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This small selection of press extracts is updated quarterly.
Recital with Simon Keenlyside
Aldeburgh 2007
'During the 60th festival’s inaugural weekend, there was more magic from…Simon Keenlyside… his darksome baritone in thrilling form, luxuriously underlaid by Malcolm Martineau’s eloquent pianism.'
Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times, June 17, 2007
New Zealand recital tour with Jonathan Lemalu – May 2007
Christ Church Town Hall, May 2
'Malcolm Martineau, accompanist to the stars, did far more than support the singer. This was a true double act where every phrase seemed to have been planned as a complete musical idea, piano and voice operating as one instrument. '
Timothy Jones, The Press, May 3, 2007
Recording with Susan Bullock – Crear Classics 2006
Wagner: Wesendonck-Lieder; Prokofiev: Five Poems of Anna Akhmatova; Britten: The Poet’s Echo; songs by Strauss, Quilter, Rorem
'… and in Malcolm Martineau she has a pianist to match her sensitivities. Together they sound subtle depths in the closing songs of Prokovierv’s Akhmatova settings…and in Benjamin Britten’s Pushkin cycle ‘The Poet’s Echo’, where the piano’s time-ticking hauntingly offsets the meditations of Pushkin’s sleepless night.'
David nice, BBC Music Magazine, March 2007 (Five stars)
'Malcolm Martineau is the excellent pianist'
Sunday Telegraph, March 11, 2007
Recital with Michael Schade
Zankel Hall, New York, March 6, 2007
'The singing was intense and intelligent and benefited from Malcolm Martineau’s scrupulous piano playing.'
Bernard Holland, New York Times, March 8, 2007
Recital Tour with Susan Graham – January 2007
Kennedy Center, Washington
'The evening was enhanced by the firm, nuanced and unfailingly expressive pianism of Malcolm Martineau, who also wrote the incisive program notes.'
Tim Page, Washington Post, January 29, 2007
Jordan Hall, Boston
'Malcolm Martineau was the fine pianist as well as, we were told, an active partner in assembling this particular sampler of songs. …Throughout the afternoon, Martineau matched not only her passion for this repertoire but also her sensitivity in bringing it to life.'
Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe, January 23, 2007
'The program she brings to Jordan Hall is a fascinating tour of the French song tradition, spanning nearly two centuries, from Charles Gounod (b. 1818) to the modern master Olivier Messiaen (d. 1992) . Unlike many recitals, in which song sets are unified by composer, Graham and her pianist Malcolm Martineau have juxtaposed varied repertoire by composers who were contemporaries of one another, with particular care given to the dramatic shape of each group. Graham credits Martineau, whom she calls an 'encyclopedia', with suggesting many of the pieces: 'Malcolm is a master program-builder.'
The current program ends with the lullaby 'Brezaiola', from Joseph Canteloube's famous 'Chants d'Auvergne', and the recital setting has let Graham and Martineau push the envelope. 'I've been experimenting with how softly I can sing the last verse -- when the baby is going to sleep.'
Matthew Guerrieri, Boston Globe, January 21. 2007
Mandel Hall, University of Chicago, January 19
'her superb accompanist, pianist Malcolm Martineau, introduced the audience to a lot of unfamiliar songs by familiar composers as well as exquisite rarities by composers (including Emile Paladilhe and Alfred Bachelet) few of us have heard of.'
John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune, January 21, 2007
'Graham and brilliant piano partner Malcolm Martineau knew what they were doing in selecting the repertoire and presenting it. Opening songs by Bizet, Franck and Faure set a mood of transparent nights, birdcalls and spring love. The lyricism and delicacy, along with the rhythmic inventiveness of Lalo and Saint-Saens as the first half went on, created a consistent mood that never grew dull.'
Andrew Patner, Chicago Sun-Times, January 22, 2007
'Graham's rich voice was complemented by Martineau's delicate, sensitive piano accompaniment. However, Martineau did more than simply accompany the singer. As Lawrence Professor of Music and voice teacher Ken Bozeman explained, 'Musicians traditionally known as 'accompanists' are now being called 'collaborative pianists.' The pianist plays continuously and, in a sense, plays the emotion of the song.' In this spirit, the musicians took each bow together, and Graham directed much of the final applause toward Martineau.'
