The Opera Critic 5 June 2008 Daniel Harding conducted the orchestra with great skill, differentiating the sound required for the two works, and giving a demonstration of interpretative maturity. Silvia Luraghi Le Figaro 30 May 2008 Daniel Harding, à la tête de l'Orchestre de la Scala, est totalement inspiré par une musique dont la construction dodécaphonique n'empêche pas le lyrisme dramatique. Daniel Harding est aussi à l'aise en deuxième partie dans le lyrisme tonal de Béla Bartok, dont Le Château de Barbe-Bleue, donné pour la première fois en 1918, est le seul opéra. Financial Times 27 May 2008 What impresses most is the lucidity and beauty of Dallapiccola’s score under Daniel Harding’s baton. The music may be 12-tone but it is leavened by such moments as the Jailer’s jaunty revolutionary song and it underscores the Prisoner’s hopefulness with perky textures and tempered astringency. George Loomis Wiener Zeitung 20 May 2008 Diese Aufgabe übernimmt Daniel Harding, der die zum Teil gar nicht nach Zwölftonmusik klingende Partitur weich und einfühlsam dirigiert. Stephan Burianek Il Giornale della musica 19 May 2008 A delightful pair at La Scala, received with well-deserved applause for Peter Stein's direction of both productions, and for Daniel Harding who conducted superbly an orchestra in fine form. He analysed and rendered Dallapiccola's incredibly polyphonic complexity very clearly, while underlining the enigmatic appeal of Bartók rather than his bitterness. Stefano Jacini Il Giornale della musica 19 May 2008 Felice accoppiata alla Scala, accolta con meritati applausi per Peter Stein, che ha firmato entrambe le regie, e Daniel Harding che ha diretto ottimamente un'orchestra in buonissima salute. Ha analizzato e resa con lucidità la grande complessità polifonica di Dallapiccola, mentre di Bartok ha sottolineato le dolcezze e il mistero piuttosto che le asprezze (un po' più di decibels nei pianissimi non avrebbe guastato). Stefano Jacini The Observer 5 March 2006 Daniel Harding takes imperious command in the pit, wrenching every ounce of unease, sadism and suffering from this relentlessly searing score. Anthony Holden The Telegraph 4 March 2006 The main reason to catch this revival is Daniel Harding's conducting. This is not a hard, fast, dry reading of the score: Harding catches all its Mahlerian poignancy and brings out instrumental detail with ravishing lucidity. Rupert Christiansen The Guardian 1 March 2006 Keith Warner's staging seethes through Daniel Harding's conducting. Tim Ashley Evening Standard 28 February 2006 Daniel Harding conducted Berg's sinuous score, with all it's riddles and ciphers and strange allusions, with clarity and integrity. Fiona Maddocks Opera News March 2006 Harding, warmly applauded on December 16, created a strong sense of dramatic momentum without ever rushing the singers and revealed an exceptional sensitivity to the ways in which Mozart's orchestral accompaniments mirror and expose the emotions of the characters, even in the shortest recitatives. He also encouraged the sort of vibrato-free string playing that is associated with "authentic" performance practice, creating a lean sound quite like anything heard form the excellent Scala orchestra in recent years. Stephen Hastings The Telegraph 9 December 2005 Daniel Harding...was cheered to the rafters and overnight became Milan's new musical hero. If he wanted to succeed Muti at La Scala (apparently he doesn't), the crown would be his for the asking. Harding doesn't drive Mozart hard and fast, in the fashionable "authentic" style. He phrases it lovingly, savouring the instrumental detail and the melodic lines...the performance had a warmth and grace that had been missing under Muti's baton. Rupert Christiansen New York Times 9 December 2005 ...on the podium was a modest 30-year-old Englishman, Daniel Harding, who, even more than several fine singers in the cast, won a 12-minute ovation for his interpretation of Mozart's "Idomeneo". Alan Riding The Guardian 9 December 2005 For the first time in nearly 20 years, it was not Muti who presided over the Scala's showcase night but a foreigner, England's Daniel Harding. Harding's approach and sound are worlds away from his predecessor's, but his commitment was fearless and he received a tremendous ovation from the ultra-critical Milanese. Martin Kettle The Times 9 December 2005 "La Scala reborn," said La Repubblica, reporting the 12-minute ovation for Harding. "A miracle in Milan!quot; said Corriere della Sera...Harding got a performance of verve and pace from the orchestra, as well as from the cast, all making their La Scala debuts. Richard Owen Bloomberg News 8 December 2005 Daniel Harding brought a fresh and stylistically informed approach to the Scala orchestra. Brisk tempi, clear articulation and detailed phrasing gave a period-instrument feel to his Mozart...Harding already has his own voice as a Mozart interpreter, and the technique to make it heard. Shirley Apthorp The Guardian 8 December 2005 Last night's performance proved to be a triumph. After two curtain calls, Harding joined the cast on stage for a 12-minute ovation. Members of the audience praised him for his "energy and verve". The president of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who was present, said: "I saw it with new eyes". Barbara McMahon The Telegraph 21 July 2005 Daniel Harding's conducting is an absolute joy. With the overture treated in a muscular Beethovenian fashion, I thought we were in for a robustly extrovert reading. But the mood soon softens, and the arias are accompanied with exquisite delicacy, at relaxed tempi which allow both singers and