Reviews & Interviews

CD reviews

Steve Reich said of : “Morning. Integration of voice with string quartet beautifully done – particularly first entrance. Writing for instruments is solid and sounds very good to me. Very honest stuff”.
5th Review of Songs, Solos and Duos – new disc, 2017 – Colin Clarke (Fanfare)
https://divineartrecords.com/review/david-braid-songs-solos-duos-fanfare-review/
4th Review of Songs, Solos and Duos – new disc, 2017 –
http://www.planethugill.com/2017/12/david-braid-songs-solos-and-duos.html?m=1
3rd Review of Songs, Solos and Duos – new disc, 2017 – https://crosseyedpianist.com/2017/11/22/david-braid-songs-solos-duos/
2nd Review of Songs, Solos and Duos – new disc, 2017 – http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Nov/Braid_songs_MSV28575.htm
1st Review of Songs, Solos and Duos – new disc, 2017 – https://divineartrecords.com/review/david-braid-songs-solos-and-duos-review/?aelia_cs_currency=GBP%20another%20great%20review
Range of reviews at the Divine Art website –
https://divineartrecords.com/recording/david-braid-songs-solos-and-duos/
“The use of counterpoint in the hypnotic setting of Neruda in Morning is gripping” – Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine
New review of Chamber and Instrumental Music CD by Gavin Dixon: http://www.classical-cd-reviews.com/2013/12/david-braid-chamber-and-instrumental.html
“David Braid, for instance, ‘wanted to avoid the more obvious lament-type work’, and instead composed a four-part fugue. This could have been as dry as dust, but not at all. Within its very short time-frame, this ‘music with motion and direction, with linear purpose – like life itself’ achieves as intense a depth of expression as its companions, but by very different means.” MusicWeb International review of Toccata Classics TOCC 0504 Music for My Move, Vol. 3: (Out of the darkness for string orchestra): musicweb-international
“These recent chamber works represent the mature style of an intensely self-critical composer who acknowledges a wide diversity of enthusiasms and influences, which have been thoroughly absorbed into a personal idiom… …Clear, eloquent counterpoint and an elegant purity of line characterize the works” – recordsinternational.com
This setting [Morning]… is spellbindingly beautiful and is varied by the quartet’s differing textures and rhythms… Braid immediately conjures up a distinctive sound world… a lovely atmospheric dreamscape… … a lovely work, full of unusual charm and invention [Music for Dancers – piano trio]… …I am really glad to have heard these attractive works and hope to hear more from this fascinating composer – theclassicalreviewer.blogspot.co.uk
Sonata for Quartet (actually a piano trio plus clarinet) makes a progression from formless sonority to a satisfyingly structural and energetic fugue… …Morning, for soprano and string quartet, makes an arresting opening, with shimmering tremolando strings and the searing purity of Grace Davidson’s vocal line; the work exhibits a paradoxical combination of intensity and attenuation… …David Braid avoids the demanding compositional density of much contemporary music, and has instead a more direct quality, generating atmosphere with a sparse, textural clarity, while demonstrating a keen interest in form. Josie Dixon, Oxford Today
David Braid combines a strong intellectual structure with emotional power and some memorably haunting passages. Amazon and iTunes review, October 2015

Full reviews

Concert reviews

Geoff Brown said in The Times (of Wilton’s Music Hall concert by the Braid-Podobedov Duo on Sept 3rd 2014): This programme, labelled Electric Elizabethans+, tickled the ears with delicate counterpoint, melancholic melodic lines… …Braid’s own pieces were poised, wistful and half-modelled on the Elizabethan ways, at least until the jabbing velocity reached in his Symphony for Two. Whatever the temperature of the music, Braid’s playing stayed a subtle delight, so neatly flecked with decorative flourishes that we could have been listening to his other speciality, the Renaissance lute.
The Braid-Podobedov Duo at the 1901 Arts Club, May 2014 by Frances Wilson: “David’s own compositions were haunting, delicate, fleeting – the Waltzes in particular had great poignancy and tenderness…This was a most intriguing and unusual concert, beautifully presented. It is hard to describe the sound of the archtop guitar with the piano: at times it recalls the Renaissance lute (which David also plays) while also sounding entirely contemporary, thus making the music sound both ancient and modern. David’s own compositions were haunting, delicate, fleeting.” Read full review here: http://crosseyedpianist.com/2014/05/10/a-week-of-music/