Sonia Emmons, The Lawrentian, January 19, 2007
Recital with Angelika Kirschlager
Alice Tully Hall, New York, 10 December 2006
'Accompanying her was the pianist Malcolm Martineau, who was superb, as usual. In Schumann's 'Hoch, hoch sind die Berge' (High, High Are the Mountains), he was delicate and modest, but properly intense — just like his singer.'
Jay Nordlinger, Arts and Letters, December 12, 2006
Recital with Anne Schwanewilms
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 31 August 2006
'Malcolm Martineau played the Queen's Hall piano ably. He phrased with delicacy, stretching ideas to their limits and making sure he never seemed just an accompanist: this was high-quality chamber music. In Mahler's Ablösung im Sommer, the piano's evocation of cuckoo song really did sing, whilst in the last of the Ophelia Lieder, the sudden changes of mood were imaginatively handled.
For an encore, the two performed the great Strauss lied Das Rosenband, with its soaring lyricism superbly communicated. The audience's enthusiastic applause was well deserved.'
Dave Paxton, Music OMH, September 2006
'Malcolm Martineau … a virtuoso exponent of the demanding piano part.'
Rowena Smith, The Herald, September 1, 2006
Recital with Simon Keenlyside, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
'Edinburgh loves Keenlyside and pianist Martineau, who played with relish.'
The Scotsman, Tuesday 29 August 2006
'Martineau went straight from Holst's weirdly spare, disembodied song Betelgeuse to Britten's Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, in which Keenlyside and Martineau created colour and atmosphere that even its illustrious creators, Fischer-Dieskau and Britten, would have been hard-pressed to equal.'
Rowena Smith, The Herald, 29 August 2006
Interview for The Scotsman ahead of the 2006 Edinburgh International Festival
Perfect partner - Everyone wants to work with Malcolm Martineau - for very good reason
Gerald Moore was once asked whether, in the course of his long and distinguished career as accompanist to some of the greatest singers of the 20th century, he had ever given any thought to becoming a pianist. Moore's response is not documented, but had he delivered one, he would most certainly have put the enquirer right on one thing: the art of the piano accompanist is exactly that - an art in itself.
And few come more artful these days than Malcolm Martineau, whose annual appearances at the Edinburgh International Festival are more regular than most, but whose visibility - unless you're specifically looking out for him - can easily be masked by the fact that he has chosen to follow the same career route as Moore.
Martineau's love for the Festival is as much personal as professional. He was born and educated in Edinburgh, and his father - who died when he was only nine - was a prominent clergyman in the capital. His mother is the notable pianist Hester Dickson, who is now in her eighties, but still highly active as an accompanist and teacher at Glasgow's RSAMD.
Listening as a youngster to the regular musical collaboration between his mother and her late sister, the cellist, Joan Dickson, rubbed off on Martineau. 'I've always loved the idea of collaboration in music. When I reached the semi-finals of the first ever BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 1977, a lot of solo work came out of that,' he recalls. 'But I knew that solo playing wasn't really my bag, and when I went to Cambridge, I did lots of chamber music. I'm not the solitary type.'
Now in his late forties and based in London, he is one of the most accomplished accompanists around today, on first-call terms with the likes of Bryn Terfel, Simon Keenlyside, Christopher Maltman, even Simon Rattle's other half, the Czech mezzo soprano Magdalena Kozena. He tours and records regularly with many of them.
There is still, says Martineau, a lingering perception that the accompanist plays second fiddle, especially when a singer is in the limelight. 'There have been several occasions when someone has asked me if I went to 'that wonderful song recital last week at the Wigmore Hall', and I've had to answer: 'yes, I was actually playing'. The fact is, the audience come to see the singer!'
