Reviews

2009

Soundboard Magazine, Guitar Foundation of America, November 2009:
Izhar Elias is a wonderfully inventive and virtuosic player, well-versed in performance practices of the time, and plays a lovely sounding Guadagnini guitar. From the overture, through various duets, trios, quartets, and finales, virtually the whole opera is there, compressed into the world of a single six-string guitar. Amazingly, it works, though admittedly not in the same way that a performance of the opera would. At any rate, Elias is to be congratulated on taking on a huge task and achieving it most creditably. Recording quality is excellent, and the discs come in a very nice tri-fold case with extensive notes in English, including a summary of the dramatic action as it applies to each movement of the work. This was certainly an unexpected pleasure.
Al Kunze

Dutch newspaper Trouw, August 4th 2009 (interview):
Real Belcanto on gut strings. With his cd Elias shows us that there is interesting repertoire waiting for guitarists to be played.
Elias: ‘This Guadagnini guitar is much more singing than a modern guitar’ ‘As a guitarist you should think beyond the notes that are written’
Peter van der Lint

Nederlands Dagblad, July 31st 2009
‘a Five stars CD’

De Telegraaf, July 18th 2009
‘intelligent and multi-layered’
Frederike Berntsen

Trouw, June 13th 2009
‘Including all his ornamentations Elias is not inferior to any opera diva’
Peter van der Lint

2008

Kommersant, St. Petersburg, September 24th 2008
‘The sophisticated drive of Bosgraaf’s and Elias’ playing sounded within the walls of the
Chapel of the Knights of Malta reminiscent of a medieval discoteque’
‘after the first solo numbers by Izhar Elias it became evident, that today’s gurus of early
string instruments do not have to worry about the future of baroque guitar.’
Dmitry Renansky

2007

The Gramophone, October 2007:
‘Bosgraaf is sympathetically accompanied by Izhar Elias on baroque guitar’
William Yeoman

Bosgraaf and Elias – Big Eye, movies and music:
Gramophone, December 2007:
‘Wacky, irreverent and thought provoking.’
William Yeoman

Classical Guitar Magazine, November 2007:
‘A unique and uncompromising team offering from which all parties emerge with triumph.’
Paul Fowles