Press reviews

Press reviews

[…] Copland’s Concerto for Clarinet […] is played by Christoph Schneider, first solo clarinettist of the Duisburg Philharmonic, and thus demonstrates in exemplary fashion what outstanding musicians the orchestra consists of.
Under the careful direction of Axel Kober, the orchestra gently dabs its chords, while Christoph Schneider plays Copland’s broad melodies with a warm and soft sound. Schneider plays the piece with a breath that never runs dry, and at times the conductor and soloist seem to bathe in the beauty of the sound as if they want time to stand still.
In the breathtaking cadenza, Schneider lets the notes bubble out of his wooden reed with virtuosity before the finale is as lively and turbulent as a street scene in New York. Syncopated melodies and swinging rhythms reveal the influence of Benny Goodman, for whom Copland composed the piece. […]
In keeping with Holocaust Remembrance Day, Christoph Schneider and the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra play another Klezmer piece by Giora Feidmann. After a plaintive beginning, the music culminates in a virtuoso clarinet firework display, during which the audience’s applause is even greater than after the Copland concert.”

Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 26.02.2024


[…] Christoph Schneider filled Weber’s composition with a technical brilliance and depth of feeling that quickly takes a musical description to its limits: The higher, other, which E.T:A. Hoffmann wanted to express with his bon mot about the end of language with romantic pathos: Here it is palpable. The concept of the “romantic” in music: here it can be experienced directly.

So let’s stick to the critic’s aridly descriptive craft and admire the clear, weightless tone in the beginning of the concerto, germinating out of nothing, reminiscent of a mysterious opera scene. Or the runs, which are not only immaculately shaped, but variously characterized to boot. Or the arioso breath that could plant sheer envy in the heart of many an opera singer. The Adagio movement, apt in tempo, ennobles an ethereally soft tone, delicate piano, shading-rich sound and seemingly endless stretched phrasing. And the last movement, a “bouncer” á la Rossini, is virtuoso fodder fashioned with verve. In the encore, an adagio by Bärmann, Christoph Schneider once again demonstrates what “taste” might be a bit old-fashioned but aptly describes. […]

Revierpassagen, 17.02.2019

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[…] There are few works that exploit the instrument’s diversity from the homely cantilena to the bold, highly virtuosic coloratura as richly as Weber’s 1st Clarinet Concerto. Schneider mastered the demanding tasks with almost perfect seeming sovereignty, whereby his sensitivity for the finest sound shadings up to viable pianissimi at the limit of audibility impressively underlines the class of the musician. […]

Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 15.02.2019


[…] Schneider played with a fantastically beautiful tone, secure playing technique and imaginative design. […] This was most convincing in the slow middle movement and on this line was also the common encore, the almost unearthly Adagio by Bärmann. […]

Rheinische Post, 15.02.2019


[…] Not only that Schneider beguiles with Weber’s F minor concerto from the very first bar with dignified, noble intonation, supple tone and masters the changing registers without breaks. He will also go down in competition history for winning the special prize for the best contemporary interpretation – and that with a work he had composed himself in 2016. He was acclaimed for the varied opus “Konstrukt I – Thema und Variationen” (“Construct I – Theme and Variations”), which is now part of the canon of clarinet students at the Cologne Musikhochschule. Here he demonstrates the clarinet’s many facets – from the highest chirping notes to deep, sonorous growls.

Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 18.09.2017

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[…] An extraordinary musician appeared on the Tonhalle stage with Christoph Schneider. The Frankfurt-born […] convinced with Carl Maria von Weber’s first clarinet concerto. His dignified pianissimo culture, his balmy sound and his sensitive art of interpretation come to the fore in the Adagio movement. In the fast movements, however, he makes full use of the top registers and presents a technical fireworks display. The highlight: Schneider also won the special prize for the best interpretation of a contemporary work. And he did so with his own composition “Konstrukt I – Thema und Variation” (Construct I – Theme and Variation), which he wrote in 2016 at the Cologne Musikhochschule as a practice piece and which is now part of the fixed canon for clarinet students. In a dramaturgically mature form, he demonstrates the versatility of the clarinet – from the wafting and clattering of valves to the warm sound of shawms.

Neue Ruhr-Zeitung, 17.09.2017


[…] The centerpiece of the concert was the Clarinet Concerto No. 3 in F minor by Louis Spohr with Christoph Schneider as soloist. The 23-year-old artist enchanted with a wonderfully velvety-soft clarinet tone, with softly flowing lines and melodies as well as a seemingly endless breath. In addition, there were enchanting dialogues with the woodwinds and a very motivated orchestra. This was pure musical enjoyment.
The Andante was a consistently heartfelt song on Schneider’s solo clarinet with even tonal runs and low notes to melt away. Very successful were the dialogues between the soloist and pianissimo strings as well as the entire orchestra. In the Vivace non troppo, Christoph Schneider gave melody and rhythm with discreet verve and dancing lightness, taken up and completed with relish by the orchestra. At the end there was tumultuous applause with foot stomping and bravos for the orchestra, the conductor and especially for the soloist. He thanked the orchestra with Béla Kovàc’s “Hommage à Manuel de Falla” and brought the audience to ovations. […]

