PRESS
‘…At just over an hour’s duration, Two Souls is a sizeable statement, yet such is its fluency and integrity that the overall impression is one of distillation and economy of gesture. […] the colours and textures seemed to evolve naturally out of the unusual performing forces required […] the music conjured up a valid and highly individual sound-world, which unfolded with a powerful sense of inevitability. Not quite a full-blown oratorio, nor yet a bona fide cantata, Two Souls stands apart, sui genesis, as a dramatic and directly communicative religious work of substance and resonance.’
Paul Conway, Musical Opinion Quarterly (review of Two Souls – read full review here)
‘…a fascinating exposé (for four harps, organ, pair of narrators and chamber choir) of the lives of two fourth-century figures […] it is hugely unusual and intriguing, mapping out its highly affecting, intermingled duple story.’
Roderic Dunnett, Church Times (review of Two Souls)
‘…Violin Concerto is of course a time-honoured title. Short this example may be, but there is an epic feel to born-1987 Robert Peate’s writing, which is incident-packed, capricious and emotional, with essentials, including a cadenza, compacted, the music becoming serene and finally vanishing. Vesselin Gellev was the splendid soloist…’
Colin Anderson, Classical Source (Review of Violin Concerto)
‘Robert Peate’s haunting three-movement Knucklas Arches was […] veiled, expansive and imposing […] introspective and songlike. Peate’s delicate and painterly paragraphs were sensitively realised in this cogent and satisfying first performance.’
Paul Conway, Musical Opinion Quarterly
‘Robert Peate’s ear-tingling Images, work […] from a RAM student who’s already writing genuine music.’
Geoff Brown, The Times
‘Robert Peate impressed with his technical command and some weird but effective textures, as well as some genuinely lyrical music’
Christopher Gunning, Seen and Heard International (Review of Images – part 1)
‘Robert Peate’s Pearl was an elegiac piece about loss and mourning which embraces reflection and anger. It was moving and transient.’
Edward Clark, Feature Review: 2013 Presteigne Festival of Music and Arts
“Full of telling echoes and resonances […] The contrast between the still, numbed opening paragraphs and the ensuing ornate passages is highly effective and the work’s underlying theme, which is loss and grief, seeps through gaps and reverberations in the material.”
Paul Conway, Musical Opinion (Review of Pearl (II))