg’s Sonata No.2 is the highlight…[due to] their charming handling of its sudden twists and turns, each teasing marvellously in the folk-like final movement. The second movement’s impetuous changes of direction, which can easily sound forced, are utterly convincing here.
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Gramophone Magazine
He’s already a very accomplished violinist, performing the technically complex passages in the Chausson with confidence and aplomb, and always showing mature musical awareness. His command of legato is particularly impressive; the cantabile passages in the Franck and Chausson are given emotional force through the way the notes are connected, smoothly and with varying degrees of intensity.
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The Observer
[Smart’s] partnership with Uttley is best displayed here in their beautifully judged reading of Fauré’s songlike violin sonata No 1 in A and in the flashes of earthy passion they bring to Ravel’s Gypsy-inspired rhapsody Tzigane.
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Artmuselondon
This is an original, highly personal recording for Smart which showcases lesser known American repertoire. Recommended for the Smart-Uttley partnership alone.
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Allmusic
There is a lyrical interlude, the little-known Romance in G major, Op. 39, of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and an arresting finale, a solo arrangement of a piece that is both British and American, the hymn Amazing Grace… a delightful find for chamber music lovers.
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ARTAMAG
Smart perfectly understands this little known masterpiece from the composer of La Voix Humaine, giving it the irony which intensifies the unerring and integrated playing of Richard Uttley. This is certainly an accomplished interpretation, precisely realised. [Smart has] a moulded singing line with a slight hint of acerbity in the sound that I love.
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Ensemble Magazine
Callum finds an authentic balance between classical rigor and precision and melodic freedom… Cesar Franck’s A major Sonata succeeds perfectly: here the duo finds the combination of melancholic yet playful lyricism at the core of the music. The booklet mentions Franck’s doctrine that classical structures “provide frameworks through which emotional expression might flourish” – with exuberant flourishes, just such a “framework” has been created by the duo here.
BBC Music Magazine Rising Star
Callum Smart has gained recognition from BBC Music Magazine as the “Rising Star – Great Artists of Tomorrow”.