PRESS
Reviews
PRESS QUOTES
“Musical strength...commanding manner...very convincing...grandeur and power...the phrases firmly and decisively sculpted...”
London Times
“Technical brilliance, a clarity of color, richness of imagery, and sincerity of performance...a nobility of artistic manner...Frank Wiens is a brilliant representative of the American school of piano technique.”
Yaroslavl, USSR
“Eloquent phrasing and nobility of conception”
Los Angeles Times
“There is much to admire in Mr. Wiens’s playing. He has a secure technique and built Aaron Copland’s “Piano Variations” block by sonic block into a starkly majesterial conception. One also admired his assured way with Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor...Mr. Wiens proved himself capable of tenderness...”
New York Times
“Frank Wiens ...is a major pianist. His performance of the Rachmaninoff concert Saturday night was the kind for which you drag out all the big adjectives-tremendous, titanic, sensational, superb-and then disgustedly put them back again because they aren’t good enough. It delivered the very soul of this Romantic masterpiece with all its dazzle, ache and love.”
Sacramento Bee
“Great tenderness and delicacy...a flowingly sensitive performance.”
Florida Times-Union
“Wiens is unexcelled in concerto program”
Denver Post
“Wiens presents a stunning recital...a young artist to reckon with...a performance of stunning technical pianism, unfailing stylistic affinity...and widely varied dynamic range.”
Palo Alto Times
“Elegant and lucid”
Des Moines Register
“Recital in Carmel Memorable...Wiens demonstrated one of the most transparent and revealing of keyboard techniques this town has heard in a long time...Wiens shot ever-sparkling lights and colors from the keyboard.”
Monterey Peninsula Herald (1982)
“A marvelously beautiful, inspired performance.”
Newport News Daily Press
“Frank Wiens...has style and a commanding stage presence...a most musical and reliable performer, a pianist with a big sound.”
Rocky Mountain News
“A musician secure enough with his art and clear enough in his head that he feels no need to exaggerate, distort or proclaim. What Wiens did was elucidate. He simply opened windows onto the music.”
Tucson Citizen
“Glittering passagework and patrician elegance.”
Erie Times
“Pianist Frank Wiens played a brilliant recital in the Vocal Performance Hall at California State University, Fresno, even though he had only a few days notice to replace the scheduled artist, Horacio Gutierrez, who was ill. Wiens is a master of tone color. In his hands, each note sparkled. Each phrase unfolded with nuanced perfection.”
The Fresno Bee
“The highlight of the concert was Frank Wiens’ performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 415. Wiens handled the conventional classical virtuosity of running scales, arpeggios, etc. of this otherwise polyphonic first movement with ease and clarity and a lightness of touch enhanced by rare use of the sustaining pedal. The Andante was sensitively performed and the Finale, incorporating unusual adagio passages in C Minor in an otherwise light movement, sparkled with the gaiety and elegance one associates with a classical concerto finale.”
Ames Tribune
“A stunning performance of the Rachmaninoff ‘Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini’ with guest soloist Frank Wiens. This writer has not been so moved by a concerto performance in years.. Wiens’ mastery of the piano is of first rank.”
Idaho State Journal
“Wiens...played a beautiful program. His Mozart ...was as clean, as free from indulgences and blemishes, as stainless steel sculpture. This is not to say it was emotionless. It sparkled and sighed plenty, but all the expression was firmly leashed within the borders of classical propriety. It was hard to imagine [Mozart] with more honesty and taste and reverence for the composer’s spirit. Wiens tuned in equally well to Debussy. ‘La terrasse des audiences du clair du lune’ had this gorgeous inky hue-quiet, liquid, reflective.
He closed with Schumann’s ‘Carnaval’. It seemed to grow more intense and impressive with each vignette...Wiens integrated personal passion with architectural logic.”
Tucson Citizen
“‘Carnaval’ defined the evening. The pianist seems to understand Schumann musically. There is a world within Wiens’ Schumann that is not reducible to one perspective, and that made the performance riveting.”
The Arizona Daily Star
“Wiens, a first-rate player, gave an excellent performance of this virtuoso piece, playing with bravado, flair, solid technique and an iron concentration.”
Bakersfield Californian
“Frank Wiens mastered a weighty, admirably balanced program...his recital here revealed a mature, well- rounded artistry...Wiens’s performance cohered marvelously-it was noble in conception and almost flawless in execution. Especially exciting was the motoric drive the pianist imparted to the fugal section, giving it plenty of contrast with the gravity of the measures immediately preceding. The recitalist opened the program with an incisive yet richly emotive reading of Copland’s Piano Variations.”
Flint Journal
“Very rarely does one hear a musical interpretation of such skill, integrity, authority and empathy with the composer that you know you have heard the definitive performance...Although the compositions offer enormous technical and rhythmic difficulties and thematic complexities, Wiens made them lucid, coherent and accessible.”
The Stockton Record
“We have now heard Frank Wiens, a pianist of the first rank...throughout the program, Mr. Wiens had plenty of contrast, but nowhere was there bombast. The fast tempos were very bright but never sounded like velocity was his goal. Rather, it was fine musicianship that came to the fore. Each phrase was shaped beautifully and in the proper relation to the next phrase...Superb use of dynamics, touch, and pedal produced the ‘orchestral’ effect often sought after but seldom achieved, particularly in Beethoven’s music...Chopin played with genuine warmth (but not schmaltz)...Wiens completely captivated me with his flowing lines and beautiful liquid runs...Wiens made the left hand arpeggios in the Prelude Op. 23, #2 [Rachmaninov] into wondrous great rolling waves of the seas, a thrilling piece that filled the auditorium with sound...In my opinion, we’ve not heard a better pianist since I came here nine years ago.”
Kerrville Daily Times
“Pianist Frank Wiens proved an equally sympathetic interpreter in Liszt’s ‘Totentanz’ and Franck’s ‘Les Djinns’. The Liszt piece provided an ideal opportunity for Wiens to demonstrate formidable technique.”
Sacramento Union
“In the usual high quality performance we have come to expect from Wiens, he tossed off the flying passages of the first movement with clarity and precision. The hymn-like adagio of the second movement was rendered with great beauty and sensitivity. The rollicking rondo was a delight, and the Beethovenian humor was never more striking.”
Vero Beach Press Journal
“Wiens...caught the exact nuance of each phrase. With a formidable pianistic technique and an obvious understanding and appreciation of the work, he offered a performance both emotionally and intellectually satisfying. His interpretation of the 18th variation, the best-known section, had an almost visceral emotional urgency.”
The Record (Stockton)