Reviews

Aftonbladet review:
"Det lilla skivbolaget dB Productions har envist och framgångsrikt satsat på att lyfta fram den länge glömda Amanda Maiers (1853-94) musik. Maier härstammade från Landskrona men gifte med sig med en holländsk tonsättarkollega Julius Röntgen, och de levde ett lyckligt och jämlikt musikeräktenskap tillsammans i Amsterdam. De två första skivorna har väckt både svensk och internationell uppmärksamhet. Nu kommer den tredje och väl sista, om det inte dyker upp flera fynd i gömmorna. Pärlan på den här cd:n är just ett sådant fynd.

Ett av Amandas barnbarnsbarn letade för ett par år sedan genom de nothögar han ärvt av sin mor och fann en pianotrio av Amanda skriven 1873 och spelad en del i hennes musikaliskt kvalificerade hemmiljö. Den uruppfördes offentligt så sent som nu i våras i Umeå av Cecilia Zilliacus, Kati Raitinen och Bengt Forsberg, som också spelar här på skivan. Det är ett inspirerat verk av en rikt begåvad tjugoåring. Visserligen är hon starkt påverkad av Schumanns kammarmusik, men hon har en påfallande personlig uttrycksvilja, det flödar av goda idéer och särskilt den schwungfulla finalen är oemotståndlig.

Skivans övriga innehåll är lättviktigare men klart hörvärt. Inte minst de stycken, som paret Maier-Röntgen komponerade tillsammans till en julfest 1880 under titeln St.Nicholas-Schwank. Den första är en fin variant av sången Allt under himmelens fäste för cello och piano, som man väl får gissa har Amanda som upphovskvinna."

- Lennart Bromander

Recording: Amanda Maier (released Oct 2017). Sonata for Violin & Piano in B minor, 9 pieces for violin & piano, four songs

"Cecilia Zilliacus and Bengt Forsberg play this ravishing score with a melting sensitivity, phrasal intuitiveness and infectious spontaneity so completely at one with the music, it feels as though one is on a hot-line to the composer's original source of inspiration."
Read the entire five star review from BBC Music Magazine here

Listen to review on BBC 3! (about 14 min into the programme)

Read the review from Hifi & Musik here (in swedish)

Review in Dagens Nyheter (in swedish).

Review in Aftonbladet (in swedish)

Article in Svenska Dagbladet (in swedish)

Article in Violinist.

Review in OPUS Magazine (in swedish)

Record played in the P2 morning program at SR Radio (at 01.05)

Recording: Contemporary Violin Concertos - 2017

Voted the best 10 percent of what American Record Guide reviewed in 2017

We asked our writers to list the best 10 percent of what they reviewed in 2017 issues, maximum 10. This is “forced choice”—meaning that most of us would rather be allowed a few more top choices, so we have to cut down our preliminary lists. Some of us never list reissues; most of us only list music we really like, even if there were great recordings of music we like less.
- Donald Vroon, American Record Guide 2017.



"...a beautifully direct, no-nonsense account, Zilliacus focused, sometimes slightly piercing sound cutting through the richness of Skog’s orchestral writing, before things burst into more vibrant life in the folky finale...the traditionally virtuosic violin writing allows Zilliacus to show off her easy agility, tonal flexibility and beautifully judged vibrato"
- David Kettle, The Strad

Read full The Strad review here



"The one common denominator for this CD is violinist Cecilia Zilliacus. Her playing is outstanding in every sense – spot-on intonation, sensitive dynamically and fully attuned to the music. She seems to be the ideal advocate for this new music."
- Mark Novak, Fanfare

Read Gramophone review here

Recording: "Dansa"

"Lena Willemark is a Swedish folk singer, and her chorales are a solo-voice wail, plangent and moving, that cuts across Cecilia Zilliacus’s admirable violin like an echo from a ritual past. Bach lies behind the other pieces: too literally in Svante Henryson’s Sonata, more subtly in Sven-David Sandström’s highly original Dansa, where voice and violin intertwine and for one movement a second violin joins the evocative texture with Bach quotations."
- Nicolas Kenyon, The Observer
Read full The Guardian review here