So will he go unnoticed in his two Festival appearances next week at the Queen's Hall? First up on Monday he will perform with the baritone Simon Keenlyside in a programme that includes Benjamin Britten's Songs and Proverbs of William Blake. Then, on Thursday, he will accompany the soprano Anne Schwanewilms in a potentially ravishing coupling of songs by Richard Strauss and Mahler.
'Anne is the one that sang [Strauss's] Ariadne in the dress that didn't fit the other soprano,' he says, referring mischievously to the notorious incident in 2004 when London's Royal Opera House sacked its original soprano, Deborah Voigt, reportedly because she was overweight.
The answer to the above question, though, is no. It's not Martineau's style to fade into the distance. Indeed, he immerses himself completely in a performance, quite visibly at times. Watch his eyes and his gestures. They are a reflective interpretation of what the singer is singing.
'As an accompanist, you must have an ear for colour, for storytelling,' he explains. 'Benjamin Britten was my favourite accompanist of all time. He had a composer's ear for colour. He could achieve an amazing range of dynamics, even at the softest end of the spectrum. That is where accompanying becomes such a different art from the solo role.'
But it's important, too, he says, to know how a singer works - both technically and psychologically. He has made his career out of doing so. 'I was trained also as a singer,' he says. 'After Cambridge, I took joint first studies in singing and piano at the Royal Academy of Music. That's paid off. I tell my own accompanist students at the RAM to get singing lessons. It's important to know what breathing [as a singer] feels like.' Learning languages, too, has equipped him well for the role. 'I'm no linguistic high-flyer, but I do understand French and German poetry.'
Seasoned singers have grown to depend on Martineau's instinctive artistry. Younger ones look to him for advice. Thomas Quasthoff, indeed, calls him a 'psychic'. 'He once said to me after a recital: 'you knew what I was going to do before I did it',' recalls Martineau. 'The truth is, as an accompanist you have to second-guess what the singer is about to do. Half the time you get it right.'
If anything singles Martineau out as much more than a jobbing accompanist it is the entrepreneurial spirit that has led him to lead, and often instigate, extended projects of his own, particularly with singers.
Festival aficionados will recall some years ago the extraordinary series that encompassed the entire Lieder output of Hugo Wolf.
'It was essentially [Festival associate director] James Waters's baby, but I became immersed in it and it became an amazing thing to do,' he says. 'I try to do series here and there, to encourage singers to learn new repertoire.'
He is currently exploring rarely heard Russian songs by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glinka, and later ones from the 1950s, with Susan Bullock. He is also putting together a series centred on the songs of Poulenc, presented in the context of their own time. 'Aside from Schubert and Wolf, I love the French repertoire,' he says.
Most of all, though, he is relishing his return this week to the Queen's Hall. 'It's among the best halls for song recitals in Europe,' he claims. 'It feels friendly, in much the same way as the Wigmore Hall.' He also feels at home with its piano, which he can genuinely call his own. 'It's a bit embarrassing,' he admits. 'I was one of four appointed to select the best instrument. When the day came to try them out, I was the only one who turned up.' As most singers would say, if you want an accompanist you can rely on, get Martineau. But I suspect there's a waiting list.
KENNETH WALTON, THE SCOTSMAN, 26 August 2006
Recital with Magdalena Kozena
Salzburg Festival 2006
'Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozená's August 7 recital with pianist Malcolm Martineau was hailed as 'a magic moment' by local critics.'
Michael Markowitz, Playbill Arts, 25 August 2006
Schubert Song Cycle with Matthew Rose, Jonathan Gunthorpe and Robert Murray
St. Mary's, Haddington, 9th July 2006
'If accompanists are often the under-acknowledged half of a vocal recital, then Malcolm Martineau's latest project, in which he performs all three of Schubert's song cycles with three different singers over the course of a day, certainly presents a visible pianistic tour de force. As a feat of strength on Martineau's part, the undertaking is impressive, though whether it adds much to the audience's understanding of the works is debatable.
