The Daily Telegraph:

“But then something comes along that just blows you away. The eight-cello group Cellophony which launched the series was one. They looked terrific lined up there on stage, and what a fabulous rich and fruity noise they made. Some of the pieces revelled in that sound, such as Adam Gorb’s Into the Light, while Richard Birchall’s Mirrors reminded us how varied the cello palette is, sometimes sounding like seagulls or falling fireworks.

But the best pieces were the two by modernist old masters, Luciano Berio and Pierre Boulez. These played on eight cellos’ ability to sound sometimes like one thing — moving with lightning speed — or many things in rushing counterpoint. Both were thrown off with terrific panache.” Ivan Hewett

The Times:

“I am not sure what career prospects there are for an ensemble of eight cellos. But I hope the old cynic in me is proved wrong. Cellophony, which opened the Park Lane Group’s annual week of mostly contemporary music played by young professionals, are a bold and brilliant bunch. They even made Boulez sound like fun. And that’s not a sentence you read often. His Messagesquisse was sensuously and scintillatingly delivered, with the fiendish solo superbly executed by Richard Birchall. And the latter’s moody Mirrors, replete with glissandos, harmonics and vocal hissing, revealed a composer who knows fully how to exploit the possibilities of his instrument.

The players managed to maintain the pulsing momentum of Berio’s stunning Korot while conjuring gripping drama in those thrilling moments when all eight cellos suddenly coalesce in one mighty gesture. And I also liked Adam Gorb’s Into The Light, which – as its title suggests – moved from Stygian gloom to Straussian ecstasy and even ended on a glowingly optimistic major chord: “a small dedication to myself for my 50^th birthday,” the composer says.

But the real crowd-tickler was Violoncelles, vibrez! by the Italian cellist Giovanni Sollima. Cinematic and unashamedly sentimental, it had two solo cellos overlapping in increasingly stratospheric sequences, then furiously egging each other through a rabid double-cadenza. Intonation was strained at times, but the players (all graduates of the Guildhall School) sounded in a different league from when I heard them last summer.” Richard Morrison

The Guardian:

“The Park Lane Group’s annual series of young artist showcases got off to a surprising start this year, with a concert by Cellophony, an ensemble consisting of no fewer than eight cellists. I scarcely knew there was enough cello octet repertoire to fill a concert, let alone justify the formation of a professional chamber group. But the real surprise lay in the variety of tone and effect the cellists conjured in this programme of 20th- and 21st-century works.

A rarely performed piece by Luciano Berio was the opener. Korot sets fragmentary counterpoint against moments of textural and thematic homogeny, the pull of which is increased by the uniformity of the instrumentation. It is a nicely poised work that, despite its expressive modesty, is thrilling to hear when played with this kind of precision and sensitivity.

The Berio was succeeded by Boulez’s Messagesquisse (for a mere seven cellos), Giovanni Sollima’s Violoncelles, Vibrez! (a stylistic splicing of Morricone and Reich) and two new works. The first, by Adam Gorb, only half succeeded in his aim to create a “vast and varied soundworld” and lacked concision; the second was by Richard Birchall, Cellophony’s director and an evidently gifted composer as well as performer. His three-movement Mirrors played to the grouping’s strengths, and made up for what it lacked in structural variety by packing both punch and promise.” Guy Dammann

The Independent:

“First up were eight cellists going by the name of Cellophony, offering premieres by Adam Gorb and Richard Birchall (who was also one of their number). Gorb’s Into the light’followed its title quite literally, beginning with angry growls from the depths and ending in a blaze of exaltation, with much Bartokian material in between. Birchall’s Mirrors was a dazzling exploration of the effects this instrumental combination can produce, but by also playing two classics in this unusual genre, Cellophony showed how high the bar had already been set. Boulez’s Messagesquisse turned the group into an orchestra with alternating soloists. Berio’s Korot was a breathtaking essay in whispered sound and pregnant silence; with its diamond-sharp contours immaculately sculpted, it seemed to imply the presence of a larger work hovering unseen in the ether above.” Michael Church

BBC Music Magazine:

“What do you call a group of eight cellos? No, this isn’t a poor-quality leftover Christmas cracker joke. (Although any humorous answers are welcome on a postcard.) It’s a question that idly crossed my mind earlier this week during a dazzling performance by such a collection of musicians. The ensemble in question has plumped for the name ‘Cellophony’ – representing the ‘vibrant, sonorous and exhilarating sound of an octet of cellists’. One to add to the dictionary, but I’m still on the hunt for a collective noun (I suppose the prosaic answer is a cello octet).

Cellophony,  formed in 2007, took to the stage for the first concert of the Park Lane Young Artists New Series. Each year the Park Lane Group offers the cream of today’s upcoming musicians performance opportunities in London, getting the year underway with a concert series in the Southbank’s Purcell Room.

Contemporary and 20th-century music are programme requirements – handy for the cello octet whose history doesn’t stretch back beyond the last century. (In 1922, Julius Klingel became one of the first to write for a cello ensemble with his Hymnus for 12 cellos.) Perhaps even more surprising than finding out just how musically convincing and varied an ensemble of eight cellos can be, was discovering just how good the works that have been written for this ensemble are.

Sitting in an outward-facing semi-circle, and swapping places between each piece, Cellophony first tackled Berio’s 1998 Korot, a masterly work combining rich sounds with eloquent silences and a huge range of effects. Adam Gorb’s Into the Light, given its London premiere, was to my ears not completely convincing in its journey from ‘despair and terror to illumination and triumph’.

But it did end in a glorious blaze, paving the way for one of the shining beacons of cellophony: Boulez’s Messagesquisse. (Well, near-cellophony. It’s actually for seven cellists rather than eight). This impeccably structured piece pits solo cello against six others, and encompasses both magically hushed and manically frenzied passages, a solo cadenza and a flying finish.

Richard Birchall, cellist and founder of the group, stepped into the musical spotlight with the premiere of his work Mirrors, filled with intriguing cello effects – sounds like soft fireworks and otherworldly glissandi pizzicatos.

Italian composer Sollima had the final word, employing two of the eight cellists as soloists in his lyrical Violoncelles, vibrez!. At the end, the cellos ‘faded-out’, disappearing into the ether. But I don’t think I was the only one left wanting to hear more cellophonous sounds. Let’s hope they return soon.” Rebecca Franks

Musical Pointers:

“The Cello Octet Cellophony bids fair to inherit the mantle of of Conjunto Ibérico, who pioneered the medium for contemporary composers and have been widely acclaimed.

Subject to the contraints of their separate professional lives for getting together, Cellophony achieved miracles of ensemble and, especally, a ravishing joint pianissimo.

Two classics, by Berio and Boulez, were balanced by high quality novelties by Gorb and Birchall; their ordering was so canny that afterwards we were ready to indulge ourselves in the lyricism of Giovanni Sollima’s eclectic blend of recent musics.

Their rapport and eye contact (without a conductor) made for a show which was as good to watch as to hear; a first CD is on the way – they should consider making a DVD or, at the least, getting some of their pieces onto YouTube.

Would anything else live up to that start to the week?” Peter Grahame Woolf