“The most breathlessly exuberant work performed at [the festival], […] a cavalcade of rhythmic counterpoint and metric gear-changing. […] The work’s balance between raucous entertainment and focused musical integrity was absolutely perfect, making for a simultaneously fun yet engrossing experience.” ...more
“Inventively showing that it is possible to make something both playful and listenable from modern playing techniques.” ...more
“His solo series Dialogues […] resembles an upgrade of Luciano Berio’s solo series Sequenze (1958-2002) in terms of playing technique. […] Distinctive New Music, […] Beste […] proceeds like a composer-performer”. ...more
“A virtuoso woods and meadows polyphony.” ...more
“All […] was modulated with noisy rattling and clanking in such a way that one believed, in places, hearing a Balinese gamelan orchestra.” ...more
“Tremendous opportunities for playing techniques, sounds, colours! […] Presented […] the broad spectrum […] of three differently prepared trumpets.” ...more
“Ansgar Beste is a man of conviction, he composes like this, because he cannot do otherwise. […] He takes his position friendly in tone, yet with enormous conviction.” ...more
“Form[s] a good example of […] being sensitive to the balance of powers at play when we trespass in the territory of any minority peoples.” ...more
“Ansgar Beste’s In the steppes of Sámpi imagined a forest of joiks and animal noises building into a culminating hymn born, Sibelius-style, of its collective parts.” ...more
“Well-written compositions […] with many interesting ideas, […] own little world. […] It is a good feeling to return to the starting point of my project with Musica Vitae. Back to the roots and to my first inspiration […].” ...more
“Ansgar Beste’s grotesque ‘Incontro Concertante’ (2010-12) […] – a wild sound brewage.” ...more
“Rare, new, unusual – […] an imaginary mask scene: […] extraordinary […].” ...more
“Transformed animal joiks […] Ansgar Beste […] created virtually a train ride through a barren landscape. […] An interesting, but at the same time challenging work […].” ...more
“By simple means […], Beste achieves amazing effects […]. The usually rigid organ pipe sound gains agility, merges into noisiness or is reduced to its overtones. All with smooth transitions – and […] also something for the eyes of the audience.” ...more
“Received with much applause. […] The sounds […] were catchy and rhythmic.” ...more
“Soundwise […], sticks under the strings and combs as bows are recalling swarms of insects. Rhythmically, the piece is quite tricky. Hats off for the random ensemble!” ...more
“Simply finding new sounds” ...more
“An extreme, radical will in the use of ‘prepared’ voices […]. Inspired by the ‘joik’ chants […] of the Sami, […] obtaining a dense, shrill, urging polyphony which evoked […] repetitive shamanic rituals, and […] the atmosphere of these barren, inhospitable, windswept regions.” ...more
“In his [work] In the Steppes of Sápmi (2014), Beste is neither imitating nor deconstructing the ritual chants. […] Beste is shaping it to an interplay of compressions and accelerations. That’s interesting to listen to […].” ...more
“Sounds as fresh as a daisy [,] […] joy of discovery […], desire for experiments, enthusiasm for quirky sounds and for curious treatments of the […] instrument […]. Not as an end in itself, but as a creative, imaginative act, in order to sharpen the sense of hearing […].” ...more
“Ansgar Beste is interested in sounds – in new, unusual, well, unheard-of and outrageous sounds. He […] appreciates the profession as a composer: ‘There I am very free.'” ...more
“Delightful, […] Ansgar Beste developed six melodic formulas from the Scandinavian people of Sami […] repeatedly and variedly to a dialogue and finally to polyphony in a long-term acceleration.” ...more
“Things were cheerful and original in Ansgar Beste’s ‘In the steppes of Sápmi’. […] A curious mixture of vocal timbres, which Ansgar Beste has artfully arranged into, against and through each other. Highlight: the polyphonic finale with its microtonal upward shifts, having an incredibly euphoric effect.” ...more
