One of the best soloists we've had in a long time, Martina Filjak, produced an airy, delicate reading of Béla Bartók's Third Piano Concerto with a truly virtuosic finale. The Third concerto is much happier than the others, even though Bartók was in his last days and did not live to complete its final measures. It was a heavenly performance...
'Then came the – in the best sense of the word – intoxicating part of the evening. The enchanting pianist Martina Filjak, by now sought after world wide, fascinated the audience with her manner and her incredibly high potential of expression and dynamic variability in the musical interpretation of the Chopin's F minor concerto...The dramatic passion in the piano part where the soloist has to emerge over the tremolo of the orchestra could not have unfolded more beautifully or more expressively. ...flowed into the unending applause of the public.'
'...one could hardly overcome one's astonishment at the fullness of sound, the brilliant chords, the polyphonic melody... Balakirev's "Islamej" in its demands as well as in its execution by Martina Filjak was in any case spectacular and technically breathtaking...'
'Those performances revealed a musician of unusual sophistication, discipline and personality with a keen grasp of disparate styles.....lyricism and passion that she conveyed with the confident sensitivity of a true winner.'
'Her talent lay in her flowing phrases, well-balanced and intelligent playing towards high points ... She showed sensible shading and let the music flow naturally. An impressive debut!'
(On Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No 2) 'Filjak lept like a tigress devouring its bolder passages with rollicking vehemence. Yet, its delicate fugal material she dispatched with the graceful airiness of a kitten'
'Martina Filjak...exudes artistic finesse, discipline and power ...An adventurous musician with edxceptional command of keyboard possibilities ...She probed the impressionistic swirls in three movements from Luciano Berio's Six encores for Piano with scrupulous attention to atmosphere and detail'
(On Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier Sonata') Filjak gave the work a gregarious performance in which technical and expressive facets were melded into a voluminous picture. Her playing was noble and robust, full of observant details and unafraid to acknowledge the extremities of Beethoven's achievement.
What the audience heard in Nikolai Hall was thorough virtuousity, musical fireworks, which were not confined to the third movement 'Allegro con fuoco'. Standing ovations.
For all that the piano part shines forth all the more and offers Martina Filjak a great opportunity to show her stupendous talent and ability. By turns gentle and hard in her attack, thoroughly adept with legato and staccato, brilliant in her ornamentations, full of temperament in the cadenzas, the young Croatian proves to be a keyboard lioness of first rank. The standing ovations are rewarded by Martina Filjak with the extremely demanding, magnificently played Nocturne op.9 No.2 for the left hand by Alexander Scriabin.
'Miss Filjak gave a stunning rendition of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata which was neatly articulated, sweet-toned yet with a solid grasp of the Beethovenian idiom, while also being free-spirited, original statement about the music'
Ms Filjak played the pieces which make up Bartok's bewitching 'Out of doors' (1926). Of these, the spectral 'The night's Music' was particularly moving, as if punctuated by the sudden apparition of anguished ghosts'
Martina Filjak played her concerto of Mozart KV 449 clearly with more sovereignity, she simply knew professionally what mattered. She showed her capability of producing a long and carrying sound with all the sensitivity of nuances needed. Additionally, she knew how to balance her play with the orchestras, so that each entry worked perfectly together ...She managed to play the second movement with an intense flow within the musical content...
...performing Grieg's Concerto in A-minor, Martina Filjak was a real discovery. She was educated in Zagreb and Vienna and is currently the only student of Stephen Kovacevich ...her playing unifies power, lots of nuances and clear articulation that fitted greatly to the romantic expression of Grieg...
The Ravel concerto played by Martina Filjak can only be compared to the performances of young Ivo Pogorelich – very special, extremely personal and as artist bursting with energy, charisma and self confidence.
The surprise of the evening was the appearance of Martina Filjak, a young lady that equally flew over the keyboard as she powerfully used it in an incredibly virtuous and strongly emotional performance of Schostakovitchs 1st piano concerto op.35.
...with outstanding virtuosity and dedication, with forcible rhythms, wild fireworks of technical brilliance and a fine sense for elegiac moments she gave an overwhelming impression...
The artists performance of Mozart's music has the qualities of a great sens of form, an easy and soft velvety tone ...a particulairly succesful Andante movement showed an inner piece glowing out of the masterly shaped musical frases ...an approach obvious in the interpretations of one of her teachers Stephen Bishop Kovacevich