Oberhessische Presse, 26.06.2013

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[…]As soloist the 23-year-old Christoph Schneider […] had been won, who demonstrated in an impressive way how wondrously Mozart lets the clarinet sing in this late work. In his fresh, lively and clear playing, it sang of love, beauty, joy and perhaps also of the transience of life. The second movement (Adagio), modeled after a romance, transported the audience to the deepest regions of the soul. In Schneider’s performance, a tremendous calm emanated from the solo instrument, which was contrasted in the middle section by the restlessly pulsating orchestral accompaniment. The soloist played with dexterity and sensitivity in close coordination with conductor and orchestra. Thus the music-making was as if from one cast and led into the cheerful, lively finale. Christoph Schneider thanked the audience for the warm applause and the occasional bravos with a touching clarinet version of the famous Puccini aria “E lucevan de stelle” by Cavaradossi from the opera “Tosca”. […]

Gießener Anzeiger, 19.03.2013


[…] The soloist made his clarinet laugh and cry, played it seriously and cheerfully. Yes, the instrument seemed to flirt with the strings. […] No wonder that the audience looked spellbound at the 23-year-old soloist and marveled at the ease with which the multiple national winner of “Jugend musiziert” and winner of numerous national awards mastered the technically most difficult passages. The Frankfurt native put so much warmth into his interpretation that he was sure to receive thunderous applause and an abundance of bravos. […]

Wetzlarer Neue Zeitung, 18.03.2013


[…] Clarinetist Christoph Schneider, initiator and member of the “canorusquintett”, which was awarded first prize at an international competition in Marseille, lets this work develop in a soft, warm tone, with beautifully flowing lines and harmonious measurement of the degrees of tonal strength, lucid in the singing of the Adagio, in rousing musical mood in the concluding Rondo/Allegro. He crowns this sensitively traced opus with a virtuosic encore of the “Homage to Manuel de Falla” from a collection of etudes by the Hungarian Béla Kovacs. […]

Wiesbadener Kurier, 02.05.2012


[…] As a contrast to the gigantic opening, Christoph Schneider from Frankfurt played the solo in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. Schneider’s tone was noble. With serene effortlessness, the twenty-one-year-old overcame technical hurdles and shaped phrases with a human face. His dynamic gradations reached down to the quietest spheres. The youth orchestra always played attentively and actively, led by Nicolás Pasquet, who is a conducting professor in Weimar. After abundant applause, soloist Schneider did not miss the opportunity to add the concert etude “Hommage à Manuel de Falla” by Béla Kovács (born 1937). […]

Echo Online, 21.09.2010


[…] The soloist Christoph Schneider, born in Frankfurt in 1989, blended into her light-footed playing with his supple tone: even and without unpleasant breaks in changes of register, balanced, with much inner peace in the finely differentiated Adagio. The final Rondo sounded playful and relaxed.[…]

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24.08.2010


[…] Fantastic, brilliant, overwhelming, – no exclamation of enthusiasm seemed apt enough to put into words the emotions of the audience following the two Saalburg concerts with the Landesjugendsinfonieorchester Hessen (LJSO). […] The musical round continued with Mozart’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A major (KV622). In the cheerful composition the atmosphere charged after Stravinsky’s bravura piece was discharged, which was now followed by a dialogue of the orchestra with the only 21-year-old solo clarinetist Christoph Schneider. The Frankfurt-born clarinettist proved to be a gifted sound artist who mastered his instrument with fascinating ease and whose every note was spot on. On Friday, Schneider rewarded the justifiably roaring storm of applause with the “Homage to Manuel de Falla” by Béla Kovàcs. In the Konzart, he presented variations of the cheeky children’s song “Ein Hund kam in die Küche” to the great delight of the guests. He was supported in his equally virtuoso and humorous improvisation by the first violinist.

Taunuszeitung, 23.08.2010


[…] In the performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, the 21-year-old Frankfurt-born clarinettist Christoph Schneider, multiple winner of the “Jugend musiziert” competition and winner of the Drosihn Sponsorship Award of the Wiesbaden Lions Club, shone. […] His virtuoso playing, sensitively accompanied by strings and winds, also prompted thunderous applause from the audience.[…]

Hanauer Anzeiger, 11.08.2010


Spontaneously, conductor Gernot Sahler raised both thumbs: the recognition went to the 18-year-old soloist Christoph Schneider, who thrilled the audience with his sovereign mastery of the instrument in Mozart’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra KV622. The solo concert was the highlight of the first symphony concert of the Peter Cornelius Orchestra in the new building of the Peter Cornelius Conservatory. […]

Mainzer Rhein-Zeitung, 15.02.2008


[…] A direct comparison with the first prize winner was almost impossible: 18-year-old Christoph Schneider is currently enrolled as a young clarinet student. In the sonata by Francis Poulenc, his consistently strong and very distinctive tone stood out, which he brought to bear both in the hectically punctuated-bell, in the cantabile romance as well as in the humorous final movement.

Mainzer Rhein-Zeitung, Oktober 2007


200 visitors got to know “stars of tomorrow” at the castle concert in the Fürstensaal […]. The wind trio with the flutist Matthias von Piechowski, the bassoonist Christian Elsner and the clarinetist Christoph Schneider kicked off the exciting, varied and multifaceted Saturday evening. […] With works by Kummer, Bozza and Koechlin, their repertoire ranged from the classical period to the 20th century. The three instrumentalists succeeded excellently in combining the characters of their instruments and their sound with the special features of the works. They played freshly, fluently, precisely and accentuated.

Oberhessische Presse, 25.07.2005


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