THE GUARDIAN, 23/7/2008, BBC Proms --- Roger Norrington has been conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra for a decade, and we think we know what to expect. (...) Yet the surprises still came. Rossini's Overture to William Tell sloughed off its hackneyed shell, the close-harmony cellos at the beginning sounding almost viol-like, and the cor anglais sonorous as a saxophone. Norrington whipped on the closing pages as if in the final furlongs of the derby. Haydn's Cello Concerto in C was never going to be as exhilarating. (...) It was Elgar's Symphony No 1, however, that was really startling, played with no vibrato. None at all, even in the normally lush string tunes of the slow movement. (...) Whether Norrington made a watertight case for this long work's architecture is arguable. But the rewards were enormous: this was an astonishingly transparent performance that revealed the colour, complexity and sheer imagination of Elgar's orchestration in glorious detail. In that way, it was revelatory.
MUSICWEB, November 2003 --- One can immediately admire the conviction, the obvious belief in a viewpoint. At their very best, the performances can emerge as a breath of fresh air; at the very worst, they are thought-provoking (no bad thing). The rethinking of standard repertoire at the behest of their Chief Conductor has seemingly energised the Stuttgart orchestra to great heights (...). These are live performances, and there can be an edge-of-the-seat energy to them yet very little loss of accuracy. Certainly there is no doubting the enthusiasm of the audiences for the end result, cheers appearing regularly after final chords.
THE INDEPENDENT, 25/8/2003 --- Norrington's way is different. Speeds and dynamics go to extremes, and the prevailing sound is lighter. He has trained the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, of which he is principal conductor, in a potent mix of period and present-day instrumental techniques that allow some uncommonly quick and quiet articulation. The mix suited Berlioz perfectly. Time and again, passages of intricate accompaniment were clarified as never before, yet without drawing attention to themselves. Against them, the sudden onslaughts of brass and percussion made a devastating impact.
THE TIMES 19/8/2003 --- Norrington's orchestral forces were his German charges, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. For the past five years he's been moulding them, stripping off fat, arranging a marriage between the asperity and thrust of the period performance style and the sonic bloom possible with modern instruments. The result was immediately apparent. (...) Time and again the orchestra landed from its flights on a snappy staccato chord; even the echo thrilled. Norrington beamed, jiggled and levitated; the performers' enjoyment was equally palpable. You wanted to scramble on to the platform and join in.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, 19/8/2003 --- This performance was fully alive to the piece's riotous energy, and its softer, more reflective moments. At the centre of all this riotous noise was Roger Norrington, the man who has done so much to reveal the true colours of early Romantic music. But the orchestral playing was no less vivid in its phrasing and sharply drawn contours than one remembered. It was a marvellous evening.
CLASSICS TODAY, 2003 --- Norrington now has a real orchestra that knows it well enough to adapt to "period style" while still retaining basic ensemble values of full tone, good intonation, accurate rhythm, and proper sectional balance. Norrington shows that he has formed some new ideas about this music, and they are good ones. Absolutely stunning live sonics (the balance between voices and instruments is perfect) provide the icing on the cake. The result is as fine a Beethoven Ninth as we are likely to hear these days, it's a performance that does the players, and particularly the conductor, proud.
FINANCIAL TIMES EUROPE, 13.5.2003 --- The lack of vibrato in the string-playing alone opens up new worlds of expressive potential. Norrington kept his excessive forces under control, and miraculously there were no accidents. Even more miraculously, the degree of refinement in the small moment was exceptional.
THE INDEPENDENT, 28/3/2003 --- The phrasing is so fluid, the way of edging from one episode to the next so completely natural that even the most sceptical will surely be won over.
THE TIMES, 25/7/2001 --- A German orchestra playing Vaughan Williams at all is unusual enough, especially a meditative symphony like the Third. Playing him this well is not supposed to be possible. Each colour combination in the composer's subtle palette blazed out, like the flute and viola, such improbable bedfellows, briefly linked in the second movement. When the offstage trumpet's folorn calls rang over hushed strings, time stood still, no one breathed: we were at one with the composer, mourning the death and devastation of the First World War.
