BBC MAGAZINE, "Who is who in music"
New Blood: Jan G. Jiracek (German, 1973)
A forceful, mature personality with a formidable technique and playing of emotional depth.
_____________________
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Jiracek possesses a muscular, broad, colorful technique, makes music with great spontaneity and communicates strongly with his listeners. His program showed his strenghts, his impeccable taste and his love of music.
_____________________
NEW YORK TIMES
His playing had both an animating spark of originality and great technical assurance.
_____________________
DIE WELT (Germany)
A Young Majesty at the Piano
Germany’s man at the piano, Jiracek joins the ranks of a new generation of pianists who do not need to fear comparison with pianists of the past.
_____________________
The Herald, South Africa | Rupert Mayr
A captivating performance
Right from the opening bars Jiracek captivated his audience by exemplary clarity, dynamic restraint and equal attention given to both thematic lines and accompaniment figures. Even more important, however, was an interpretation that convincingly elucidated the compositional logic and coherence of the work.
Throughout his performance one couldn’t but admire the apparent ease with which our distinguished visitor handled the often excesssive technical demands.
Thunderous applause and a, for once well-deserved, standing ovation resulted in a charming encore that brought a truly sensational concert to a quiet and relaxed close.
_____________________
Fort Worth Star Telegram | Wayne Lee Gay
Typical of a Jiracek performance, the repertoire itself bespoke a pianist of remarkable stamina and range of emotion, stretching from mentally demanding middle-period Beethoven to the 20th-century mysticism of Oliver Messiaen, and including muscles-stressing works of Schumann, Chopin and Stravinksy.
Jiracek met the challenge with his usual combination of total technical control, expressive imagination and grasp of form and structure, both within each of the four movements and over the grand stretch of the whole piece. In Jiracek's case, a firm central European approach, which can deteriorate into a dry academicism, produces crystal-pure, cosmopolitan musicality that lifts this music to a universal level.
Jiracek molded his unassailable technique to his command of musical architecture to build an impressive sweep of emotions and color.
(...)
_____________________
NEW YORK TIMES
Cliburn Piano Competition: A "Loser" Neither Bloody Nor Unbowed
By ALLAN KOZINN
Just as the quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was heading into its final weekend in Fort Worth, a star of the 1997 Cliburn, Jan Gottlieb Jiracek, turned up at Alice Tully Hall to give a dazzling performance of the Liszt E flat major Concerto with the Riverside Symphony. Mr. Jiracek was a favorite among critics and other music professionals as well as with the audience in 1997, and he was the clear winner in an informal press room poll, but the jury apparently thought otherwise. That he was not awarded one of the top three prizes seemed proof that the mechanisms for selecting the most original and exciting players in competitions are fatally flawed.
Mr. Jiracek seems none the worse for the experience. His fresh, buoyant account of the Liszt on Thursday evening created the illusion that this showpiece is a greater work than it is. That isn't to say that he ignored the showiness. In the opening bars he produced as grand a sound as one could want and showed that the flair for dramatic phrasing that was his hallmark in 1997 remains a central part of his arsenal. Nor did he skimp on the fireworks in the finale.
But there was more than that. Mr. Jiracek knows when and how to let drama melt into lyricism, or to transform a solid wall of piano sound into a texture of crystalline clarity. And his reading of the Allegro vivace was crisp, spirited and enlivened by a subtle humor. The Riverside players, with George Rothman on the podium, supported Mr. Jiracek fully.
(...)
_____________________
BERLINER MORGENPOST (Germany)
Where is Jiracek´s artistic home? The pianist answered this question handily in his astonishing appearance in the praiseworthy Philharmonic Series "Sundays at Four: Piano" - everywhere from Bach to Messiaen.
_____________________
PIANOTIME (Magazine, Rome)
We would mandate someone like this in every trust to perform the complete Beethoven sonatas.