“‘In the steppes of Sápmi’ […] gives rise to a chirpy medley full of the joys of life – somewhere between ancient folk cult and weird modernism.” ...more
“‘In the steppes of Sápmi’ […] sounds like a mix of mosquito swarm, duck call and elk roaring, which is quite entertaining.” ...more
“In Ansgar Beste’s ‘In the steppes of Sápmi‘, the protagonists […] imitate the eternal repetitions of Sami folk songs. That the singers entrust these repetitions to a sort of particle accelerator in the end, makes the piece interesting.” ...more
“Some of the most persuasive performances of the entire festival. […] I was really smitten with Rituel Bizarre for prepared string orchestra (2010), a visceral exploration of timbre […].” ...more
“The website […] www.ansgarbeste.com is exceptional.” ...more
“Ansgar Beste showed that it is possible to create new organ music without electronics […]. The Acusticum Organ has never sounded like this before, […] he’s not afraid of just this organ or its context rich in tradition.” ...more
“Beste has gained a reputation as the Wallraff of New Music, […] stepping inside the innermost mechanics and functions of the pipe organ.” ...more
“Confused looks from the audience and shining eyes […]. The commissioned work […] resembled a musical dialogue with itself: not melodious, but multiphonic, filigree and effective.” ...more
“Sandrose focused […] on the percussive qualities of each instrument, creating an extremely complex polyrhythmic texture. […] This layering of sounds is an interesting idea, I found […] my enthusiasm for the piece.” ...more
“Incontro Concertante […] was visually so impressive […] a […] fruitful tension between the expectations it created and the actual sounds.” ...more
“Carrying away the audience […] joyfulness […] laughs […]. Magnificent!” ...more
“Other composers are pushing the acceptable technical boundaries harder. […] Ansgar Beste […] has developed an entire language based around the ‘prepared’ string instrument. He follows earlier quartets […]. However, Beste takes this practice to new levels […].” ...more
“The one who sits opposite you in his studio in a casual and almost roguish manner, must be an immensely hard, almost obsessive worker, gifted with some stubbornness, too.” ...more
“Impressively skilled craftsmanship […] entertaining and easy-to-listen-to […] orchestration amazingly well-made […]. Exciting […].” ...more
“Ansgar Beste […] demonstrated, that the young generation cares delightfully little about old-school permits and prohibitions. […] Beste’s Rituel Bizarre […] shows already an individual musical language. It sounds like a magic ceremonial deep down in a cave, from which only ghostly sound shadows reach our ear […].” ...more
“The sound picture of a distant techno party, celebrated by brownies, gone wild, somewhere in dark ventilation shafts.” ...more
“Ansgar Beste’s ‘Rituel Bizarre’ […] gets its charm from agitatedly proliferating noise material merging in an artfully branchy manner.” ...more
“Ansgar Beste […] turns with ‘Rituel Bizarre’ […] the sound expectations connected with the idea of a string orchestra thoroughly upside down. […] This work by Beste is unique in its theatrical imagery.” ...more
“Jury member Hans-Peter Jahn was fascinated by […] ‘Rituel Bizarre’ […], also because the instruments are not for a moment applied as usual.” ...more
“Beste’s Rituel Bizarre […] was such a consistently developed study of unconventional sound production that one couldn’t help being impressed. Beste is a clearly independent voice.” ...more
“Rituel Bizarre […] brilliantly exploring the textural possibilities of the string instruments with a very organic result; occasionally, one believed to hear wind instruments there, or even electronic sounds.” ...more
“‘Rituel Bizarre’ […] is amazing: everything is built on pizzicati and silenced/stopped strings, deaf yet absolutely expressive sound […] a magma of twelve uninterrupted minutes (!) of intense listening.” ...more
“Beautiful music.” ...more
“The result amounted to a certain timbral roughness.” ...more
“At times, the orchestra sounded like a mechanical machine. A really thrilling piece.” ...more
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