What people have said about the music of Daniel Burwasser:
ON ¡°CATCHING FIREFLIES¡±
¡° It is not often that one hears this kind of technical mastery, especially in the realms of orchestration and compositional structure, from one so young¡±
-- Dr. Philip Springer, composer
Los Angeles, California
"Really, really big music... ..briskly jubilant. A pawky menagerie of Baroque, minimalism, film music argot, and Mozart at his cutsiest -- really."
--New Music Box, Issue 54 - Vol. 5, No. 6, October 2003
"highly communicative...Though Catching Fireflies is generally an upbeat piece distinguished by some very resourceful percussion -writing, it is its quieterlyrical sections that stick in the mind leaving one with a pang of longing for a time and a world that, for most of us, exists only in memory."
--Fanfare, September/October 2004
"In the work's episodes, it is not difficult to picture children alternately scampering and pausing to recuperate."
--American Record Guide, September/October 2004
ON ¡°SONATA FOR PIANO¡±
¡°The Best Language for Dialogue¡±
... Professor Anahit Nersisian presented Daniel Burwasser¡¯s Piano Sonata. Serving as the foundation of this one-movement work was a leitmotif consisting of four notes which, at one point, I found similar to the doleful call of the sea in Wagner¡¯s Tristan. It is a ¡°fixed emotion¡±, which continually demanded a resolution. I could only take a slight breath at the intermittent clearings in the sonata¡¯s sonorously superdense jungles.¡±
...Daniel the Musician. Haik, October 25, 1997
(Translated from the Armenian by Aris Sevag)
ON ¡°REFLECTIONS¡±
¡°Little Fanfares for the Common Man and Woman¡±
...composer Daniel Burwasser forms quite an acceptable union with the words in his Reflections, perhaps Ms. (Ilsa) Gilbert¡¯s most searching and insightful poem of the evening sung with taste and assurance by mezzo soprano Oreen Zeitlin...
--The Music Connoisseur,Vol.2, No.1 Winter-Spring, 1994
¡°I Hear America Singing¡± (On The Occasion of American Independence Day)
... (a) series of extraordinary songs. The music is sunshine brilliant, its rays are reflected in the crystalline notes of the piano (like Debussy¡¯s songs).
-- Haik (translated)July 11, 1996
ON ¡°TORRENTS¡±
¡° ...Mr. Burwasser seems to stake out his territory with facility and clear purpose... All (the songs) are emotionally charged and, thank heavens, refreshingly lyrical. We immediately enjoyed the evocative undulations and the asymmetrical form of the last song best, but the other two also captured ideas expressed in the poems beautifully, such as the unbridled tempo in the first and the descending (falling leaf) scales of number two¡±.
--Barry L. Cohen, The New Music Connoisseur, Summer 1998, Vol.6, No.2
ON ¡°A WELL TRAVELED ROAD¡±
¡°Mr. Burwasser takes asimple three note motive through a series of contractions, expansions, inversions and rhythmic variations,and gets a lot of mileage out of it¡±. . .
--The Music Connoisseur
¡°(The piece¡¯s)lively, rhythmic nature suggests the neo-classicism of earlier generations of American composers. . .The work¡¯s colorful orchestration and largely tonal manner make it extremely accessible. .
--.Fanfare.
¡°Sassy and boisterous,full of brassy fanfares...¡±
--American Record Guide
¡°...well crafted... colorful... virtuoso writing for winds and percussion¡±
--Sonneck Society for American Music Bulletin, Volume XXIII, no.2 (Summer 1997)
¡°It is an excellent piece! I was particularly struck by the assurance of the orchestration.Bravo..¡±
--David Del Tredici, composer
ON "ONE NIGHT TOGETHER"
" ...contemporary and sophisticated. ...(Burwasser uses) an angular accompaniment to create a dark mood, and something using something closer to sprechgesang than singing, especially ina passage that resembled Vere's monologue in Billy Budd."
--New Music Connoisseur, Fall 2004
