Yannay is an expressive composer with great sense of sound-images. He knows how to capture the spirit of all times, situations and places, and transform them into an integrated musical work that speaks in an authentic language. He mastered his métier completely. (On “The Hidden Melody”, “Le Campane Di Leopardi”)
A TRIBUNA Sao Paulo, Brazil
Special vocal and instrumental effects have became tiresome clichés with frightening quickness, but it seemed almost as though one were hearing them for the first time, so effectively were they composed by Yannay, and so relevant were they to his structural and expressive purpose. (On “Incantations” )
THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE
Nothing matched the originality, finesse and engaging spirit of Yannay’s “Symbols and Squares, Exits and Traps”. Altogether, it was provocative music that met a telling measurement of worth: It invited rehearing.
THE MILWAUKEE SENTINEL
Yehuda Yannay’s “Per Se” for violin and seven instruments was unusually effective. The work is a tour de force.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
The intention was of “Houdini’s Ninth” is to remind us how silly we sometimes become about people like Beethoven, and, in the process, to entertain us. Both aims were neatly achieved.
STEREO REVIEW
Yannay’s setting of W. C. Williams poems in the “ At the End of the Parade” is full of original mood-painting
THE VILLAGE VOICE
The instrumental parts (“At the End of the Parade”) each carry as much image making import as the poetic text; there’s nothing excessive to clutter or bolster the music. Little melodies creep in and out of the piece, giving it a haunting prettiness, and there is an openness and simplicity about the sonorities that make it subtly vivid.
THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL
Unquestionably, the most successful work was Yannay’s “Im Silberwald”. The tape provided a drone that also established the overriding tonality, while the trombone mused in mostly interesting patterns and motifs.
ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL
Provocative premiere (“Nine Branches of the Olive Tree)”
Yannay’s piece thrives on the delights of unusual orchestration, unusual instrumental effects and engaging rhythms…the audience seemed part of the piece, not because they were asked to do anything, but because it engaged them in a way that is as exciting as it is rare to see.
ISTHMUS, MADISON
Yannay focused on [Paul Celan poems’] rhythms…Yannay’s tense, driving lines, both instrumental and vocal, are percussive rather than melodic…Yannay puts the hammer to it, and sparks fly.(“Celan Ensembles”)
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL
“Le Campane di Leopardi” is a remarkable piece of music that through dissonant sonorities, a wavering but relentless drone (played on tuned water goblets) and the counting of the hours, captures the listener in a child’s experience of waiting for dawn.
PAUL PIONEER PRESS
Lyrical in character, the vocal lines were couched in atmospheric sonorities that captured the humor, wit and color of the poetry (“Five Songs for Tenor and Orchestra”).
THE PLAIN DEALER, CLEVELAND
On the whole, a sensitive and colorful composition (“Trio for clarinet, cello, piano”).
Yannay played sounds of spherical beauty and lifted the listeners’ imagination to other realms of consciousness. (“Im Silberwald”)
STUTTGARTER ZEITUNG
It is a classic of its kind and documents the 1960s “instrumental theater” (“Houdini’s Ninth”)
BERLINGSKE TIDEN, COPENHAGEN
It is an arresting adagio (“Hidden Melody”) through which the horn wails a long, winding prayer seemingly without beginning and end.
MILWAUKEE SENTINEL
Powerful, original and even visionary (“In Madness There Is Order”)
WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL
His approach to synthesizer music is full of imagination and atmosphere. (“Jidyll”)
STUTTGARTER ZEITUNG
The most powerful and expressive piece in the program (“In Madness There Is Order”)
HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT
…Attention-grabbing heart of the Hidden Melodies CD is “Im Silberwald” (in The Silver Forest) a remarkable 30 minutes piece which places assertive trombone voicings against an edgy, precarious drone, generated by electronics in combination with glass harmonica.
WIRE MAGAZINE, UK.
I much more enjoyed “Le Campane di Leopardi”. Carmen Tellez and her singers caught the emptiness of sleeplessness, the sense of time dragging and emotional worry
HERALD-TIMES, BLOOMINGTON, IN
Yannay’s easily followed play of short motifs and his homogenous orchestration (“Five Pieces for Three Players”) made it all convincing. Among its fetching moments was a duet for wind players that created some uncanny echoes in the rafters of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.
THE KANSAS CITY STAR
..the sensitive flute/cello dialogue (“Duo for Flute and Cello”)..was for the listener a discovery. The work of the Romanian-born Yehuda Yannay, an internationally renown, composer, conductor and media artist was especially impressive as he let the instruments talk to each other within a delicate distance.
NEUE RUHR ZEITUNG Essen, Germany
Yannay’s music is original, often very clever, and nearly all very accessible. Yannay’s six-song set “At the End of the Parade”, to poems by William Carlos Williams, is an exceptional group. Melodies are beautifully put down, and Yannay’s accompaniments are always appropriate to Williams’ moods. The third number of the set, ‘Sleep Song’, is a masterpiece of effectual and thoughtful writing. Yannay’s instrumental writing is also impressive. His rhythms are usually lively, and the melodies are often stirring. And both of these are accomplished without resorting to the clichés typical of modernity.
AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE
This album (“Music Now and From Almost Yesterday”) is a MUST for anyone who loves 20th century work and one that anyone can use to TEACH others about what can be created by the hand and mind of a master composer.
CD REVIEW BY ALTERNATE PRESS
Yehuda Yannay’s four songs of “Eros Reminisced” on sensual poems by Constantine Cavafy are among the most engagingly fresh songs of the recent years.
AMERCAN RECORD GUIDE