Not in doubt, though, was the wisdom of Martineau's decision to perform the cycles in reverse order, beginning with Schwanengesang, then Winterreise and concluding with Die Schöne Müllerin. In the wake of two doses of unremitting gloom, there's something incredibly refreshing about a work that experiences the heights of joyous, youthful ardour before plunging to the depths of despair.
What the series did set up was a comparison between the styles of the young singers involved. Matthew Rose's Schwanengesang was a somewhat four-square affair; his sonorous bass failing to match the expressiveness of Martineau's playing, until in Der Atlas it found an intensity lacking elsewhere. In comparison, baritone Jonathan Gunthorpe had a more flexible approach, though his Winterreise didn't sustain the atmosphere of the most bleakly nihilistic of accounts.
The most complete performance of the day was that of tenor Robert Murray, the only singer to really inhabit his character (a task admittedly easier in Die Schöne Müllerin than the other cycles). From the lusty delight of proclaiming the beloved his, to the anxiety brought on by the arrival of the hunter, to the bitter sadness of betrayal, this miller's emotions were tangible, rendered all the more visceral by Martineau's vivid, extrovert playing.'
Rowena Smith, The Guardian, July 21, 2006
Recital with Barbara Bonney
St George’s Bristol
'Martineau’s pointing up of the piano’s growing contribution to the psychological portrayals was deeply illuminating.'
Rian Evans, The Guardian, 11 February 2006
Recital with Florian Boesch
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
'Never fully in the limelight, Martineau is nonetheless a real star.'
Carol Main, The Scotsman, 2 September 2005
Masterclass – The Art of the Song Recital
The Hub, Edinburgh – 23 August 2005
'If there’s such a thing as an accompanist of genius, it is Malcolm Martineau'
The Guardian
'The most effective accompanist in the business'
The Independent
Recital with Christopher Maltman
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh – 22 August 2005
'One of those moments when time stands magically still. Maltman and Martineau are, indeed, a class act.'
Kenneth Walton, The Scotsman, 23 August 2005
'In each work, the pianist carries equal weight in generating the requisite mood, and Malcolm Martineau opened up shivery gothic vistas and haunted landscapes in turn.'
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, August 24, 2005
CD Recording with Barbara Bonney (Onyx)
'This time with the excellent Malcolm Martineau at the piano...'
The Independent, 7June 2005
Recital with Barbara Bonney and Angelika Kirchschlager
Barbican Centre
‘Fauré’s Tarantelle was a high-speed obstacle course, with Martineau skillfully maintaining an illusion of gathering momentum.’
Erica Jeal, The Guardian, February 1, 2005
‘It’s to the credit of Bonney, Kirchschlager and their accompanist Malcolm Martineau that they resisted as much as they did the temptation to play out the girly fantasies suggested by the packaging.
Here, the two voices chased each other, echoed, confided and danced through the night to a veritable villageband conjured by the indefatigable fingers of Martineau.’ Hilary Finch, The Times, February 1, 2005
CD with Bryn Terfel
Silent Noon
‘Malcolm Martineau’s accompaniments are stylish and authoritative, coming into their own in the final pair of Edward Lear limerick settings, parodies of Bach by one Karel Drofnatski (a pseudonym for Stanford) that are funnier the verses they set.’
Matthew Rye, The Daily Telegraph, January 15, 2005
Recital with Barbara Bonney and Angela Kirchschlager
Kölner Philharmonie
‘Malcolm Martineau completed the congenial duo at the piano as a distinguished and experienced accompanist. Some additions could be heard after minutes of standing ovations.’
Olaf Weiden, Kölnische Rundschau, December 21, 2004
‘And the pianist? Malcolm Martineau is known to be one of the best accompanists in the world and he definitely proved this in Cologne.’
Markus Schwering, Kölner Stadtanzeiger, December 21, 2004
Recital with Michael Schade
Chan Centre
‘Co-recitalist Malcolm Martineau is the sort of uncanny accompanist who seems to know what his singer will do before a sound is uttered. His palette of colours is refined and his degree of support remarkable.’