_____________________
The Herald | Rupert Mayr | February 23, 2006
Jan Gottlieb Jiracek vows Port Elizabeth audience
The all-romantic programme Jiracek chose for his recital not only allowed him to fully utilise the wide range of his pianistic abilities but also turned into a fascinating survey of the evolution of a virtuosic idiom specific to the potential of the instrument. At the same time it also bore witness to the widening of the harmonic language and the creation of new structures best suited to counterbalance emotional intensity with the need for musical coherence.
Opening his recital with works by Schumann, Jiracek paid tribute to the 150th anniversary of the composer's death and also introduced his audience to the world of youthful emotions and phantasy. In the finer details of his interpretations, moreover, he exposed Schumann's position as one of the great innovators in pianistic textures and sounds. This emerged right from his performance of "Faschingschwank aus Wien, Op.26" where he systematically contrasted the "hammering" main theme of the opening bars with the gentle and highly transparent sounds of the various episodes.
By continuously opposing declamatory outbursts of almost orchestral intensity with soft and questioning lines Jiracek successfully moulded the opening movement of Schumann's "Fantasie in C Major, Op.17" into an utterly exciting portrayal of a young man forever torn between conflicting feelings. Its overall effect was further increased by brilliant separation of different layers, coupled to constantly varying textures and colours. While youthful and typical Schumannesque drive permeated the second movement, the mysterious sounds of "Langsam getragen" opened the way into an entirely new harmonic idiom. The long silence following the end of Jiracek's deeply moving interpretation convincingly proved the impact of this great and unique work.
Marvellous dynamic control, delicate, sparkingly played ornamental figures and carefully applied agogic accents then turned Chopins popular "Nocturnes" into miniature jewels of truly exceptional beauty.
The dark opening of Liszt's "Harmonies du soir" momentarily returned us to Schumann's idiom but as the short movement moved towards its climax, the composer's virtuosic idiom took over. With a display of brilliant agility and truly breathtaking virtuosity our distinguished guest finally turned "Hungarian Rhapsody No.13 in A Minor" into the hoped-for fireworks everybody loves to hear at the end of a big performance.
Thanking for a well-deserved standing ovation Jiracek added "Liebestraum" and two witty miniatures to an unforgettable evening of beautiful music.
_____________________
Kwazulu-Natal News | February 17, 2006
A dazzling concert
Following his hugely successful recital for the Friends of Music two days earlier, the German-Slovakian pianist Jan Gottlieb Jiracek gave a dazzling display when he appeared with the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra in the Durban City Hall.
There was an unusually large audience for a programme of Mendelssohn, Liszt and Brahms. Perhaps the season’s opening concert of the season, at which the new Steinway piano was inaugurated, has stimulated support for the orchestra. One certainly hopes so. Good attendances will help ensure the survival of good music in KwaZulu/Natal.
On this occasion the customers certainly got their money’s worth. Jan Gottlieb Jiracek is an exceptionally gifted pianist and he has the kind of magnetism that establishes an immediate link with his audiences. To use an overworked word in its correct context, he has charisma.
Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major is a showpiece, of course, designed by the composer to show off his own prodigious abilities at the keyboard. But there is also plenty of poetry and emotion and passion in it, all of which was eloquently interpreted by Mr Jiracek. Amid all the fireworks there was nothing finer than his playing of the long romantic soliloquy for the piano at the start of the slow movement, in which he produced a most beautiful tone in the piano’s upper register. With a large audience there is usually some audible fidgeting or coughing at some point or another. This time you could have heard a pin drop, so rapt was the attention of the listeners.
Acknowledging the foot-stamping ovation, the pianist gave a nine-minute encore, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 in A minor, played again with poetry as well as virtuosity.
The orchestra, conducted by Croatian-born Alexander Kalajdzic, was an admirable partner with the pianist in the Liszt. (...) How fortunate we are to have live music of this quality in Durban. - Michael Green
Repertoire list