Comments for Kemp English, Kemp English at the Fortepiano

'Kemp's own fortepiano is modelled on a 1795 Walter. Beethoven and Mozart owned a Walter. Kemp's recital of Haydn, Dussek, Mozart and Beethoven makes you a fly on the wall hearing Mozart in his salon or the dishevelled Beethoven in his dog's breakfast flat when he "played his Pathétique Sonata in a stormy and excited way", according to Czerny. That describes English's playing too. Rather than a scholar's bloodless tinkling on an ancient instrument, his Mozart Fantasia in C minor and Beethoven Pathétique are full-on confrontational playing. Close miking exaggerates this.' (Ian Dando, The New Zealand Listener, 05/04)