Nordjyske Stiftstidende 13/05/2017: Satisfying end of the symphony season
Tjaikovsky's e-minor symphony -... Takuo Yuasa put his own stamp on this symphony, with his enormous precision he formed the orchestral playing with an obvious musicality and a tangilble sense of development of the symphonic drama. The dramatic contrasts were sharply drawn without ever overlapping, from the dark clarinet in the initial march funèbre to the major painful highlights of the first movement. Yuasa steered its long dramatic evolution with a calm hand and allowed the musicians to work with the fabric so the music unfolded freely and organically.
… It was clear to hear and appreciate that Takuo Yuasa's inclusive leadership inspired the orchestra and stimulated its musicians to provide their very best. Tore Mortensen
Classicalsource.com 29/11/2013: Takuo Yuasa conducts Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande and Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben
…Central to the evening’s success was a genial and venerable
Japanese conductor, Takuo Yuasa, a globe-trotting maestro (including posts
with the Gumma SO, BBC Scottish SO and Ulster Orchestra) whose baton-less
and lucid direction inspired the student musicians to great heights. …Suffice
to say that Yuasa ensured that Pelleas’s symphonic design was kept
inevitable and he secured a vividly detailed account and with an amplitude
that did the music proud. At the end, having strolled through the orchestra
to pick various players out for individual bows, when Yuasa had them all
on their feet, he discreetly left the platform, leaving the musicians
to soak up the applause. A touching gesture.…Throughout the concert,
it was clear that the members of the GSO and Takuo Yuasa had developed
a warm and productive rapport. Whether he has been to the Guildhall School
before I know not, but I do know that he should be invited again soon. - Colin
Anderson
Nordjyske Stiftstidende 6/04/2013
…Yuasa set out the contrasts and vivid phrasing he wanted in the first minutes of the symphony (Brahms’s second) as if it had pure ballet music in it. His leadership of the orchestra was precise and authoritative so that all musicians and instrumental groups were alight with concentration as they played.
...... and towards the end all the good forces were gathered together in a gradual accumulation to a dramatic and glorious completion with a sense of final redemption.” - Tore
Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace 27/03/2013 Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra & Takuo Yuasa
“For both works (Debussy’s “La Mer” & Respighi’s “Fountains of Rome”), the precise conducting and winning way of Takuo Yuasa stimulated the musicians of the Philharmonic. And the audience tasted the key atmosphere of the music through a nursing of fluctuations that varied from calmness to a full maelstrom. - M.M
The Irish Times 23/03/ 2010: TAKUO YUASA & RTE National Symphony Orchestra
…Conductor Takuo Yuasa was in his element, shaping a foundation of warmth and soft focus, yet picking out detail and then finding a new depth of expression when the boy Agee finds his thoughts drifting to deep philosophical ones. Contrasting Yuasa’s skill in shaping Barber’s soft lines was his quicksilver execution in the high-speed outer movements of Beethoven’s zesty Symphony No 2 – this despite electing to go with a full string complement.…Yuasa’s irrepressible take on the 1812 Overture found the NSO in flying form and closed the evening with smiles all round. - Michael Dungan
www.concertonet.com 14/03/2009: Victoires
Prokofiev Cinquième symphonie - …D’une cohésion exemplaire, l’orchestre y confirme le statut qu’il a conquis durant les dernières années, livrant, sous la direction éclairée et sûre de Takuo Yuasa, une interprétation de haute tenue, où tout semble respirer naturellement et se mettre en place comme sans effort. Dans un tempo véritablement Andante, le premier mouvement renonce au grandiose mais sans être néanmoins chiche de puissance épique, suivi d’un Allegro marcato toujours mobile, tour à tour ironique, mordant et rageur. Après un Adagio juste de ton, d’une remarquable qualité d’expression et de phrasé, la tension ne retombe pas un seul instant dans l’Allegro giocoso final. Fidèle à sa mission, la formation francilienne continue ainsi de porter avec une réjouissante exigence la musique jusqu’aux confins de la région. - Simon Corley
www.classicalsource.com 4/02/2005: LPO Yuasa
Yuasa achieved a wonderfully still opening to La mer and displayed a keen ear for the constantly changing timbres in this miraculous work. The middle movement worked up a fine momentum before subsiding to its quiet close, and in the final one Yuasa again brought out elemental contrasts, one moment the heartbeat almost stilled, the next turbulent and forceful – and leading to a climax of considerable power.
Sibelius Symphony No.1- …Yuasa caught the mood throughout with a commitment to the latent strength in the music. This was a full-blooded, romantic interpretation with no holes barred. …the untold tale that lies at the heart of the finale was vividly captured and led to a coda of considerable grandiloquence. Ravel Piano Concerto in G - …Yuasa and his players accompanied with panache and spirit,… - Edward Clark
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