"After her superlative recording of Nielsen’s Violin Concerto last year (reviewed in March 2016) Cecilia Zilliacus presents something totally different. Or is it? Not entirely. The earthiness that made her Nielsen so idiomatic is ever-present on this fascinating and unusual recording in which the language of Nordic folk music provides the predominant aesthetic....Zilliacus plays with spacious fortitude and technical brilliance (tuning doesn’t ever waver)."
Read full The Strad review here

"Classical violinist Cecilia Zilliacus and the violinist and singer Lena Willemark are a collaboration to notice. With nude versions of Bach's "Solopartita in D-Moll", Sven-David Sandströms "Dansa" and cellist Svante Henryson's "Sonata", the music is reinvented. Listen, if you have heard everything!"
- Sofia Lilly Jönsson, SvD

"Joy of discovery in original and successful interaction between violinist Cecilia Zilliacus and singer Lena Willemark"
- Camilla Lundberg, Dagens Nyheter

Concert Reviews

"A Violin Concerto that has it all.
Cecilia Zilliacus lent her light yet firm hand to the enigmatic solo part of this Concerto. A beautiful reading and performance by one of our most gifted soloists"
(Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm; on H.W. Henze Violin Concerto No 3, Oct 2006)


"A very mature young soloist by the name of Cecilia Zilliacus, gave a clear and wonderfully well disposed reading of the Mozart A-Major Concerto under Alexander Lazarev. Soloist and conductor seemed perfectly united in the sense of sound and structure of the music."
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra


"This first performance was followed by Sibelius’ Violin Concerto with the staggering Cecilia Zilliacus as soloist. She performed with a clean and pure tone that came close to the inner heart of this music. Her mature and reflective way of playing rendered the music an inner life that was extraordinary…"
Sibelius Violin Concerto (cond Michail Jurowski, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra)


"The really magnificent performance on this night came with Cecilia Zilliacus, when playing Sofia Gubaidulina’s Violin Concerto, called Offertorium (from 1980). She was an intense and excellent interpreter of this demanding music, with its mystic, hymn-like, yet human qualities."
Gubaidulina, Offertorium , Stockholm Philharmonic, cond Andrey Boreyko (2000).


"Cecilia Zilliacus took on the virtuoso solo part of the Mendelssohn e-minor Concerto. And she did it with a self exposing, very soulful interpretation. It was characterised by her elegance and light playing. Her presence seemed to enlighten this lyrical music from inside."
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, Swedish Chamber Orchestra (Örebro), cond Joseph Swensen


"Cecilia Zilliacus played the extremely difficult solo part of this Concerto with great authority. It contains everything, from genuinely traditional virtuoso passages to parts in more modern style with big glissandi and swelling vibrati. She should be grateful to have such a great work to play, and indeed, the composer should be grateful to have such a supreme interpreter of his piece."
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Olari Elts; Mika Pelo – Violin Concerto. (2003)


"In Cecilia Zilliacus we have a violinist of international stature. She was the soloist in Beethoven´s wonderful Violin Concerto. She filled the hall and her instrument with a rich, colourful and expressive tone. She delivered a highly concentrated and deliberate interpretation of this piece. The solo cadenza in the first movement was a truly sparkling experience."
Beethoven Violin Concerto, Karlstad Symphony Orch., Sweden (2006)


"The soloist Cecilia Zilliacus fascinated us with her performance, combining finesse and intensity. Her beautiful, almost romantic melodies in the Aria II, were given a refined and warm beauty in every note. The elegant changes between lightness and intensity in the Capriccio mouvement, were beautifully executed by Zilliacus. As it should be, with a real soloist, this was indeed an artistic statement and presentation, rather than merely a technical achievement."
Cecilia Zilliacus, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic / cond Susanna Mälkki
27 & 29 May 2010 / Stockholm Concert Hall
Lars Hedblad / Svenska Dagbladet 30 May 2010