the superb players of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra to honour Mozart's finer points...ravishing music making. Rupert Christiansen Deutschlandfunk 11 July 2005 Daniel Harding makes sure that the Mahler Chamber Orchestra carries the singers - sensitively accompanied... Frieder Reininghaus El Pais 11 July 2005 Wonderful was the Mahler Chamber Orchestra... J.A. Vella del Campo Il Giornale della Musica 10 July 2005 Daniel Harding's batonless conducting of the Mahler Chamber is lucid and exhaustive, while paying the utmost attention to the voices: bursts of mistral wind during the open-air performance occasionally risked isolating the choir, yet the director demonstrated skill in overcoming all unforeseen circumstances. The pianissimos were extraordinary, the brass and woodwinds surfacing with maximum definition; there was absolute transparency in every passage, often with strings of surprising and never-before-heard sonority. Stefano Jacini Il Giornale della Musica July 2003 Harding understood very well the Mozartian theatrical mechanisms, allowing the freshness of this music to emerge, making evident the fusion between German 'sinfonismo' and the typical wit of the Italian comic work, and taking advantage of the colours of the fortepiano and bugles. Gianluigi Mattietti Opera News April 2003 Harding's tempos were fast, but he coaxed a wondrous transparency from the orchestra. Jeffrey Leipsic The Observer 1 September 2002 The twists and turns of Britten's chilling, at times blood-curdling, score are boldly, even fiercely, rendered by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Daniel Harding. The cumulative effect is deeply disturbing, as no doubt Britten intended. Anthony Holden The Sunday Times 1 September 2002 (He) conducted the most "expressionist" account of this score I have ever heard...spinetingling... Hugh Canning The Stage 29 August 2002 (He) convincingly merges the jaunty and the threatening in his astute reading, never overpowering the soloists and often unpicking even further Britten's already abbreviated lyricism.   The Daily Telegraph 28 August 2002 Daniel Harding conducted the superb Mahler Chamber Orchestra in a high-octane interpretation which never lets the tension sag for a bar. Rupert Christiansen The Times 27 August 2002 Daniel Harding and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra relished every colour, every structural screw twist, in Britten's score. Geoff Brown Divento Online 26 August 2002 Each soloist from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Daniel Harding's crystal-clear direction adds sharp strength to the action. Omer Corlaix Edinburgh Evening News 26 August 2002 Superb throughout - never intruding on the singing and adding to the tension at every opportunity. Thom Dibdin The Guardian 26 August 2002 Daniel Harding's conducting with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra really takes risks and pushes so hard at the limit of the chamber scoring it comes close to expressionism; he...is offering new perspectives... Andrew Clements The Scotsman 24 August 2002 Underpinning everything, Daniel Harding's direction of Britten's fiery score elicited illuminating sounds from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Kenneth Walton The Herald 24 August 2002 The small Mahler Chamber Orchestra, conducted with high clarity by Daniel Harding, at times practically blows the roof off the King's Theatre. Conrad Wilson The Daily Telegraph 8 July 2002 What lifted the performance, however, was Daniel Harding's electrifying conducting. Next year he returns for Wozzeck. The dates are already in my diary. Rupert Christiansen The Stage 17 January 2002 Most remarkable of all is Daniel Harding's searing traversal of the score. He discovers its unnerving dissonances, effortlessly realising the coruscating instrumental colouring, the rhythmic drive and the moments of diatonic release. He reveals it as the contemporary masterpiece it is. David Blewitt Sunday Times 13 January 2002 In the pit, Daniel Harding directs the Soloists of the Royal Opera house...with acute sensitivity to the shape of this cleverly fashioned score. Stephen Pettitt Daily Telegraph 9 January 2002 Driving them all hard was the conductor Daniel Harding. His reading of the score, superbly played by a small ensemble drawn from the resident orchestra, was boldly exuberant and unfailingly responsive to the spellbinding drama unfolding on the stage. Rupert Christiansen The Independent 9 January 2002 His (Britten's) nocturnal music was always his most compelling, but here, thrown into the sharpest relief by the soloists of the Royal Opera House...under Daniel Harding, it assumes and hallucinatory brilliance. Edward Seckerson Evening Standard 8 January 2002 It is, conducted by Daniel Harding, a radically expanded, differently interpreted and revelatory experience of the music... But Harding's boldness and expressive forcefulness, with what is considered a delicate chamber work, both match the needs of this grand environment and fulfil Warner's vision of what it is all fundamentally about. Tom Sutcliffe The Times 8 January 2002 In the pit Daniel Harding and the ROH Orchestra's soloists caught all the colour in Britten's chamber score, some of it surprisingly harsh, and they also caught every whit of spookiness in the piece. I found it all quite terrifying Rodney Milnes Financial Times 8 January 2002 He conducts the opera with a taut sense of drama and some powerfully driven climaxes. Richard Fairman Sunday Telegraph 22 July 2001 Our British wunderkind Daniel Harding gave a wrenchingly dramatic account of the fabulous score.