Britten: War Requiem

 ”….But the result was in fact enormously impressive, thanks above all to the conductor and the soloists….”  (Göteborgs Posten)­.

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Wagner: Siegfried Idyll /  Copland: Appalachian Spring

”Phipps’ clear and distinct beat, without any extravagant gesture, gave a restrained and noble interpretation, achieving balance and transparency rather than schmaltz…such unsentimentally beautiful Wagner!...”

 

”Appalachian Spring is…a loosely structured rhapsody whose constituent parts do not necessarily cohere., but they did in Simon Phipps’ hands…..Phipps enjoyed a musicianly triumph here: this was more polished and sensual Copland than I have heard for a long time…..People of his calibre are worth their weight in gold, and then some.”

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Cimarosa: Il matrimonio segreto

” An extra eulogy to the conductor Simon Phipps, who makes the Musikhögskola’s symphony orchestra play with bravura and elegance”

 

Alban Berg: Chamber concerto

”The performance was definitely high class, the soloists and orchestra displayed both sensitivity and virtuosity, excellently conducted by Simon Phipps. This conductor combines in an interesting way tension and relaxation, exuding calm but creating precision. He made the ensemble play as a perfectly integrated unit in Ida Gotkovsky’s Poème de feu, where the musik glowed like a huge welding torch”.

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Mozart ”Cosi fan tutte”

”Unavoidably one’s attention is drawn to the orchestra pit, where the music theatre’s young orchestra under Simon Phipps – a pupil of Harnoncourt but no fundamentalist -  plays Mozart with quite exceptional beauty, sensuality and expressiveness, and exceptional in terms of decades rather than years. One can only congratulate the Malmö audience.”

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Puccini: Tosca

”This was combined with, disregarding a few slips in the flute in all the  impressive performance of the orchestra, which the young conductor Simon <Phipps lead with enormous mediterranean bravoura despite his English origins. The Englishman had also a natural feel for all the small sighs, sobs and spinto outbursts. The singers and audience thanked him with tumultuous applause."

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