SLATE Magazine

“…the most exciting and appropriate Beethoven Appassionata”

(Jan Swafford, author of The Vintage Guide to Classical Music)

EARLY MUSIC AMERICA Fall 2011

“eloquent...the sound was pure magic”
“Porter’s playing of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat, one of Schubert’s last compositions, written while he was suffering the final stages of syphilis, was also a revelation. Infused with world-weariness and angst, the performance was disturbingly beautiful.”

BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER

“…a truly fine program superbly played with an amazing sound”
“the performance was simply stunning”

BERKSHIRE REVIEW -- 2011 Boston Early Music Festival

“Thursday morning a concert-symposium on Schubert and the piano culminated in an extraordinary recital by Stephen Porter... the great B Flat Sonata, in a many-sided interpretation which explored both the song-like aspects of the work, as well as its harmonic and structural elements...the slow movement, broad, grave, and not without its despairing moments, was especially moving... his sense of timing in the coda was perfect, bringing the monumental sonata to a close appropriate to its scale, nobility, and emotional depth...a compelling and moving performance.”

BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER

“…the challenges of Liszt’s monumental Sonata in B minor were easily met by Porter with confidence and without any gratuitous demonstrative gestures”

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

“…he delivered superbly, particularly in the Schubert B-flat Sonata, D. 960….the Schubert brought the house to its feet”

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

“...the Bach-Busoni Chaconne was invigorating, and the perfect sendoff to intermission”

BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER

“…there are many fine musicians like him tucked away in corners all across the nation, who do not have the instant international name recognition of, say, an Emmanuel Ax, a Vladimir Horowitz, or, in his day, a Franz Liszt, because they choose not to be constantly on the move playing the same program in a different city every few days for a year”