David Gordon Duke, The Vancouver Sun, November 23, 2004
Recital with Simon Keenlyside
Usher Hall
‘His subtlety of phrasing and colour, coupled with Martineau`s sensitive and perceptive accompaniments with their almost singing vocal quality, produced beautifully measured Lieder performances, taking us to the soul of these poems by Goethe and Kerner.’
Frank Carroll, Sunday Herald, August 29, 2004
Recital with Christopher Maltman
Schwarzenberg Schubertiade
'I loved the heartfelt innocence, the vulnerable bravado, and the vivid vocal colours – with playing to match from Malcolm Martineau, who, for my money is, these days, the most effective accompanist in the business. No one quite has his ability to make a flawless technique so expressively alive.’
Michael White, Independent, September 23, 2003
Recital with Amanda Roocroft
Royal Festival Hall
'Providing an irresistible dynamo for the merry-go-round in Debussy’s Chevaux de Bois, tracing the twisting undercurrent to Roocroft’s smooth lullaby in Strauss’s ‘Meinem Kinde’, making the thickly scored accompaniments to four other songs by Liszt sound easy: again and again, Malcolm Martineau showed that he is the classiest accompanist around.’
Erica Jeal, Guardian, December 5, 2003
Recital with Barbara Bonney
Wigmore Hall
'Accompanist Malcolm Martineau was sensitive, reliable and utterly musical – it’s little wonder that A-list singers are queuing up to work with him. He held back in the final song, Die alten bösen Lieder, to let Bonney’s voice through, but made the ensuing postlude into something truly enchanting.’
Erica Jeal, The Guardian, January 27, 2001
Recital with Ian Bostridge
Wigmore Hall
‘His accompanist Malcolm Martineau was also a major factor in providing that extra dimension, and his limpid contributions were even more telling in the Heine poems of Dichterliebe, where every piano postlude unerringly crystallised the import of the words and their setting’.
Andrew Clements, Guardian, December 7, 2000
Recital with Lisa Milne
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh Festival
‘The finest singing and acting heard and seen in this year’s Festival came together yesterday in the devastating performance of Lisa Milne, making her debut solo recital in the Queen’s Hall series, with accompaniments to die for provided by the peerlesss Malcolm Martineau’.
Michael Tumelty, The Herald, August 27, 2002
Recital with Simon Keenlyside
Usher Hall, Edinburgh Festival
‘And Malcolm Martineau provided one of the most emotionally complete, naturalistic piano accompaniments I have heard, capturing tine details like a leaf’s erratic flutter and a stream’s currents’
James Allen, The Scotsman, September 1, 2003
Recital with Felicity Lott
Wigmore Hall
‘The limpid, echoing rhymes of ‘S'il est un charmant gazon’ charmed and calmed voice and spirit; and Martineau’s nectar-intoxicated piano introduction to Fauré’s ’Le Papillon et la fleur’ nourished the senses’.
Hilary Finch, The Times, November 25, 2002
Recital with Thomas Allen
Perelman Theater, Philadelphia
'At every turn, his approach was seconded with near-psychic sureness by pianist Malcolm Martineau, who doesn’t frame the voice so much as he becomes and extension of it, issuing colors and harmonies on which the voice can float’
David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 April 2003
Recital with Bryn Terfel
Symphony Hall, Birmingham
‘If there’s such a thing as an accompanist of genius, it is Malcolm Martineau. He can vanish discreetly into the background when required, or turn the final solo bars of a song like ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’ into a poignant summing up. In the hands of musicians like these two, the future of the song recital should be assured.’
Stephen Johnson, The Guardian, November 24, 2000
From an interview with Mary Miller for ‘The Scotsman’
'Martineau began with solo work and got bored, far preferring the chemistry of music making with others. ‘The concerto is one thing. The soloist is more important than anyone else involved, and that’s fixed. But in a song… yes, the singer has the solo line, but you are making something new every time you approach the music. With five different singers, there are five different ways. In fact, with one singer, there may be five contrasting inflections, according to mood, or energy, or temper. It is wonderful. That’s the joy of the job.’
August 7, 1996