AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE (January/February 2021)
“Ingrid Stölzel’s Leonardo Saw the Spring is melodic and crystalline, with lines
in the flute that soar and grow and breathe. This four-movement work is
down-right beautiful.”
SAN FRANCISCO CLASSICAL VOICE (November 20, 2018)
“The concert ended with Stölzel’s settings of five poems by Emily Dickinson for ensemble and soprano, The Gorgeous Nothings. They were anything but nothings. Her treatment of Dickinson’s fragmentary poems made the point clearly, displaying a fusion of well-constructed support structures and a gift for melody.”
CLASSICAL REVIEW – ALLMUSIC.COM (Summer 2018)
““The songs here are extremely sensitively set. Stölzel’s style fits gloriously with the poetry of Walt Whitman (sample anywhere in Soul Journey-Three Whitman Songs), as she devises concise and original ways of depicting Whitman’s almost ecstatic tone.”
I CARE IF YOU LISTEN (October 2, 2018)
“Ingrid Stölzel has a gift for evoking a sense of longing. One listen to any of the pieces on her new album The Gorgeous Nothings, released on Navona Records, makes this instantly evident. Despite the album’s breadth of music, which includes two song cycles and three standalone pieces, it finds its cohesiveness through its consistent exploration of our humanness: our search for meaning, our mortality, and the inevitable struggles that come with our existence.”
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FLORILÈGE #9, Paris, France (August 28, 2020)
“Ingrid Stölzel, elle, reprend l’une des méthodes de compositions principales de Isang Yun (“Hauptton”, l’idée d’une note centrale autour de laquelle on développe la pièce). Elle va plus loin, évoquant dans sa pièce Unus Mundus (qui donne son titre à l’album) l’idée de contradictions apparemment irréconciliables qui créent en fait un seul monde sonore. Quoi qu’il en soit, et notamment grâce à l’utilisation au début et à la fin de l’oeuvre de la voix de la pianiste sur des “hum” sonores et mystérieux, la pièce ouvre l’album avec une grande poésie. L’écriture n’est pas très dense, mais la forte présence de la pédale crée une atmosphère à la fois simple et pleine de résonance, où les motifs dans l’aigu se répètent tandis que les accords mélancoliques se créent note à note.”
I CARE IF YOU LISTEN (February 4, 2020)
“The middle of the album takes another stylistic turn with Ingrid Stölzel’s poetic ‘The Voice of the Rain’. This gorgeous trio for flute, cello, and mallet percussion was inspired by Whitman’s poem of the same title and has a great overall musical arc.”